Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
Weather Or Not
Somewhere At 40,000 Feet Over The Pacific Ocean
November 30, 2011
The weather isn't bad. The weather isn't good either. And no, I'm not
suggesting we stop regarding
a rainy day
as "bad" weather, and a sunny day as "good" weather - an arbitrary
distinction (if ever there was one) which we make from time to time,
yes? Rather, what I'm suggesting is the weather isn't being
willfully bad ie unkind to us when it's
rainy,
and neither is it being willfully good ie kind to us when
it's sunny. The weather has no intentionality around being
malevolent or benevolent. The weather is just a process which
changes. It's not personal.
Sometimes it's
rainy.
Sometimes it's sunny. It's not willful. And if I tell the truth about
it, I'm just like the weather in this regard. Sometimes
I'm that way. Sometimes I'm this way. I'm a
process which changes. It's not personal. Yet I prefer
being this way over being that way. When I change to being that way, I
try to change myself from being that way back to being this way, the
way I prefer being. I know it's
futile
trying to change
a rainy day
back to a sunny day. I know the weather's just a process which changes.
I know it's not personal. Yet on countless occasions I find myself
trying to change from being that way back to being this way. And when I
fail to change from being that way back to being this way
(which I invariably do), I become impatient with being that way.
Wow! This is like getting impatient with
rainy weather,
yes?
When it's rainy it's
rainy.
It'll be sunny again when it's sunny again, whenever that is. My
impatience with
rainy weather
has no impact whatsoever on when
rainy weather
changes back to sunny weather. The weather is a process which changes.
And I'm just like the weather. I'm a process which changes. The process
isn't willful. Neither is it personal. It changes when it changes,
whenever that is. It goes on forever. And it can't be stopped.
When the weather's hot and dry, when it's a drought and water is in
critically short supply, when acres and acres of farmland are reduced
to dustbowls, the weather isn't being evil. The weather's just
being the weather. And when
it rains again,
when it's a deluge and wild flower seeds buried in the dirt sprout in a
plethora of colors instantly beautifying the parched landscape, the
weather isn't being
godly.
The weather didn't just do an about face. It didn't have a
change of heart and decide to give the land a
break. The weather's just being the weather. The weather's just
being
a rainy day
again, before being a sunny day again, before being
a rainy day
again, before being a sunny day again ...
You and I are like
a rainy day
- which is to say we're like
a rainy daywhen we're like
a rainy day.
You and I are also like a sunny day - which is to say we're like a
sunny day when we're like a sunny day. When we change from being
a rainy day
to being a sunny day, it's not willful, and it's not personal. We're a
drought when we're a drought and we're a deluge when we're a deluge.
We're a process which changes, and it's not personal. It's
futile
trying to change from being that way back to being this way. It's
futileresisting
changing from being this way, the way we prefer being, back to being
that way again. You and I, in spite of our attempts to be any
different than it, are just like the weather.
But there is one essential difference between you and I
and the weather, and it's this: unlike the weather, you and I can
speak.