When a gift is truly awesome it may never be fully
recognized for what it is. That's not to say we willfully withhold
recognition. Rather it's a statement about truly awesome gifts for
which there may simply be very few of us who are awake to their
magnanimity.
Werner Erhard
Image by Wernher Krutein /
photovault.com
-
Franklin House,
San Francisco, California, USA - Friday afternoon June 16, 1978
If a gift isn't recognized it can't be acknowledged and may even be
taken for granted. When a gift is in the order of
extraordinary magnitude such as yours, it may also never
be fully appreciated for what it is, its sheer enormity too
vast to fully let in.
It's said (as you've said) your gift - transformation - is being in
Conversations For
Transformation.
It's also said (as you've said) when you're no longer in
Conversations For
Transformation
then you're no longer transformed. But this
internet
series of essays notwithstanding, authentic alive genuine
thrilling transformation is being in
face to faceConversations For
Transformation.
There has to be speaking and listening for it
to be the real deal. It's the
face to face
spoken and listened word which is transformation's genre, its
context,
its milieu. The written and read word,
and even the thought word, are simply close
approximations to the spoken and listened word and are therefore not
transformation. Even recorded expressions of
transformation like
videography
and
photography
may impart close approximations to transformation but they're not
transformation.
It's clear to me all this is what's on offer. I've been clear about
this since
the last weekend of August
1978.
It's not merely that I recognize your contributions to all of us, and
so I acknowledge you. It's more than that. For me, recognizing and
acknowledging your contributions to all of us goeswith (as
Alan Watts
may have said) a certain sense of
privilege.
I could have been anywhere. I could have been there ... or
there ... or even there ... but
instead I'm here in this place with you
close up, face to face,
larger than life, and twice as natural.
It's nothing less than a
privilege
to be in this space in your
presence,
observingyou working.
Yes I'm
exuberant
in my acknowledgement - I know that. You'd have to be asleep at the
wheel to not notice my
exuberance.
For me, withholding acknowledgement is an integrity issue. That is to
say for me, withholding acknowledgement is a violation of
integrity. If that's
too much
verbiage for one sentence, then let's cut to the chase and
say for me, withholding acknowledgement is just plain not telling
the truth.
Now the thing about this class of acknowledgement ie the thing about
this order of acknowledgement for which I'm responsible
and for which anyone who also recognizes your contribution and who also
acknowledges you this way must also be responsible, is it's fraught
with a trap ie with a pitfall. This is the trap, the pitfall:
acknowledging you can distract ie can take attention away
from the ongoing work of transformation in the world.
I acknowledge you for the ideas you share, for the space
you make available intimately for every human being. The
ideas you make available comprise the technology which transforms Life.
It's your ideas and your unswerving
passion
and
commitment
with which you deliver them which allow transformation to come forth -
predictably, count‑on‑ably, reliably, again and
again and again, time after time after time. Yet acknowledging you for
this gift can skew focus away from the ongoing work of transformation
in the world which develops the ideas you originate. It's the
ideas which are the
source
of enormous power, the ideas anyone can try on and test
drive so to speak, the ideas which comprise the rich body of
distinctions which leverage transformation. It's a
paradox
when acknowledging you, the
source
of the ideas of transformation, can skew focus away from the ideas of
transformation themselves and away from the ongoing work of
transformation itself.
Here's how I resolve this
paradox
for myself: I carry your ideas with me. I take responsibility for using
them to leverage transformation in my life. I acknowledge the ideas of
transformation
working
in my life. I acknowledge you as the
source
of the ideas of transformation
working
in my life. I take responsibility for sharing the ideas of
transformation with the world. I acknowledge you as the
source
of the ideas of transformation I share with the world. When I
acknowledge you this way ie when I tell the truth about the magnanimity
of your gift, the ideas of transformation stay in focus. They stand
alone, undiminished.
That's how I resolve this
paradox
for myself. Here's how I see you resolving it for everyone
else: you stay
slippery.
You disallow us laying significance and attachment on you.
I thank you for being
slippery!
I thank you for making yourself
slippery.
I thank you for knowing this trap, this pitfall better than anyone else
I know in this business. I thank you for being willing to stay
unattached even to your own brilliant creation so that we aren't caught
in the trap, in the pitfall of becoming attached to you. I
thank for being willing to get out of the way so it's the
ideas of transformation which stay in the spotlight and not you. I
thank you for being willing to get out of the way leaving us with who we really are rather than
with the spiritually naïve "You got it andwedon't so we need to be around you to get it
from you.".
It's even more than that actually and it's way more than me. It's also
the millions and millions and millions of us worldwide who've been
touched, moved, and inspired over the last four decades by your ideas
as you've shared them in all their various shapes, times, forms, and
iterations. In response, there's only one universally accepted form of
gratitude which is appropriate here since what you've given us like
an access -
who we really are
and the possibility of inventing
a future worth living
into
- was always ours to begin with anyway, and it's
Love.
So for me what it comes down to is it's more than I carry your
ideas with me. For me it's i carry your heart with me(i
carry it in my heart).
