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

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You Haven't Run Out Of Life, You've Run Out Of Possibilities

Napa Valley, California, USA

New Year's Day, January 1, 2025

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of Life; for there is in London all that Life can afford." ... Dr Samuel Johnson

This essay, You Haven't Run Out Of Life, You've Run Out Of Possibilities, is the companion piece to

It is also the twenty sixth in an open group on Possibility:

It is also the eleventh in an undectet* written on New Year's Day:

Orion
Clean, Well Lit Quarters
External Tank
The Magical Breakfast Burrito Assembly Line II
As Your Natural Self-Expression
Werner's Work In Academia
About Assisting: On Leaving My Baggage At The Door
Another New (Symbolic) Beginning
So What Revisited: The Implement
Empty And Meaningless, And Meaning-Making Machines
You Haven't Run Out Of Life, You've Run Out Of Possibilities

in that order.

It is also the sequel to Differentiating Between The Circumstances And The Possibilities.

I am indebted to Larry Pearson who inspired this conversation.

That man is, hands down, one of my all-time favorite people. And it's not just because his single diamond ear-stud doesn't diminish his macho one iota. It's that he's one of my all-time favorite coaches. But even that doesn't tell the full story: in the world of coaching (which is to say in the world of speaking and listening new possibilities into transformed reality) he's a powerhouse, a phenomenon, an international worldwide treasure, a legend known in some circles as "the Home Run King", given his stellar, immaculate, and impeccable enrollment statistics. He asked me what I was up to, how things were going for me.

Things were going well, I told him. As a matter of fact, I was in one of those rare places when my entire to do list was clear, I said. And the thing about my to do list is it's almost never completely clear: as soon as I clear it (or at least clear most of it), it fills up again. But that time, it was all clear. I had nothing left to do. With everything done, I felt as if I'd run out of life - in a good way. It was neither an unpleasant sensation nor a pleasant sensation. There was just nothing left to do. I thought he was going to address there being "nothing left to do". But he didn't. Instead he said "You haven't run out of life: you've run out of possibilities.". He said it like ... a ... challenge, his big face twinkling into a smile. "You have to invent some new possibilities for yourself" he said.

How very interesting, I mused. He had bypassed coming up with new things to do when there's nothing left to do, and zeroed in instead on inventing new possibilities when there's nothing left to do (but oh, that magic feeling: nothing left to do ...). Maybe that's why he's a legend, and why I'm willing to let it all down in front of him. A new possibility isn't something new to do, neither is it a hobby and nor is it busywork. Now watch: "A new possibility for myself, is the possibility of making more money so I can give it away" actually isn't the kind of possibility we mean when we refer to inventing a possibility. On the other hand, "A new possibility for myself, is the possibility of being generous" is the kind of possibility we mean when inventing a new possibility. Inventing possibility is always a being - it's never a doing. It shows up in the realm of who we are, not in the realm of what we do nor in the realm of what we have.

I don't get away with anything around him, and the thing is I don't want to. I certainly don't get away with playing small around him. And I don't get away with changing, tweaking, taking away from, or adding to my life around him. Indeed, without a transformation in the possibility of being human ie without a transformation in what it really is to be a human being, anything else I might define, label, conceive, or consider to be a new possibility or a new way of thinking, a new discipline, a new paradigm, or a new religion, is more of the same old same old. I urge you to discover this for yourself: transformation isn't merely building something new on top of what you've already got. It's recontextualizing (I love that word) the space in which you're doing all the building.

In a very real sense, grokking (as Robert Heinlein may have said) the automaticity of life, is an access to being transformed. Grasping the total extent to which life is on full automatic, reveals an entirely new vista to key off, a new yardstick for evaluating / ranking what's worthwhile doing and what will make a difference, rather than simply waste time and resources. It's then that inventing new possibilities for being (rather than just devising more strategies for winning) becomes a powerful mantra for fully living the lives we human beings are so magically endowed with. He's committed to our commitment to that.

What is an "undectet"? An undectet is any group with eleven members - in this case, a group of eleven essays.

The word "undectet" looks like it's the mis-spelled word "undetect" - as when something isn't discerned, we say it's "undetect"-ed.

But no, that's not it.

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