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

It Doesn't Make Any Difference, But I Do It Anyway

Domaine Carneros, Los Carneros Appellation, Napa Valley, California, USA

January 14, 2017


"I don't believe in what I'm doing at all. I have absolutely no belief in what I'm doing. I already know how it's going to turn out. The way it turns out is fait accompli. I mean there's nothing I can do about the way it turns out. I know exactly how it's going to turn out. You know, it's going to turn out exactly like it turns out. It's been doing that for eons. So you say 'But then Werner: what's your motive? What are you working all those hours for?'. I'm not motivated. There isn't any motive. There's no damn vision  motivating me. You know, if I stopped doing it tomorrow, it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. And if I keep doing it right to the end, it won't make any difference. The only thing that's going to happen is what happens. But that doesn't fit into our structure. That doesn't fit into our categories."*
... 
responding to a hypothetical suggestion that he believes in what he's doing because he's motivated by a vision

"[In the] space of being allowed to be, I can create a future that gives me a current era that is full of life with the exact same circumstances. When I create a new future for myself, my circumstances don't change at all. They are still the same old circumstances, but they now exist in a new light."
... 
"When a bird sings, it doesn't do it for the advancement of music."
... Alan Watts
This essay, It Doesn't Make Any Difference, But I Do It Anyway, is the companion piece to Because I Do.

I am indebted to Josh Cohen who contributed material for this conversation.


In an earlier era when people asked why I write these Conversations For Transformation, my standard answer was the Zen-esque "Because I do", followed by a pregnant pause (mostly by design, and sometimes by accident).

That isn't Laurence being smart-alecky. No, it's really true. It's authentic. And the terseness of "Because I do" is actually prudent inasmuch as it keeps the conversation from devolving into the expedient ie it keeps the conversation from deviating away from the experiential. However what's also true is many people neither want nor are ready for a Zen answer outside of a Zen conversation, and when they asked why I write these Conversations For Transformation, there was no agreement we'd started a Zen conversation. So in this  conversation I'd like to expand on "Because I do", while cognizant of the risk inherent in trading the experiential for the expedient.

"Because I Do" Revisited



There's a future I'm living into, an inspiration which, when realized, results in this writing. I'm the writer, and  I'm the space in which this writing happens ie occurs, shows up. And I really want you to get we're both. If you dispute we're both, you may want to rethink your ideas about who and even what  you and I really are.

<aside>

Be careful: I'm not setting myself up here as some kind of psychic or medium. I'm not asserting these essays come through  me (ie "through" in the colloquial sense: the notion that I'm channeling  these Conversations For Transformation, is BS  - pure and simple). That would be waaay  too eclectic (by which I mean that would be way too "woo hoo")  for what's really happening here.

<un-aside>

That's why I do what I do. That's the because. That's the reason - that is, if you must have a reason at all. Listen: in Zen conversations, no reasons are required (more to the point, reasons obfuscate Zen)  and Conversations For Transformation are, in a very real sense, Zen conversations. It's entirely appropriate for persons interested in Conversations For Transformation, to be interested also in Zen (as Werner may have said).

<aside>

Watch:

Zen isn't peeling the potatoes while thinking about God. No, Zen is peeling the potatoes  (as Alan Watts may have said).

More rigorously, Zen is peeling the potatoes while peeling the potatoes  (as Werner Erhard may have said).

Like that, Zen is writing Conversations For Transformation while writing Conversations For Transformation. And why do I do it? Because I do.

<un-aside>

So the $100,000.00 jackpot question is: do Conversations For Transformation make any difference?  In my case, does writing these Conversations For Transformation make any difference? And I want you to be really, really clear about one thing: writing Conversations For Transformation doesn't make any difference at all.

Now I know that's not the answer we're thrown  to want to hear. We want to do things because it will make the world a "better" place. We want to improve things. We want to do the right  thing. We want to do things that will make a difference. So it's not that  answer. It's not the answer that fits into our structure, our categories. But that is the answer. The way things will turn out is exactly the way they'll turn out. Things have been turning out the way they've been turning out for millennia. Writing Conversations For Transformation will have no  impact on the way things turn out. None. Zilch. Rien. Nada. Not  writing Conversations For Transformation will have no impact on the way things turn out. So no, writing Conversations For Transformation doesn't make any difference at all - in which case (and now we're gearing up for the $1,000,000.00  "Slumdog Millionaire" final question, which is): why bother?  ie why write them at all?

In the expedient ie in the non-Zen  (if you will) answer(s) to this question, is great power - a miracle, actually.

Creating A New Future For Myself



Writing these Conversations For Transformation ie the act  of writing these Conversations For Transformation requires setting up a certain context  for my life, a context of purpose, creativity, relationship, and intentionality. More importantly, it's a context I set up regardless of the circumstances. And when the context in which I live and work has purpose, creativity, relationship, and intentionality regardless of the circumstances, it also just so happens to allow for being full, whole, and complete - and the circumstances (both those I don't want as well as  those I want) will be whatever they are, given things turn out exactly the way they turn out.

Consider this: when we live and work in a context of purpose, creativity, relationship, and intentionality which allows for being full, whole, and complete, that's a victory over the past, a victory over a past of being stuck without purpose, a past of being stuck without creativity, a past of being stuck without relationship, a past of being stuck without intentionality ... and  a past of being stuck without experiencing life being full, whole, and complete.

A victory over the past allows the past to stay in the past  and not spill forward  (so to speak) into the future. A future not filled with the past, is an empty future, an open future from which something can be created newly, rather than continuously filled with repeating patterns from the past. This is the answer (in regard to writing these Conversations For Transformation) to the question "Why bother?" ie "Why write them at all?": in writing them, I'm creating a new future for myself, and (here's Werner) "When I create a new future for myself, my circumstances don't change at all. They are still the same old circumstances, but they now exist in a new light.".

QED ie Quad Erat Demonstrandum  (Latin for "that which was to be demonstrated").

* Click here to listen Werner speaking this quote at archive.org (the internet archive).

Look for and select the 29:37 mark on side 2.

Technical support is unavailable for accessing this audio of Werner.

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