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

Again And Again And Again And Again And Again And Again

ButterCream Bakery & Diner, Napa, California, USA

August 23, 2016


"Transformation is being in a conversation for transformation. When you are no longer in a conversation for transformation, you are no longer transformed." ...

This essay, Again And Again And Again And Again And Again And Again, is the companion piece to Groundhog Weeks.

It is also the thirty first in the complete group of Experiences Of A Friend (click here for the open group Experiences Of A Friend II):

so far, in that order.

I can't say how many times I've asked myself the same question. They're too numerous to count. Just when I think I have the answer ie just when I think I understand (which, as we all know by now, is a deadly place to be), he'll do something else totally discontiguous which elicits the same question from me again, and I realize I don't have the answer after all, and I realize I don't understand after all. Eventually I conclude it's best to stay in the question ie it's best to keep asking the question. There's more to be gotten by staying in the question and letting hundreds and hundreds of answers come, than by settling for only one paltry answer.

This question I keep asking myself is "How does he do that?". How does he stay so consistent? How does he stay so on purpose? How does he so constantly, so getably, so reliably, so ongoingly generate transformation? How does he keep on coming up with what for all intents and purposes is the truth even while he's totally relentless and ruthless in his admonitions to not believe it? How does he always seem to live out-here 24 / 7 / 365 (for the nearly forty years I've known him, and longer in all likelihood) when everyone knows you can only do that for short periods of time in bursts, after which you have to take a nap? How does he do that?

I'm not going to venture to say I'm any closer to finally figuring it out. I still don't really know. But I have, after all this time, been observing something which until now, I've assumed is the result of how he does what he does. And now I'm willing to entertain a new possibility for it: what if what I've been observing as the result of how he does what he does ie what if what I've been observing as the symptom of how he does what he does, is simply what he does? In other words, what if this (in answer to the question "How does he do that?") is how he does it? (I'd better explain what I mean, right?).

Try this on for size (and to get this, I suggest you don't focus on your perceived validity or lack of validity of what I'm saying - rather focus on your personal experience of him): if what he does works, he does it again. Then he does it again. Then he does it again. Then he does it again and again and again. And if it keeps working, he does it again and again and again and again and again and again. Over and over. That's what he does. And that's the answer to the question "How does he do that?": if it works, he does it again and again and again and again and again and again, over and over; and if it stops working, he drops it.

Now being transformed isn't like getting a brand (I don't mean it isn't like getting a trade brand ie a brand name: I mean it isn't like getting a cattle brand - burned into your hide with a branding iron). Being transformed isn't like getting a tattoo. If you regard transformation as something you get once and then never lose, think again: that ain't it. Being transformed is in your speaking. So you speak it. Then you speak it again. Then you speak it again and again. And then you speak it again and again and again and again and again and again. Over and over. For the rest of your life. That's how you stay transformed. And if you stop speaking transformation, you're no longer transformed. There are no secrets to any of this, there's no mystery, and there are no hidden meanings. A master (as Werner distinguishes) is someone who found out..

There's that well-known fable ie there's what I call that "myth of the saffron dye", and all its associated concepts and notions. Ever since the olden days, it's been held that there's a place to get to, a space to get to, a higher level which is supercharged with special abilities unknown to mere mortals. It's long been held that visiting this place ie being exposed to this space through techniques and practices and disciplines and therapies and meditations is like dipping a white cloth into a vat of saffron dye. When the cloth is removed, it's saffron colored. But the color fades when the cloth is exposed to the sunlight. So it's dipped again, and this time the color fixes deeper, fading less. Eventually through repetition, the saffron color is permanently fixed in the cloth, and no longer fades. Of course, in this charming analogy, the white cloth is you; dipping the cloth into the vat of saffron dye is techniques and practices and disciplines and therapies and meditations; the saffron color fading is the effect on you of the trials and tribulations of life itself; and the eventual and hopeful fixed saffron color is the so-called higher state of consciousness.

But the trouble with this analogy is there's nothing to get! Saffron color fixing is not required. This is it! You're already fixed. All there is to do is be in action. Again and again and again and again and again and again. Over and over. For the rest of your life.

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