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

Attachment / Commitment:

A Fine Line

Stinson Beach, California, USA

September 26, 2010


This essay, Attachment / Commitment: A Fine Line, is the companion piece to Attachment: When Your Creation Runs You.

It is the second in a group of three on Attachment: It was conceived at the same time as Language: The Scalpel Of Experience.


I say I'm honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity. It's more than that, actually. It's I say I'm committed  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity.

There's a fine line between attachment  and commitment. Am I attached  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity? Or am I really committed  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity?

<aside>

Where you stand, it's possible you're neither attached to honoring your word as who you really are as a matter of integrity, and nor are you committed to honoring your word as who you really are as a matter of integrity. Honoring your word as who you really are may not occur at all for you. And if it does occur for you, honoring your word as who you really are may not occur as a matter of integrity for you.

But that's a subject for another conversation on another occasion.

For the record, it's a foundation in every one of these Conversations For Transformation that honoring your word as who you really are isn't just a  matter of integrity: it's the  matter of integrity.

<un-aside>

Furthermore, are there differences between being attached  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity, and being committed  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity?

Let's consider ways in which they're similar. Then let's consider ways in which they're different.


Similar:



Different:



You could also say attachment is of the past  whereas commitment is of the future. You could also say attachment, being born of the machine, perpetuates of it's own volition whereas commitment goes away  if not continually regenerated. You could also say attachment, being born of the machine, implies when you're attached, you  are not attached: "it"  is attached; whereas when you're committed, you  are committed. So in reality if you speak about being attached  to honoring your word as who you really are as a matter of integrity, you're unclear on the concept. You can't be attached  to integrity. You don't believe  in integrity. You don't vote  on it. You're not worse  when you're out of integrity and better  when you're in integrity. You can't use integrity to survive. There's no power in being attached to integrity as honoring your word as who you really are. It doesn't make you a better person.

I'm committed to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity like a possibility. I'm committed to inquiring into what it takes to honor my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity. That's powerful. If, on the other hand, I become attached  to honoring my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity, it devolves into the right  thing to do and a better  way to be. It becomes a rote, scripted, automatic, fixed way of being.

If I honor my word as who I really am as a matter of integrity, then any rote, scripted, automatic, fixed way of being brings on a loss of power.


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