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
Blameless
Prince of Wales Theatre, West End,
London,
England
January 17, 2013
"Responsibility begins with the willingness to be
cause in the matter
of one's life. Ultimately, it is a
context
from which one chooses to live. Responsibility is not burden, fault,
praise, blame, credit, shame or guilt. In responsibility, there is no
evaluation of good or bad, right or wrong. There is simply
what's so,
and your
stand.
Being responsible starts with the willingness to deal with a situation
from the view of life that you are the generator of what you do, what
you have and what you are. That is not the truth. It is a place to
stand.
No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on
another. It is a grace you give yourself - an empowering
context
that leaves you with a say in the matter of life."
...
This essay,
Blameless,
is the fourth in a group of five written in
London,
January 2013:
Some time around now (it may have been closer to two decades ago or two
years ago or two weeks ago but nonetheless some time around
now) I experienced a
breakthrough
in what it is to be responsible for my experience. This
breakthrough
includes the realization that whatever my experience is,
I'm responsible for it, I'm the
source
of it, I make it up. Literally: whatever my experience is, I
create
it that way - unknowingly or knowingly, unwillingly or willingly.
<aside>
Now, if you're thinking "Hey, Laurence! That's pretty basic. It's
Transformation
101. Didn't you already get that a long time ago?", actually it
doesn't
work
that way.
Transformation
isn't a fixed way of being. You get it. You lose it.
You get it again. Said another way:
when you get it you get
it, when you don't get it you don't get it.
And as soon as you get you don't get it, you got it again.
So yes, it's a very real possibility to have a
breakthrough
in an area in which you already had a similar (or even the
same)breakthrough
before ... and ... have it be just as powerful (or
even more powerful) the second time - or the third
time or the fourth time or the fifth time ...
<un-aside>
At first I didn't like what I got - and
so what,
right? Seriously, what I didn't like is this: if I'm the
source
of my experience, if I make up my experience, if I
create
my own experience, then why can't I change it? -
especially when I'm not enjoying the way I'm being. It's a
paradox
- and it confused me.
Werner
Erhard
says
"The gates to the temple of truth are guarded by two dragons:
paradox
and confusion.". Cueing off
Werner's idea,
I sat with the
paradox
and the confusion I was experiencing, until what I noticed was I was
trying to solve them. I noticed my natural way ie my
human response to
paradox
and to confusion is to try to solve them. In a burst of clarity, I
simply stopped trying to solve them, and instead just let them be. In
the instant I let them be, I could experience them fully, and they lost
their grip on me, allowing my responsibility for my experience to come
forth in a whole new light.
There's an
intention
driving everything
Werner
distinguishes. If this seminal idea doesn't cause an impact, if
it doesn't have bearing, if it doesn't give leverage, if it doesn't
make a difference in everyday life, then it's honestly not
worth much. To listen
Werner's ideas
as merely intellectual theories, is to not listen them at all. They're
the very antithesis of conjecture. So here's where being responsible
for my own experience (and in particular, where being responsible for
my own experience without blame) comes to bear in my
everyday life:
With a certain chagrin, I find it ironic that when it's time to receive
something I've been waiting a long time for, it may no longer be
available. I'm referring here to waiting for
my children
to become emancipated adults so that as adults and living close by, we
can share together and exchange together and be
friends
together with nothing coming between us and with no one interfering in
our being together. But ironically now that this time has come, now
that they're grown up and are adults, what I've opened up for them is
such a spirit of adventure, courage, and
fearless
mobility that now they're traveling the world and are no longer close
by -
Alexandra
is in
London
attending
London
School of Economics, and
Christian
is on his way to
New Zealand
to attend Canterbury University in Christchurch.
And there's nothing and no one to blame, especially not the
circumstances and especially not
my children
and especially not me who taught them this virtue of
free
spirited
independence
and especially not anyone else, for this turn of events and for its
accompanying seeming loss of the closeness
("closeness" as in "physical proximity", that is) between
Alexandra
and
Christian
and I.
This was definitely not an instantaneous epiphany. The truth is
it took me a while to see there's nothing and no one to blame for this.
To be sure, before I saw it, I covertly blamed the circumstances and
other people for keeping us apart, until I saw there's no
responsibility in blaming anything or anyone for how our
lives turn out - theirs or mine ie especially mine since
my experience of the way my life turns out is inextricably
in‑a‑dance‑with my experience of how
my children's
lives turn out. Once I get (ie once I get again) there's
no power in blaming circumstances and people for how our lives turn
out, I get the way our lives turn out is just
what's so.
And listen (this is pivotal): I always have access to
being responsible for my experience of
what's sobecause it's my experience of
what's so.
<aside>
This
breakthrough
in rendering circumstances and people blameless for
how our lives turn out, is another
breakthrough
in the class of
breakthroughs
I can have over and over and over again, and have them
be just as powerful (or even more powerful) the second time - or
the third time or the fourth time or the fifth time ...
<un-aside>
When I stand here, when I stand in this space, when I stand in this
empowering
context
of holding circumstances and people blameless for how my life and
my children's
lives turn out, and instead be totally responsible for my experience of
what's so,
I'm not only empowered and emboldened: I'm also enabled to support
my children
completely and fully and wholeheartedly in whatever (and
where-ever in the world) their chosen directions in Life are,
without getting in their way - which is to say, without
letting my own agenda get in their way.
I keep a list of songs I'd like to play with
Alexandra
- which is to say I keep a list of songs I'd like to play backup
guitar for, while
Alexandra
sings. This way, when we're together I'm ready to jam.
There's a repeating refrain at the end of one of the songs on my
list, the Fleetwood Mac classic Rhiannon (Rhiannon is
a Welsh goddess) from their breakout 1975 Fleetwood
Mac album, which goes like this: "... dreams unwind,
love's a state of mind ... dreams unwind, love's a
state of mind ...". It's perfect for
Alexandra
to sing. Even when I'm alone and in total silence, I can hear
Alexandra
singing it, with me providing backup, staying out of the way of her
gorgeous
voice.
<aside>
Speaking frankly, love doesn't need to be as elusive and as
hopelessly romantic as merely a state of mind -
which is tantamount to little more than a fleeting mood (a
fleet-wood mood?). For me, love is no less than
and no more than
intentionally
granting another the space to be the way they are and the way
they aren't so they can change if they want to and they don't
have to (as
Werner Erhard
may have said).
But that's a subject for another conversation on another
occasion.
Here's the thing when it comes to
Self
expression and
transformed relationship
through the music
Alexandra
and I
create
together: it's a
celebration
of being together. This is
what's so.
This is how it turned out. This is the expression of our relationship.
No, it's not just the expression of our relationship: it's
the expression of relationship - period. We can be
together. We can make music together. So we do. And nothing and no one
is to blame for the times we weren't together or for the times we
aren't together. The not so instantaneous epiphany has taken root and
is now in full bloom.
This is the seminal,
freeing
idea from whence
Self
empowerment springs. Distinguishing it is what it is to be emboldened.
This is the grace I give myself and
my children,
this empowering
context
which leaves us with a say (and a joy) in the matter of being
responsible for our blameless experience of Life.