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

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Boyne City, October 2023:

My Being, My Actions

Boyne City, Michigan, USA

October 6, 2023



"Just like the front and the back of the hand, being and action are distinct yet inseparable."
... 
This essay, Boyne City, October 2023: My Being, My Actions, is the first in a trilogy written in Boyne City, October 2023:

"Just like the front and the back of the hand, being
and action are distinct yet inseparable." ... Werner

Image by Wernher Krutein / photovault.com

Valley Of The Moon, Sonoma County, California, USA

Thursday midday October 12, 1978

Click to expand
Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard's "Just like the front and the back of the hand, being and action are distinct yet inseparable" which is the source quote for this essay, singularly alters my experience of who I really am - which is to say trying it on for size to see if I can discover it for myself, singularly alters my experience of who I really am. For sure, while a great deal of what Werner has distinguished over the decades alters my experience of who I really am, this quote is one of those that bears special mention, scrutiny, and attention.

Until I listened Werner distinguishing this (that is, until I even considered it like a possibility), what I'd got is that who (or what) I really am is distinct from what I do. I'd got that who I really am is distinct from my actions. I'd got that who I really am ie that my being occurs in a domain prior  to what I do, a domain prior to my actions ie that my being is required for my actions (my actions occur in the space of my being) but my actions aren't required for my being. When I got that my being and my actions are distinct, it wasn't that I'd got they're distinct from something I observed or figured out. It was I am  that they're distinct - like I am that the floor is down and the sky is up. What I didn't  yet get is that my being and my actions are inseparable  "just like the front and the back of the hand". That's a different order of things. It's my being's and my actions' connectedness. That's an order of unity which is greater than my actions just requiring my being.

Just like the front and the back of the hand go with  (as Alan Watts may have said) each other together as one, I'm considering / discovering / fleshing out that who I really am may be more than just my being (that's no longer the complete picture, it's not the full story). Considering myself to be just my being, turns out to be only half the picture - like the hand isn't just either its front or its back. It has to be / it occurs as / it shows up  as (and is) both. In the light of this, I'm seeing the very real possibility that who I really am may not just be my being ie it may not just be the space in which my actions occur. I'm now seeing who I really am as being-actions  ie as beingactions (one unit). Who I really am may be that-I-be-do ie thatIbedo. That  may be who I really am.

So: what does it all mean?  Actually it means nothing. Really. That is, it means nothing other than  whatever you want it to mean ie whatever you make it mean ie whatever you say it means. I don't apply  distinctions like my being and my actions are inseparable. I don't lever them in order to survive ie like a formula for improving my life. What they are for me are remarkably clear places to stand, from which to contemplate / consider the age-old question "Who / what am I really?". And as just one of many possible answers, "Who / what I am really like a possibility, is inseparable being / action" is so extraordinarily revealing. And the laser-like incisiveness of it with its unique brilliance and elegance, inspires me ie Werner inspires me. I could listen him speaking all day.

OK, so if I don't apply distinctions like these or lever them in order to survive ie like a formula for improving my life, then what good are they, aside from the sheer joy and inspiration of their brilliance? It's that they're the access to who I really am. And my life lived as who I really am, is an entirely different order of things than living my life not knowing who I really am, with all its inauthenticity, pomps, and false bravado. That's my old life. I don't want it back.



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