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
Consider THIS!
Pelican Inn, Muir Beach, California, USA
February 12, 2009
For the sake of this new conversation, I'd like you to imagine I don't
know how to walk. You obviously know how to walk. Please explain to me
how you walk so I can learn from you how to walk. I'll do whatever you
tell me. How do you walk? How do you do it?
OK. You say "Put one foot in front of the other.".
I don't know how to put one foot in front of the other. You obviously
know how to put one foot in front of the other. Please explain to me
how you put one foot in front of the other so I can learn from you how
to put one foot in front of the other. I'll do whatever you tell me.
How do you put one foot in front of the other? How do you do it?
OK. You say "Lift your right leg at the hip and extend your lower right
leg forward at the knee.".
I don't know how to lift my right leg at the hip and extend my lower
right leg forward at the knee. You obviously know how to lift your
right leg at the hip and extend your lower right leg forward at the
knee. Please explain to me how you lift your right leg at the hip and
extend your lower right leg forward at the knee so I can learn from you
how to lift my right leg at the hip and extend my lower right leg
forward at the knee. I'll do whatever you tell me. How do you lift
your right leg at the hip and extend your lower right leg forward at
the knee? How do you do it?
* * *
If you've never experienced a conversation like this fully, you should.
Experiencing a conversation like this fully, proves most of the time
you don't have the slightest idea how you do what you do.
Yet you do it anyway. You walk. Yet you don't have the slightest idea
how you walk. You have beliefs and concepts about how you walk. But
none of them can teach me how to walk if I don't know how to walk.
We have cherished theories about our brains sending impulses to the
muscles of our legs, causing them to contract (or flex) etc, enabling
us to walk. That's our understanding of how we walk. But
you can't explain to me how to make my brain send impulses to the
muscles of my legs, causing them to contract or flex, enabling me to
walk. You can't even explain to me how you make your own
brain send impulses to the muscles of your legs, let alone explain to
me how to make my brain send impulses to the muscles of my legs.
The secondary implication of this conversation is
understanding isn't empowering. Neither is understanding
enabling. Understanding, as Werner Erhard says, is the
booby prize.
The primary implication of this conversation is what's empowering,
what's enabling is considering it so. How you walk is you
consider yourself walking. Look at your experience and you'll
see it's so. When you want to walk, you don't tell your brain to start
sending impulses to the muscles of your legs to cause them to contract
or flex, enabling you to walk. Admit it: that's a load of conceptual
codswallop. When you want to walk, you get up, you consider
yourself walking and away you go.
Ordinarily we think of consideration as an act of
compassion, as in "being considerate". On an empowerment scale
of one to ten, this particular form of consideration rates
about a two. In this new conversation, I'd like you rather to think of
consideration as the causal act. You walk by
consideration alone. Your entire universe moves
by consideration
alone.
On an empowerment scale of one to ten, this particular form
of consideration is a twelve.
If you can for just one moment stop conceptualizing the
causal process, if you can for just one moment let go of your
beliefs about the causal process, if you can for just one
moment stop making it difficult, you'll see you act (that is to
say you launch any action) simply
by consideration and by
consideration alone.
That's
what's so.
It's profound. It seems almost too simple - but only
because that which is heavily invested in conceptualizing, doesn't like
things to be simple.
It's more than merely the pristine pertinent simplicity of
considering, the causal act, which is profound. What's really
profound is considering, the causal act, shows up in exactly the
same domain as who you are.
Discovering considering as the causal act is tantamount to
discovering who and what you really are. And vice versa.