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
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Essays - Twenty Two Years Later:

Rediscovering Werner

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

August 17, 2025


"If you're going to write a book then write a book. If you're not then don't."
... 
speaking with Laurence Platt in Encounters With A Friend #25 (If You're Not Then Don't)
This essay, Essays - Twenty Two Years Later: Rediscovering Werner, is the twenty second annual State Of The Union  celebration of Conversations For Transformation:
  1. Essays - One Year Later: Critical Mass
  2. Essays - Two Years Later: Glass Walled Studio
  3. Essays - Three Years Later: Internet Presence
  4. Essays - Four Years Later: Side By Side
  5. Essays - Five Years Later: Arm In Arm
  6. Essays - Six Years Later: A Very Good Year
  7. Essays - Seven Years Later: By My Self
  8. Essays - Eight Years Later: Riding The Open Range
  9. Essays - Nine Years Later: Recreation
  10. Essays - Ten Years Later: Decade
  11. Essays - Eleven Years Later: Unimaginable
  12. Essays - Twelve Years Later: A New Beginning
  13. Essays - Thirteen Years Later: A Certain Space
  14. Essays - Fourteen Years Later: Lenses Of Creativity
  15. Essays - Fifteen Years Later: Essence
  16. Essays - Sixteen Years Later: It's All In The Mouth
  17. Essays - Seventeen Years Later
  18. Essays - Eighteen Years Later: The Heart Of The Matter
  19. Essays - Nineteen Years Later: On Being Used By Something Bigger Than Myself
  20. Essays - Twenty Years Later: Connected With Werner
  21. Essays - Twenty One Years Later: Being In Werner's Conversations
  22. Essays - Twenty Two Years Later: Rediscovering Werner
in that order.


http://www.laurenceplatt.com/wernererhard Conversations For Transformation Essays By Laurence Platt Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard And More Click to expand
Essays
There are many advantages to writing a book as hardcopy instead of as files posted to the internet. Firstly, hardcopy books have heft (which looks a lot nicer on coffee tables than internet files). Secondly, hardcopy versions make better gifts (they're physical objects which can be wrapped). There are also a number of advantages to writing a book in files posted to the internet, as these conversations for transformation are. Firstly, they're much easier to self-publish and are therefore not as expensive. And secondly, the biggest advantage to writing a book in files posted to the internet is that way they can be easily edited, or entirely rewritten, whereas hardcopy books are fixed and can only be updated by reprinting / redistributing them.

I chose the latter: posting my writings to the internet so they would be readily accessible worldwide, and updatable if necessary. And I had already considered that if I should write a book, I would want to give it away free at no charge to you. The internet format is better suited to this (I realized that, when something about transformation urged me to give it away at no charge). To do so, I had to get my finances in order so that I could be responsible for this (I eschewed getting into the business  of transformation). A good friend of mine is a Wall Street wunderkind  who manages a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He challenged my model of "visiting a Lamborghini dealer, expecting to be able to take one home free just because I liked it". That model (pun intended) didn't work for me. These essays are free. You may donate if you like. But they are free. I write them for You.

Twenty two years ago I created this website and began posting my essays to be read by a worldwide audience. They framed an essential assertion: that anything spoken by Werner is transformation. That didn't go down well with a lot of people. They rejected the idea that any one man could be transformation. They weren't ready for such a nebulous, selfless declaration. Yet the more time I spent around Werner, the more their truths became Self-evident: Werner is transformation; to be around him is to be around transformation; to speak with him is to get transformation. It's who he be's.

So posting links to his quotes, videos, photographs, and scholarly papers became the raison d'etre  for this website. The trouble was once you'd seen the linked material, you may not revisit this website - you know, you'd "been there, done that". That became the real rationale for adding my essays, starting with those which shared my personal experiences of him, my encounters with him, my questions for him, my visits with him. The addition of my essays attracted people with something new, giving many an opportunity to rediscover their relationship with him. But ultimately, what's so is the new essays were only an allurement. Experiencing (or rediscovering) your connection with Werner, is really the whole idea, the promise. It's the gift.

That's how my original intention for a website with coverage of Werner, morphed into a website showcasing my essays to keep Werner present. And that's how it's been for the last twenty two years (you'll talk about him forever). And just when I think I've come to the end and have exhausted all possible material, a whole new domain opens itself to me, demanding I transcribe it. These essays draw an ever-expanding audience to this website from countries everywhere. At last count, this website has been visited nearly two million times. People visit to read new essays, and then discover (in many cases, rediscover) and be with Werner on its front and center stage. There's a good chance there's a degree of transformation for people to be gotten from my essays. But it's an almost certainty there's transformation for people to be gotten from their relationship with Werner. There's no longer any debate about this. It's no more in question. Now it's fait accompli. And as far as how Werner became empowered being this way, that's a long, riveting saga that's meticulously documented in his biography, which you can also download at no charge (it's my gift to you) by clicking here.

My idea then, is twofold: one, make Werner available, and two, make Werner available again and again and again. It's an easy trap to fall into once you've experienced transformation, to expect it will always be present, without you re-creating it again, indeed without you rediscovering it again. If you look back carefully at the onset of transformation in your life, you'll see you created it. And that's how it perpetuates: you create it, then you rediscover it again and again and again. The notion that it will perpetuate just out of the power and momentum of its original onset, is at worst to be unclear on the concept, and at best to be simply naïve. Transformation is always there to be rediscovered. Werner is always there to be rediscovered. That's one of the miracles of transformation: it can always be rediscovered even and especially when it seems to have vanished (which it will assuredly do when you forget you created it). Use these conversations for transformation to rediscover transformation. Visit the links in the banner headers on the homepage to rediscover Werner.

Thank you for Listening. When you listen these conversations for transformation, I experience it as a very personal gift.

Thank you for your relationship with Werner. Consider that it's the universe's gift to you that you're alive on the planet at the same time as he.

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