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
Every Morning, Every Evening
Andretti Winery, Oak Knoll Appellation,
Napa Valley,
California, USA
April 13, 2017
"The only thing you are going to do today is: what you do today.
Therefore, the only thing there is to do today is: what you do today.
That's all there was to do when you started no matter what you thought
or think."
What does
"being
satisfied is made
possible
by a
linguistic act"
mean?
It
means
it becomes
possible
as a result of you saying so ie it
means
it becomes
possible
as a result of you saying you're whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied - in other
words,
it's the result of you
speaking
it into
being.
Without the
power
of
speaking-into-being
as an option, we relegate
being
whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied to a
"someday"
of lengthy, protracted (not to mention complex, complicated, and
unreliable) outcomes of one or more of
prayer,
practice, and career
paths
to
projected
(ie hoped for) achievement,
success,
and accomplishment.
Now
listen:
there's
nothing wrong
with achievement,
success,
and accomplishment (or
prayer
or practice, for that matter). However the idea of pursuing them while
alreadybeing
whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied (rather than pursuing them in order to
become whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied) literally alters everything. In particular it alters
the way
we
live
life. To be specific, it interferes with ie it violates
our
ordinarily
limiting notions of what's
possible
for ourselves and for our lives. Life can then be
chosen
to be
lived
on a
platform
of already
being
whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied, rather than in feeble attempts to manipulate life in
order to hopefully
become whole,
full,
complete,
and satisfied ...
someday.
Considering
our limited
time
on
the planet,
and what's at stake, that's really a no-brainerchoice.
It's often heard in
conversations
among
creative
people (and I'm not only referring to
writers,
poets,
artists,
musicians
etc here, but also to anyone who lives their life
creatively
- which accounts for a great deal of us) that it's against the
backdrop
of
beingdis-satisfied, that we're
driven
ie we're inspired to do our best
work
and to become satisfied. I also often hear it claimed in such
conversations
that if we were always satisfied, we wouldn't aspire to anything - or
similar variants of this notion.
I
personallyeschew
that
way
of looking at things. I'm not denying it's a conclusion some people
reach - no, it's a conclusion many people reach. What I'm
suggesting is it isn't necessary - in other
words,
I'm saying
being
dissatisfied isn't a prerequisite for
being
satisfied. Neither is knowing dissatisfaction a prerequisite for
knowing satisfaction.
Being
one or the other or both can and will occur at various
times
throughout life. I assert there's really no
causalrelationship
between what we do, and how satisfied we are or not. What we do is what
we do. How satisfied we are, is how satisfied we say we
are (that's a lot
closer
to
the truth
than it sounds).
Werner's
work
makes
transformation
and an enormous
wealth
of distinctions and
possibilities
available, included in which is the
possibility
of
being
satisfied at the
get-go
ie at the outset ie before we do whatever we
do. This
way,
everything we do, we do already
being
satisfied (which is to say everything we do, we do coming
from already
being
satisfied). It's impact is far-reaching. It's a
possibility
I, for one, both pragmatically as well as prudently, am
committed
to keeping a wary
eye
on.
Every morning, I have the
power
to
choose
the day, and to be satisfied before it
begins.
Every day, the only thing I am going to do, is what I do - not one
item less, not one item more. Every evening, I
celebrate
the
gift
of having lived another day of life, and of good
work
well done.