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
Interpretation As Interpretation
The Tides, Bodega Bay, California, USA
July 14, 2008
This essay,
Interpretation As Interpretation,
is the companion piece to
Opinion As Opinion.
It's a parallel universe in which we live daily. Sometimes
we're aware we're living in it. Mostly we aren't. It's the universe in
which what we think about things and how we interpret them is the
way it is for us. In this parallel universe, it's not simply
that what we think about things and how we interpret them, is the way
it is for us. It's more than that. It's what we think about things and
how we interpret them, is the way it is for us ... AND ... we
don't have it that what we think about things and how we
interpret them isn't necessarily "the truth".
In other
words,
on those occasions when we're living in that parallel universe, we live
as if our interpretations are real and true. When
we're living in that parallel universe, we don't live as if our
interpretations are interpretations.
One way to correct this state of affairs (that is if, indeed, it
requires any correction at all) is to catch ourselves doing it, to
distinguish we're interpreting when we're interpreting. From
time to time, the
machinery
we are is thrown to interpret without distinguishing reality from
interpretation. That's simply the nature of the
machine.
It's not
powerful to make interpreting wrong, nor is it powerful to make
yourself wrong for interpreting. Being built in to the
automaticity of the
machinery,
interpreting is an essential component of being human.
Distinguishing reality from interpretation is to draw the line between
what's real and what's true. If a grizzly bear with a hungry look in
his eyes is chasing you through the woods, that's real. If you
imagine
or think about a grizzly bear with a hungry look in his
eyes chasing you through the woods, ask yourself is it
true a grizzly bear with a hungry look in his eyes is
chasing you through the woods? Yes it may be true for you in your
thoughts and in your
imagination
a grizzly bear with a hungry look in his eyes is chasing you through
the woods. But it's not real. In the same way, our
interpretations may be true for us, but they're not necessarily real.
Interpreting, then making interpretations significant, diminishes
power. Distinguishing interpretation as interpretation
then leaving it alone, is the source of great power.
Given the way we human beings process input, leaving interpretation
alone isn't easy for us. It's more than that actually. It's leaving
anything alone isn't easy for us. We're thrown to
fixing.
We're thrown to want to
fixeverything. We're thrown to want to
fix
our thinking. We're convinced
something's wrong.
We're addicted to getting better. To have it be that there's
nothing
wrong
requires incessantly giving up sticking our fingers in the
machinery.
But we won't give it up! We've been
fixing
ourselves for so long that now we believe there's gotta be some kind of
payoff: "With all this manure, there must be a pony in here
somewhere!". But there isn't. And there never was to begin
with. In spite of this, we can't leave our interpretations alone. It's
hard for us to just let 'em be. Even though it drives us crazy
(literally), we continuously live as if our interpretations are real.
But interpretations aren't real. They're just interpretations. It's not
that we interpret which has us at odds with reality from
time to time ie that we interpret at all. Neither is it
what we interpret ie the inference of our interpretations
which keeps us from simply allowing
what's so
to be.
Rather, it's that we distinguish neither interpreting nor
interpretation within the broader context of
what's so.
When I collapse my interpretation of reality with reality
and I don't distinguish I'm doing it, that's a
train
wreck right there just waiting to
happen.
Distinguishing interpretation as interpretation, away from the parallel
universe we live in from time to time, creates the possibility of being
powerfully grounded here and now.