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My commitment when I finish an essay in this Conversations For Transformation internet series, is to read it again and again, looking for typos, spelling mistakes etc, as well as for redundancies, repetition, and style inconsistencies. Then I'll read it again. And again. And then I'll read it one more time. I'll reread it until I can read it through from beginning to end without anything getting in the way or catching my attention as out of place, erroneous, or just plain unworkable. I'll also review the shape of the paragraph layouts on the page to ensure they please the eye.
When nothing's left calling for my attention, that's the point of completion. Then I'll let it be, and not read it again.
Meticulous rigor like this can be brought to writing. Day to day spoken conversations, on the other hand, don't have the same sort of opportunities for this kind of reworked, edited rigor, if you will. To be sure, there are appropriate opportunities in day to day conversations for rephrasing what's being said in ways which work better. But day to day conversations, unlike writing, don't go very well if they're rephrased repeatedly like written pieces can be, on their way to becoming complete and perfect.
Speaking in an interview on camera has even fewer opportunities for correction than speaking in day to day conversations or in writing. In terms of being a genre which lends itself well to relentless self-correction, speaking in an interview on camera is in a different class than those two forms of expression. Furthermore, the opportunity to repeat, rework, and self-correct while speaking live in an interview on camera, is near zero. It's not that kind of art form.
I knew when Anurag Ananda Nirman (known simply as "Nirman" to his friends) outlined his ideas for Laurence Platt Video Interview II for his website titled 'ZOUDDHA - BIRTH OF THE NEW MAN & NEW WOMAN', we were heading into a territory deeper in the unknown than merely talking on camera. We floated Laurence Platt Video Interview II as an on camera conversation which would generate an experience of transformation rather than simply provide answers to questions about transformation. Although I trust Nirman enough to venture into this territory with him, I also had a sense of trepidation as we set out. Foremost in my mind were the questions "How's this going to go?" and "What good will come of it?" and even "What if it's a total fiasco?".
