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




Laurence Platt 65th Birthday

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

June 8, 2015



This essay, Laurence Platt 65th Birthday, is the first in the trilogy Birthday: It is also the prequel to You Know I Love You - And I Know You Love Me.

It is also the sequel to When Barriers Fall: A Course In Relationships.

I am indebted to Jan McHenry who inspired this conversation.




This essay, Laurence Platt 65th Birthday, embodies a photograph and an e-mail I distributed to my family and friends who celebrated my 65th birthday with me today Monday June 8, 2015 (I was born in the evening at 8:45pm BST - British Summer Time).

Well ... it's always  today (it is, isn't it?) so the celebration doesn't end, and I include you. Please consider yourself to be a part of this group.

There are no greater birthday gifts you could give me than the two you've already given me: your relationship with Werner and your listening for my Conversations For Transformation. I really appreciate you, and I take responsibility for becoming what I'll be for you. Thank You for the space you give me to be who I am in the world and to do what I do.

I experience the listening you grant me as a very personal gift. I have the greatest respect for it, the deepest affinity for it, and the highest esteem. I want you to know I'm using it well.


Laurence Platt 65th Birthday


Photography by Marielle Adegran Rutherford - Andretti Vineyards, Napa Valley, California, USA - 7:10:10am Monday June 8, 2015



Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Laurence Platt 65th Birthday

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

June 8, 2015


Dear Family and Friends,

Thank You for celebrating, in one form or another, this my 65th birthday with me today.

Things have been going well for me for quite a while now. In the process I've become acutely aware of how precious time is. I had coffee with an old friend of mine the other day. We were wondering when we had coffee last. It could have been a week ago - or even a month ago (at least, that's the way it felt). Then we figured out it was ten years ago. It shocked me to confront how the pace of time has picked up. So now 65 years have flashed by. I figure I'm a bit less than two thirds of the way through my time here with you. It makes me appreciate every moment with you more, knowing time's pace is only going to accelerate from now on.

I'm staying fit and healthy not because going to the gym / swimming pool is my favorite undertaking. It's because I intend to stay in as great a shape as I can to support my commitment to Alexandra, Christian, Joshua, and y'all. Now well into my third bachelorhood, things have settled into more than I could ever have imagined ten years ago. My main expression, as you know, is writing and sharing Werner with the world. But if you told me ten years ago there would soon be one thousand essays and a million views, I wouldn't have believed you. Well ... there are now over a thousand essays, and I anticipate the million view mark will be passed sometime in November / December of this year. After that, I'll recalibrate.

I think about living on a beach in Hawai'i, writing, and letting surfing keep me fit. But I haven't done anything about it - and the truth is I may or may not ever do anything about it other than think about it. It makes me happy to live near my children (or at least on the same continent), and besides which, I generate the quality of my life wherever I am - ultimately Hawai'i can't do that (but Oh! how we dream it can, don't we? ...).

In my younger years, I knew I would live forever. Back then, I envisioned my tombstone saying "This wasn't supposed to happen ...". Now I envision it saying "All used up, nothing left, gave it all away, left the beach in a better state than I found it.".

People are the champions of my life, and I have the good fortune to be surrounded by and to get to play with and to be in conversation with and to be loved by and to love giants - and this includes each of you. I am so blown away by who you are - I mean by who you really  are that it completely sustains me and nourishes me. I want for nothing but you. You are enough for me - and for being the space in the universe in which I can show up, I can't thank you enough for your generosity.

Please don't send gifts. I've got everything I need. Instead in lieu of gifts, I invite you to make a contribution to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust who do astonishing, brilliant, mind-boggling work breeding species back from the very brink of extinction then returning them to their natural habitat in viable numbers. They're at

http://www.durrell.org

I don't want to wrap this up with a nice bow and pretty wrapping paper. I want it to remain a bit rough and full of gaping holes which you can fill with your own experience and Self-expression. What I want to leave you with is my appreciation ... and this (inspired by Werner): you know I love you - and I know you love me.

Thank You.

With my Love,




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© Laurence Platt - 2015 through 2021 Permission



Communication Promise E-Mail | Home

© Laurence Platt - 2015 through 2021 Permission