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

Paradox And Confusion

Vallejo, California, USA

October 15, 2008
Reposted February 14, 2021
"The gates to the temple of truth are guarded by two dragons: paradox  and confusion." ... 
This essay, Paradox And Confusion, is the companion piece to Fire-Breathing Dragons.

It was written at the same time as Nothing Doing.


I know who you are. Man!  I really  know who you are.
WE know who we are. I mean, we know who we really  are. Not only do we know who we really are: we can never not  be who we really are. Consider this for a moment: how can we ever not  be who we really are? How can light ever not be light? How can light ever be darkness? How can the switch ever be off when it's on?  The question is absurd.

And yet ... you and I know only too well, that from time to time we don't know who we really are ie we forget who we really are. It's worse than that, actually. The truth is more like: from time to time it seems simply impossible to be who we really are ie to be who we know  we really are.

It's the nature of being  for human beings. When you get it, you get it. Then you lose it. And as soon as you realize you don't have it anymore, you can get it again.

In order to get who I really am, I have to break up  and / or recontextualize  (I love that word) what I've always identified with or considered myself to be. Be careful: that's not to cast what I've always identified with or considered myself to be, as bad, wrong, erroneous, or false - although it may sound like one or more of the above. It's that my identifications and considerations of who I really am, are by now so much part of the scenery, so much bolted to the boilerplate  that the first rope bridge over the abyss  is to differentiate "I have identifications and considerations"  from "I am my identifications and considerations" (that's "Transformation 101").

In looking at who I really am, I don't see cleanly, I can't see clearly ... at first. To be sure, I assume  I see cleanly, I assume I see clearly. But I don't. Any fresh ideas I have are tainted by old molded identifications and considerations. Yes I'm clear what  I see. But always hidden from view, always just out of sight is the way  I see. In other words, I don't see my own epistemology  of the seeing. I'm clear I see the blue bird in front of me. What's not clear are the blue lensed glasses I'm looking through which are so close to me that I don't realize I'm wearing them, let alone realize I'm looking through them. Yet they color everything I look at. That blue bird I'm looking at? It's actually a brown  bird which occurs  for me as blue, given I'm wearing blue lensed glasses, and I don't realize I'm wearing glasses at all.

As soon as I, having the good fortune, luck, or just sheer relentless intention to locate these blue lensed glasses and take them off, my world is (no surprise here!) completely new, and most of what I once knew no longer applies. It's confusing. "If this is the truth" I ask myself, "then why am I so confused?". And that, in itself, is a paradox:  the truth, when first experienced in its pure state, is confusing. The truth, when first experienced in its pure state, is both confusing and paradoxical. The truth is a confusing paradox!
Werner Erhard:


<quote>

THE GATES TO THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH ARE GUARDED BY TWO DRAGONS: PARADOX  AND CONFUSION.

<unquote>


Something happens (we've all experienced it) when paradox and confusion show up. If there's an experience of truth (or, said more pragmatically, if there's an experience of what's so)  during which paradox and confusion show up, the voice-over  always says something like "This is a paradox and it's confusing, so the truth can't be true. This is a paradox and it's confusing, so the truth isn't real. This is a paradox and it's confusing, so the truth must be wrong.".

Ordinarily there are two resultants of this voice-over jabber. The one is the voice-over jabber is believed  ie is empowered, overshadowing the experience of truth, negating what's so. "It can't  be true, it can't be what's so  because it's a paradox, because it's confusing". The other is: paradox becomes a distraction from the truth ie from what's so; confusion becomes a distraction from the truth ie from what's so. Paradox and confusion themselves become the focus of inquiry. Truth as what's so  is long forgotten. Now the inmates are running the asylum.

There's one immediately obvious oversight here, one which if not seen, carries enough weight to turn us away from discovering the truth, even when we're so  close, even when we're so near the truth, and it's this: the very appearance of paradox and confusion is, in a very real sense, a clear indicator that the temple of truth is nigh. If paradox and confusion, the guardians of the temple of truth, are at hand, then you can count on that the temple of truth itself is close by, the Holy Grail is at hand.

Now let's talk about how to tame dragons. Let's talk about how to be unstopped by paradox and confusion (if you look for how to be unstopped by paradox and confusion, you may notice you discover how to, in the last  place you would ordinarily look):

When paradox and confusion occur, allow them to occur. If something shows up as a paradox, allow it to be a paradox. If something shows up as confusing, be confused. Struggling with paradox, is hard. Being  with paradox, is easy. Struggling with confusion, is hard. Being with confusion, is easy.

Be  with the paradox, be with the confusion, regard  the paradox, regard the confusion. experience  the paradox, experience the confusion ... only keep your fingers out of the machinery!

That's counter-intuitive. We're thrown to resolve  paradoxes, to un-confuse confusion. Don't do that. Allow them to be. Allow them to be the dragons they are. Allow them to be the mighty guardians of the temple of truth they are. Both of them are totally and mercilessly capable of biting our heads clean off  if we cross them. But look: that's their job, given what they're guarding. Yet they're both also equally capable of allowing us to be, and even of purring and letting us stroke and pet them. They'll allow us to pass if we take responsibility  for our experience of them, and for being there with them. They'll allow us to pass if we'll just allow them to be.


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