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
What You Want
Vineyard 29, 2929 Highway 29, St Helena, California, USA
June 21, 2018
"The
pathway
to having isn't wanting. If you want something, you need to have a
different
relationship
with it other than wanting it, in order to have it."
...
"To
get
what you want, want what you
got."
... Joni Mitchell
As with any
invitation,
you're
free
to decline this one, or to accept it - after all, that's the
nature
of an
open,
authenticinvitation
(notice that if you're not
free
to either accept an
invitationor to decline it, then it's not an
invitation:
it's a manipulation). And notice thisinvitation
isn't just any
ordinaryinvitation.
It's a
Wernerinvitation
- and a
Wernerinvitation
lands in a by
now
familiar
way:
if you try it on for size and let it
speak
to you unimpeded, you'll notice
hownaturally
attractive it is - and that's regardless of whether you decline it or
whether you accept it.
Look:
who doesn't want to
discover
a
relationship
with what you want other than wanting it, if it's the
pathway
to having it? You already
got
wanting isn't very effective in
getting
you what you want. This then will be an entirely
newopening
ie it'll be a
newpossibility.
It's
worthwhile
noticing the title of this essay isn't
"How
to
get
... what you want". Don't
look
to this
conversation
to spoonfeed you. Rather, its purpose is to start an
inquiry
in which you can immerse yourself, and in
being
immersed in it, you'll
discover
a
newpathway
to having what you want. The
point
of this is not to lay out a sequence of
"how
to" instructions. That would be the domain of
self-help,
and there's no
newpathway
to ie no different
relationship
with what you want, in
self-help.
This, on the other hand, is
Werner's
realm of
Self-empowerment.
This is where a
newpathway
to ie a different
relationship
with what you want, can
show up.
And in this
inquiry,
I want to stay out of your
way
as far as
possible
so I don't distract from what you
discover,
or interfere with your
newrelationship
with what you want.
There is one perspective however, that I do want to put squarely on the
table because I
consider
it's a useful perspective for shaping this
conversation.
It's this (in the form of a
question):
what, of what you want, do you want in order to fill a hole in your
life in an area where something in your
past
is incomplete? Again (without providing instructions): what, of what
you want, is calling you, but only in order to
complete
something which is incomplete? That's one
kind
of want ... or ... is what you want, grounded in
beingcomplete?
That's a totally different class of want, a totally distinct
milieu for want. And that I assert, is a
perspective
worth
holding out in
front
of you during an
inquiry
into
how
to have what you want - regardless of what it is you want exactly, and
regardless of
how
you
intend
going about having it.
Why
is it a perspective
worthnoting?
Why
is it useful to
getclear
about it even before immersing yourself in
inquiring
into a different
relationship
with something other than wanting it in order to have it? Because it
points
us toward that which isn't
worth
having as distinct from that which is
worth
having. And if you're going to invest the
time
and energy in
inquiring
into having what you want, that's a good perspective to be
clear
about at the
get-go.
What comes with having what you want which is grounded in
being
incomplete, is probably going to be temporary at best ie it's probably
not going to last. On the other hand, what comes with having what you
want which is grounded in
beingcomplete,
comes with the
possibility
of having ongoing relevance, and delivering a continuous impact, and
making a
truly
lasting difference.
Looking
at having what you want, calls for investing
time
and energy in
Werner's
inquiry.
You may find it's the latter which is
worthier
of your investment.