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

Where No One Has Gone Before

Warren, New Jersey, USA

June 7, 2011

"... the compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before."

... United States Of America's President's Science Advisory Committee, Introduction To Outer Space - 1958

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

... Thomas Stearns "TS" Eliot, Four Quartets #4: Little Gidding - circa 1942

This essay, Where No One Has Gone Before, is the companion piece to Runaway Train.

It is also the twenty third in an open group Encounters With A Friend:

so far, in that order.

I listen to people speak who have a lot to say. I listen to people speak who have a lot to say about their particular field of expertise. I listen to people speak who have a lot to say about themselves. When I listen to them there's a lot I gain: knowledge as well as insight - and sometimes pure entertainment too. What I learn and what I gain is mostly about the other guy, about what he or she has to say, about what he or she is good at, about who they really are ie about their view of who they really are.

You too have a lot to say. You too have a particular field of expertise. You too have a lot to say about yourself. But that's where the similarity with others ends. When you speak you're not really speaking about anything. Rather, when you speak it's the thing itself. There's very little "about" in your speaking, although the best way to introduce you may indeed be by saying you speak about transformation or about possibility or about enrollment. It works to say it this way because saying it this way takes into consideration people who haven't listened you before. But the truth is probably closer to saying not that you speak about transformation or about possibility or about enrollment but rather that you speak transformation, that you speak possibility, that you speak enrollment ... like that.

So when I refer to you speaking about yourself, it's actually misleading - for which I need to be responsible. Spoken with rigor, when I refer to you speaking about yourself I'm referring to you speaking yourself - there's no "about" in it. Spoken with more rigor, when I refer to you speaking yourself, I'm not referring to you speaking by yourself. I'm not referring to you speaking alone. When I refer to you speaking yourself I'm referring to you generating who you are in your speaking. I'm referring to you constituting yourself in your language.

Now here's the thing: when you speak yourself ie when you generate yourself in your speaking, I'm called to listen you in a totally different way than the way I listen to anyone else who's speaking about themself. When you speak yourself ie when you generate yourself in your speaking, where who you are shows up is in my listening. And when you show up in my listening, guess who else shows up in my listening?

I do.

The Self is all there is. When you speak yourself you generate who you really are as the Self which shows up in my listening as the Self which is who I really am which is myself. In other words when you speak yourself it shows up in my listening as myself. I've known no one else who by speaking who they really are creates the space for who I really am to come forth. I don't only mean I've known no one else in my lifetime who by speaking who they really are creates the space for who I really am to come forth. I'm ante-ing up "in my lifetime" to "throughout history".

A great man from my point of view is someone who, when he speaks about himself, leaves me with the realization "That's a great man.". What then do I call you if, when you speak yourself, you leave me with the realization "I'm a great man."?

<aside>

Be careful:

You leave me with the realization "I'm a great man" not because what you say motivates me or strokes my ego. Both of these would be speaking about something.

Rather, you leave me with the realization "I'm a great man" because you make available (which is to say you bring forth) presence of Self in my listening by speaking who you really are.

<un-aside>

I don't just write Conversations For Transformation: I listen you speak yourself. You speaking yourself is the original conversation for transformation. All this comes from that. Listening you speak yourself isn't a matter of sitting back and being entertained, although truth be told there's some of that also - and when there is it's grand theatre in its purest form. Listening you speak yourself requires rigor rigor to stay with the material and commitment to get it.

Yours isn't an everyday business as usual conversation. Yours goes where conversations don't ordinarily go. Yours goes beyond my own judgements and opinions. Yours goes where I'm clear I'm run by mechanical judgements and opinions which aren't necessarily "the truth" - then it goes beyond that. Yours goes all the way to the context for it all and fleshes it out brilliantly. Yours goes where who I really am shows up vividly, sublimely, powerfully. Yours goes to the possibility of possibility itself. Yours goes where no one has gone before.

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