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

Writer's Block

Judd's Hill, Napa Valley, California, USA

September 18, 2009

"Here's the cure for writer's block: when you get writer's block, write about it." ... Laurence Platt

This essay, Writer's Block, is the companion piece to

in that order.

It was conceived at the same time as

Creating is creating. It matters not the form with which it comes ie whether it's writing or playing music or communicating or any other expression. If there's something else in my life I'm not confronting at the time, the result is a block to creating. If it blocks creating by playing music, it's musician's block. If it blocks creating by communicating, it's communicator's block (sometimes referred to as "communication breakdown"). If it blocks creating by writing, it's writer's block.*

Different symptoms, same dis-ease.

Being blocked writing is the same experience for me being blocked jammin'. If ever I find myself blocked playing guitar, it's a spotlight on something else in my life I'm not confronting at the time. If ever I find myself blocked communicating, it's a spotlight on something else in my life I'm not confronting at the time. If ever I find myself blocked writing, if ever I sit down to write and nothing comes, it's a spotlight on something else in my life I'm not confronting at the time.

That's the bottom line of writer's block for me. Confronting whatever it is in my life I'm not confronting at the time invariably creates space to create, be it by playing music, by communicating, or by writing, thereby freeing the constraints on creating.

Who knows how or even why this process works this way. I wouldn't offer to provide an understanding of it in an oral scientific exposé. However, speaking pragmatically, speaking experientially, it works and can be tested - count on-ably, reliably, and predictably. Count on-ability, when it comes to what works, doesn't require understanding. "Understanding is the booby prize.".

Are there other ways to free the constraints on creating, in addition to confronting whatever it is in my life I'm not confronting at the time? Yes, as in the following scenario.

Arguably there's an advantage when writing Conversations For Transformation, arguably there's an advantage when creating in the domain of Conversations For Transformation, which isn't there when writing anything else nor when creating in any other domain. The idea with Conversations For Transformation is to bring forth language, in the listening of which ie in the experience of which, transformation becomes possible. There's never an end to the possibilities of language in the listening of which transformation becomes possible. Indeed, there's never an end to the possibilities of experience in the getting of which transformation becomes possible.

So if, in bringing forth Conversations For Transformation, writer's block is the experience, implicit in that experience is the possibility of sharing the experience ie of sharing the experience of writer's block. In other words, writer's block is morphed from being the stop to Self expression, and becomes instead that which is expressed ie that which is shared.

And therein is the miracle of sharing experience: the experience of writer's block, once the stop to Self expression, disappears once it's shared. That's only obvious in retrospect - beautifully pertinent in fact, yet miraculous nonetheless.

This essay, Writer's Block, was written during an episode of writer's block. Applying the essay's simple thematic idea ensured writer's block was no stop to completing it.

Communication Promise

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