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 II

Solage, Calistoga, California, USA

August 4, 2012

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

It is also the prequel to Essays - Nine Years Later: Recreation.

Soon there'll be seven hundred and fifty complete Conversations For Transformation essays in this internet series. That's about 1.6 essays a week for four hundred and sixty six straight uninterrupted weeks (my promise to generate two new Conversations For Transformation a week wasn't yet in place on day one - this commitment came later). And there's no stopping them now - at least that's the way it's looking right now: for now, I'll do this.

There's never any shortage of material, it would seem. Sometimes I have a sense ahead of time of what I'll write. Other times I have no clue what I'm going to write until I read what I've written - that's when I find out. Given the sheer proliferation of these Conversations For Transformation, until I conceived Writer's Block II, I didn't have a satisfactory explanation as to why I, like other writers, am not stopped by writer's block at least every once in a while. So here, after due consideration, is my offering of a plausible explanation.

The thing about Conversations For Transformation if you've examined them and are clear about their raison d'etre, is they're not intended to be about anything. There's no about in Conversations For Transformation - if there was, they'd be titled "Conversations About Transformation", yes? What they are, are conversations coming from the space of transformation. Said another way, their intention isn't to be about transformation (or to be about anything else, for that matter even though it may seem as if they are). No, their intention is simply to be written.

Gee! I hope you get that ...

So their intention is simply to be written, rather than to be about anything in particular (even though it may seem as if they are), and this is what makes Conversations For Transformation distinct kinds of conversations. It's a clean, clear distinction - not a trivial one. Writing about transformation renders transformation as a subject, as content rather than as context, rather than as experience, rather than as a presence.

That's why writing about transformation isn't the intention of these Conversations For Transformation. The intention of Conversations For Transformation is to bring forth transformation like context, like experience, like a presence. To bring forth transformation like context, like experience, like a presence requires not writing about transformation but rather writing coming from transformation - that is to say, writing coming from ie sharing who we really are. It's how this works. It's easy. It's really very simple.

There's really only one step I take, and it's this: I pick up my pen, and I write (OK, I power on my Lenovo T61 laptop computer, and I type - but to say I pick up my pen and I write, is good enough for jazz). There's no writer's block writing coming from ie sharing who we really are. And writing coming from ie sharing who we really are brings forth transformation. That's how this works. This is what Conversations For Transformation do.

I've noticed writer's block may become an issue if Conversations For Transformation go off purpose and become about transformation instead of coming from transformation. If I fall into the trap of writing about transformation rather than writing coming from transformation, it's deadly. It's a perfect recipe for killing off the possibility of sharing transformation - plain and simple. So in these Conversations For Transformation it seems to me writer's block occurs when there's a dearth of subjects to write about, yes? But listen: is there ever really a dearth of who we really are to write coming from? I mean, really? The answer is no. In fact never.

Who we really are is the source of infinite possibility. And there's nothing that's required of us to be the source of infinite possibility - because that's what / who we really are. So I look into the space of what / who we really are and I write whatever's there.

<aside>

Wait! If you're correcting what I just said by making me say "So I look into the space of what / who we really are and I write about whatever's there" instead of "So I look into the space of what / who we really are and I write whatever's there" which is what I said ... then you're not getting this.

<un-aside>

What's there in the space of what / who we really are is infinite possibility. In the space of infinite possibility, there's always something coming from nothing, yes? Look: it's not that I've mastered or even vanquished writer's block. The truth is I actually don't approach writer's block in either of these ways. Rather, it's that what / who we really are as the source of infinite possibility, simply isn't a domain where writer's block can take root or get any traction. Remember Conversations For Transformation aren't about that domain, even though it may seem as if they are. Instead it's the domain they come from.

Now, saying "it's the domain they come from", while proposing why Conversations For Transformation aren't subject to writer's block in the traditional sense, may impose a kind of rule, a reason on transformation. And the first rule of transformation is there are no rules (as Werner Erhard may have said) and there are no reasons. So I'd like to modify this statement (in fact I'd like to tighten up this statement) by including just the appropriate amount of Zen, thus:

"Remember Conversations For Transformation aren't about that domain, even though it may seem as if they are. Rather, it's the domain they come from ... for as long as they do.".

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