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

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You're Not Their #1:

Evolution Of Trouble

Jefferson Street, Napa, California, USA

October 10, 2022


"If you're lookin' for trouble, you came to the right place." ... Elvis Aaron Presley, Trouble

This essay, You're Not Their #1: Evolution Of Trouble, is the companion piece to
  1. An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life"
  2. An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life" II
in that order.

I am indebted to Larry Pearson who inspired this conversation.


You've heard it before. You may have even said it or thought it yourself: "Here comes trouble!". It's an old cliché. Its implication is there's trouble, and that it's with the other guy, not toi. Let's consider the evolution of trouble. Let's examine how the genesis of such here-comes-trouble  trouble plays out in reality.

When someone approaches and you say or think "Here comes trouble" like it's with them, it's really the least likely scenario. Ever ask how the approaching trouble became trouble for you to begin with? For starters, "Here comes trouble" implies there's trouble with something the other guy does. But maybe the trouble isn't  with what they do. Maybe it's not even that it's sometimes  with what they do. Maybe it's never  with what they do. So who's it with then? All people do is what they do ie whatever  they do, yes? That's what happens. What happens is just what's so. And what's so in and of itself, is never trouble.

Try this on for size: the trouble is likely never with something someone else does. The trouble is more likely with what you say  about what they do. And it's more than that. It's that it's never with what you say to them  about what they do. It's with what you say to yourself  about what they do, often adversarial to what they do, and then you blame them for what you say to yourself  about what they do. That's like taking the poison, hoping the other guy will die.

Here then is the correct evolution of trouble ie this is its more likely scenario:

 1)  someone does something (which in reality is all that ever happens ie it's just what's so, which in and of itself is never trouble);
2)  you say something to yourself about what they do, often adversarial to what they do;
3)  then you blame them for what you say to yourself about what they do (which in and of itself is always trouble).

That's how trouble evolves for us. When we consider that we have scant power over what someone does (over what anyone does actually) yet we have all power over what we say about what they do, the real evolution of trouble and an accessible path out of it, takes shape / comes into view like a possibility.

You're not their #1. It's not you they're out to get. They may not be out to get anyone else either, mind you. But they're certainly not out to get you. That's just something you say to yourself about them, and then blame them for it.

In a Zen garden meditation, that's a very freed-up place to be at. Colloquially we're thrown to blame rather than to be responsible. That may seem easier (at least in the short term) but it really bodes more trouble later as it gets habituated. We blame instead of taking responsibility until we can no longer bear or justify the trouble it causes. The accessible path out of trouble is recognizing that people just do what they do (which is never trouble) and it's we who author trouble by saying things to ourselves about what they do, then blaming them for it. Others aren't the authors of trouble. You are. You're not their #1.


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