Laurence Platt |
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
Never Not This
Cowboy Cottage, E. Napa, California, USAMarch 26, 2013
"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of Life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, here and now without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank." ... Jose Ortega y Gasset quoted by Werner Erhard
It's never not this. Ever.
There's no place to be other than here. There's no time to be other than now. Even when I was in the past (if you'll allow me to say it that way), it was now then also. And when I'll be in the future (if you'll allow me to say it that way), it'll be now then also, yes? It's never not this. It's never not here. It's never not now ... and we're thrown to deny it, to resist its domination, to try to disprove it, to pretend otherwise (by simply refusing to get it), and to look for a way out, a way of avoiding it.
It's human to deny it. No, it's more than that actually. It's the other way around. It's denying it which characterizes our human-ness.
Look! Even when I invent a future worth living into I invent it here, I invent it now. And when the future I invent which is worth living into is realized, I'll be living that future here, I'll be living that future now.
There's never another place to get things done than here. There's never another time to get things done than now. There's never more time to get things done than now. To be sure, we've generated plausible illusions entrenched in our most cherished belief systems that there'll be more time (indeed, even a better time) to get things done later. Some of our most cherished belief systems suggest there'll be a better time to get things done when our lives are over.
Listen: if there were another life, when you lived it it would be now, and where you lived it would be here. As Gertrude Stein said referring to her razed childhood home in Oakland, "There's no there there" (erroneously assumed to refer to Oakland itself). There's no there. It's always here. It's always now. And it's never not this. There's always only this space - the space we are. And there's always only this time - which is now. Never not this.
Now, you can't get this intellectually, logically, or rationally. And in spite of our best intentions, you can't even get this spiritually (which is one of the many euphemisms for conceptually). Neither can you prove this in an argument or by winning a debate in favor of it. You can only get this experientially. You can't get this by looking it up in a book in the library or by looking for it in a .pdf online. But you can get it by looking into the space and noticing ie by telling the truth unflinchingly about what's here.
It's always here. It's always now. It's never not this. Ever.
Here's what distinguishes real maturity and wisdom: the willingness to recreate this experience bigger than who we are, the experience of it's "never not this" ... that, plus the willingness to differentiate this experience of it's "never not this" from our human thrown-ness which futilely believes it's otherwise.
http://www.laurenceplatt.com/wernererhard/
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