The material on this tape was excerpted from a seminar led by Werner Erhard where he works with participants to develop the distinctions of effective action and accomplishment
I want to introduce a distinction
It’s in the domain of being.
I want to introduce the distinction called silence. The silence, or the drift sometimes I’ll mean the silence and sometimes I’ll mean the drift
I want to take away the whole world of language and I want you to see in a very powerful profound way there would be this enormous silence there would be no stones and no rocks and no ocean and no water and no mountains certainly there would be no people but I mean literally there wouldn’t be anything like a person but you see a rock is a rock in the domain of language what is it if there’s no language no observing because observing is a phenomenon of interpretation in the domain of language no observing what allows the artist to see something on the pallet that you and I can’t see is that the artists the artist has distinctions in the domain of language not words the artist has distinctions in the domain of language such that colors show up that might not show up for us same for the musician same for the man or woman who runs a house same for the man or woman who runs a laboratory scientists see things that other people don’t see because they have this faculty of observation not eyes everybody’s got eyes you take me into a laboratory I got eyes too I can’t see what the what the scientist sees I got a brain I can’t see what the scientist sees what I lack are distinctions in the domain of language with which to see what the scientist sees so observation has gone um no intention no commitment no Beauty no suffering no love not in the world of Silence that’s all gone almost unimaginable but kind of I don’t know you can kind of get like maybe a little sense of it so that’s I want to I want to have this distinction called silence now I want have another distinction called the drift the drift allows for language and intention and love and risk and all that good stuff and the bad stuff but it has the quality of a boat in the water with no rudder and no sails now when you put a boat in the water it doesn’t stay still it moves and some nin on the shore might say boy there’s a lot of intention in that boat but really what there is in the boat is drift so I want to invent this distinction for ourselves called the drift you and I are drifting life is drifting the world is drifting humanity is drifting the United States is drifting this hemisphere is drifting there is a certain drift and there’s no distinction called the drift so there’s this enormous body of superstition about accomplishment and failure which has nothing whatsoever to do with accomplishment or failure it’s merely the drift if we took you out life would go on the world would go on when you’re asleep things are still going on for you that’s all the drift people want to take credit because the sun came up in the morning that’s insane there is no accomplishment in a Rising Sun there may be Beauty and may symbolize hope and then whatever you want but there ain’t no accomplishment in that not for you no you and I in the world of accomplishment do not have any distinction called the drift and so we have this sense of accomplishment and failure in a mass of Arena over which we have zero impact now I want you to see that many ways you are a drift for yourself you have a certain drift the tide comes in you go this way the tide goes out you go that way so in many ways even you yourself are part of the drift for you yourself I want to nail this drift thing I want you to know that you’re struggling and efforting over the sun should rise to morning this is insane so I want you to see that there we live in a sea of drifting and accomplishment is not that which occurs by the drift nor is failure that which occurs by the drift when you initiate a project that’s not drifting that’s creating but the project begins to drift the instant you created it starts to have a drift of its own yeah you built the boat and launched it but as soon as it went in the water it started to drift so there is this drift and I want to nail that there is a drift that if you leave everything alone it’ll tend to go in a certain direction is that clear for people now the question is how do you impact the drift there’s nothing you can do about the drift is there drift it drifts the boat drifts you know it floats it goes in like this and when the tide goes out it goes this way when the tide comes in it goes this way and goes back and forth and sometimes it gets so far out it gets out of the way of the tide and it can’t get back in and then it drifts out in the ocean and the waves get big and it goes up and down but it’s just drifting lots of action by the way that’s the you need to know I didn’t mention that when things are drifting there’s could be an enormous amount of action lots of your most Acy actions are part of the drift now my question is I don’t know about your question but my question is what impacts the drift when I’m considering the distinction of accomplishment my question is what impacts the drift so that’s the question what impacts the drift yes I say it’s the prechoice of commitment okay now look I want you to be real clear about something Claudia uh that what you gave is a intelligent sensible answer and I’m going to attack it brutally go ahead so I don’t want you to feel like I’m attacking you because you’re not an intelligent sensitive woman I’m attacking it cuz I want to kill that culture you stand on the shore with a mighty commitment to alter the drift of that sailboat or that great ship of State as Bucky called it nothing happens true it keeps on drifting commitment doesn’t alter the drift but you got a lot Claudia thank you but cuz I’m going to get even worse and I don’t want you to be the target really I want you to see how much voodo there is in this culture people saying my commitment that’s what made it happen your commitment makes nothing happen zero never no not nothing the drift of the ship is not impacted by your commitment or your stand or your [Music] feelings no matter how deeply heartfelt or anything else only one thing impacts the drift now if this one drifts into that one they impact each other but that’s all a part of the drift yes so I’m not talking about when the two ships Collide that’s all a part of the drift but really what imp acts the drift which your life is the drift which life is the drift which your family is the drift which your relation your Rel relationships drift they’ve got a life of their own projects drift they’ve got a life of their own life drifts what impact the drift is no accomplishment if the boat biffs into the slip and the Wind Blows the lines around the cleats and ties it up you don’t have any accomplishment for having docked the boat if the boat drifts past the Rocks you have no accomplishment for keeping the boat off the Rocks now it’s true okay you pushed the boat to give it a start but for there on after it’s a drift isn’t it it’s really now part of the drift just like Catherine said you create the project but then it begins to have a drift of its own true it wouldn’t be drifting at all if you hadn’t shoved it analogously but it begins to drift the question is what impacts the drift John what impacts John yes sorry ship is tgb okay I need a non-analogous what but wait let’s take what Yan said he said impacts the if it’s a ship what impacts the ship is a tugboat yes if the tugboat isn’t part of the drift and know if it is other words there a certain drift in shipping isn’t there Yan called tugboats and they seem to show up when ships come into the harbor and there’s a certain drift about that and that’s all kind of set up and it drifts on in that way listen suppose who you are as a manager suppose your job is to manage something you can take no credit for the fact that the tugboat shows up at the liner at the right moment that was all part of the drift that was that’s all part of the setup now if you need the tugboat outside the gate where they don’t ever have tugboats and you somehow can make that happen when it wasn’t going to happen anyhow that impacts the ship but what are we talking about Rob please uh it looks to me like there’s two components one is action it takes action okay now let’s get that component flat first because I think that one’s pretty clear okay what impacts the drift is action maybe not any old action because the tugboat that was already a part of the system that was going to happen anyhow and did happen because it was going to happen anyhow see the farmer can’t take any credit for the action of the sun on the sea there’s no accomplishment in the action of the sun on the seed there’s no accomplishment in the action of the sun on the seed is that clear so it’s not just any old action it’s a certain kind of action but certainly action impacts the drift that impacts the drift yes so that so so action but the kind there’s a a and I I don’t have my finger on it but there’s some subtle distinction about uh a consciously created action a a being a human being in action uh yeah I was just noticing for myself all the accomplishments in my life so many of them are just the drift yeah you know that that’s how it would it turned just a second you look this is an enormous opportunity to really see how much of the successes and failures the accomplishments and the failures in your life are really a part of the drift damn near all of our everydayness is the drift go ahead beautiful yeah and beyond that even a lot of the things that I’ve done that I’ve considered to be extraordinary are part of the drift yeah beautiful look this is a guy born with Talent he’s going to drift into extraordinary action I mean when a 74 you ever see a s get up close to a 747 when it takes off that’s an accomplishment man but not really it’s part of the dream D you drift something designed like that at a certain speed down a Runway they’ll take off there’s no accomplishment in its taking off yeah very good yeah I was I wrote you about my trip to the Caribbean uh I noticed this for the first time just a couple months ago when I went to the Caribbean and outside of my frame of reference which is similar to Robert’s dead lines and things to produce that you know here’s an entire culture of people who drink green you know Heineken beer sit on the beach and take care of their families and stepping out of this culture which is commitment and fast-paced and everything I just noticed that that that’s the drift there and this is the drift here and it doesn’t make me more accomplished than the guy who sits on the beach and drinks beer every day look that’s beautiful that’s the best one I can think of see there’s this true false no about sitting on the beach taking care of your family is an accomplishment no building a city’s an accomplishment no City nonsense none of it’s an accomplishment Caribbean Islanders drift in the way in which they drift and people in the United States drift in the way in which they drift neither are in accom lishment and there is no quality of accomplishment in either except in the stupid arguments interestingly Warner since I came back I just notice that you know I was living in despair every day highly accomplished very successful but always like pushing you know always pushing for the next job pushing to have people know who I am uh know how great I am you know that whole thing about how I’m known in the world and I came back and I saw how stupid that was and it’s been difficult for me to articulate it because if you tell somebody you know in a normal conversation that what you’re doing to forward the action is like in my case to be a photographer and not be out there leaning on the door the whole time and yet I’ve accomplished since I got back more than the period before I left and seemingly with no effort I mean it’s just been really clear to me that this drift is it’s all pervasive yeah so very good that’s it yeah now the so I Rob really covered the Waterfront there for me he nailed the thing so there is this drift and what impacts the drift like is action but not any old action because the action of the sun on the seed is not an accomplishment for the farmer but as Rob points out there’s a certain action I don’t know kind of like intentional action but not if the intentional action comes out of the culture which you are that drives you and shapes you but like something like intentional action and I don’t know something like that well we’re going to look into that a little bit more deeply in a moment at any rate you nailed it beautifully and uh the first thing to get clear about is that only action impacts the drift nothing else Richard so you’re asking what is it that impacts the boat right the drift oh so not it’s not quite what impacts the boat it’s what impacts the drift yeah because that’s what I’m trying to see are you talking about what will move the boat in Sp of the drift yeah or what or what will what will actually impact the drift in which the boat is a part yeah really the second but the first is fine okay whichever one’s easiest for the moment well what would you say to this that action affects the boat in spite of the drift it’s in and context no yeah good I wanted to get that I’m glad you brought that up Richard let us call the current the context of the drift okay how do you impact the current let me tell you a way to impact the current you build a dam and that impacts the current okay that’s one of the ways to impact the current you can stop the current by building a dam you can also impact the current by building a shape that looks like this and that’ll take the current rushing this way and send it back that way at least for a period of time until the current it’ll create an Eddy okay lots of ways to probably a thousand other ways to impact the current but they all are action so your distinction is a totally valid distinction the distinction between the object identified and the Box the object comes in the distinction between the context and the content but it’s as true for context as it is for content in terms of impacting the drift one impacts the drift of content by an action which either [Music] impacts the boat the object the content or or an action which impacts an action which impacts the context or the Box in which the object comes but in both cases it’s an action well I remember uh I think I remember you saying context is not about efforting it’s it’s not about uh you know going out and taking a hammer and put hitting a nail into a board it is a existential act it’s notice the word act yeah but I don’t move when I’m you know when I’m doing when I said okay hold on for a second no just bear with me and I I think I got your question and I think I can I can shed some light into the arena an act in the domain of content is different than an act in the domain of context what constitutes an act in the domain of context is different than what constitutes an act in the domain of content okay that’s number one number two Blackboard in that word there is like no action there’s no let let me do it differently running in that word there’s no action it’s a description of an action yes but it itself is not an action kind of the word running is it not itself an action but how about the word promise in the following I promise Catherine to deal with the issue that she brought up before the end of the seminar can you see that in that saying that saying is action itself I’m not talking about a promise I am promising so I promise is an acttion in a different domain than the domain of running but nevertheless an action yes yeah okay let me tell you what the action is in the domain of context the action is bringing forth and to put it a little bit more precisely bringing forth distinction one acts in the domain of context acts just like promise is an action and like running is an action bringing forth a distinction creating a distinction is an action in the domain of context now does that clear that up yeah good very useful thank you very [Applause] much okay we’re moving towards the punchline here we’ve got that there is this drift then we’ve got that the way you impact the drift is with action now we want to know how do you impact action what impacts action I don’t want to know about the drifting Part of Your Action I want to know not about the action which is inevitable not about the action which is part of the Drift But about the action which is not a part of the drift how do you impact action Roberta take okay Roberta says you take a stand now I want to invite you to examine that because while I know that many of you have altered your actions by taking a stand that may not be the distinction you need to really master that Arena there may be something about taking a stand that’s that where the real impact on action is see for instance now I I just impacted your action yeah in other words I generated a whole body of action over in that seat didn’t I yeah and you generated a whole body of action up here on this platform didn’t you and uh what generated the action some of you’ll say because I threw an asra well because I threw an astr at her I did not I made sure it didn’t get at her made sure it went over Colette’s head Colette no somehow and besides which she didn’t choose one of those movements cuz only a nut would throw a heavy ashtray into an audience no way it’s Roberta yeah no way Roberto could sit there and say now he’s going to throw an Asain when he does I’m going to put my arms out no all of the action and that seat over there and it was really beautifully organized you know very complex set of actions to get underneath that ashtray and grab it beautifully organized and or orchestrated and each one put in perfect sync and everything brought together beautifully was all a product of the in the worldness there’s this in the world and it’s called an astray and it organizes Behavior behavior is a product of in the world the drift is impacted by action and action is impacted by ones in the worldness now what impacts your in the worldness getting hairy now right m uh what impacts in the worldness is um what I’ve experienced what I’ve had happen to me okay not bad very very good beautiful so he’s saying and I’m going to put words in your mouth here so you have to clean it up if you don’t like it he’s saying that the world kind of shows up in a particular way it has certain characteristics certain color certain shape certain meaning for me and that’s all predicated on my past experiences yeah yeah what what is happen yet yeah what has happened to you in the past shapes the showing up the in the worldness of the present yes yes and your actions are correlated to the your present in the worldness Roberta is not reaching out to the ashtray now no okay so I think that that’s dead on that for the most part people are living into the past because for most of us our future is created by the past the options of the future are the experiences of the past so as medwin says at least to some degree are the showing up is impacted by the past you give me one set of give two guys who are pretty much the same two different sets of experiences and they are likely to act in two different ways because the World shows up for them in different ways yeah yeah different things have happened yeah than good except that your past is part of the drift so we’re only talking about actions that are not a part of the drift therefore we’re only talking about the showing up that isn’t part of the drift and your past is part of your drift so the world’s showing upness Pat the world’s showing upness when you’re in the worldness is a product of the past that’s part of the drift that’s drifting Pat the difficulty I have with this is um is when we have this kind of discussion one of the few places I have to go as my head and I just don’t get the answers there and the the only and what I do is I take I take what you say and then I try and put it in my life which is in the world yes that’s my in in the worldness and what I what I notice is the only place I can test this stuff out hold on one second I hope you listen to what she said that was actually brilliant it was so smooth I didn’t catch it at first I mean really brilliant that none of this is any good when you resolve it in your head the place to resolve it is in the world put it in the world that’s the people who get real value out of participating in the work are the people who are willing to put it in the world please Pat I’m sorry to interrupt you so when I put it in the world somehow it comes out a just almost the exactly the opposite way you’re you’re saying it for me for example um I’ve been playing around with exercising forever you know trying to ought to exercise right and in the last two months what I’ve noticed is that I don’t it is not even that I like to get on the bike any better but I’ve noticed if I get on the bike in the morning for 15 to 30 minutes my day shows up it the shift my day shows up differently yeah you have impacted the day with an action called riding the bike but I’ve impacted the showing up of the day yeah you know so but it’s like but that’s not the showing up impacting the action it’s the action impacting the showing up so it may be that you’ve got that okay not bad but let’s take a look at something the action which I want to isolate the source of is the getting on the bike what put you on the bike not the decision to get on the bike you’ve tried that a thousand times not the discipline to get on the bike and dri not the ought to should need to all that stuff there’s somehow a shift in the showing up there’s something shifted right in order for you to be on the bike uh there’s two things that come up when you ask that question one is it’s not if I get on the bike three months 6 months from now I’ll be skinny you know it’s today will shift you know now listen hold it now listen this a pretty I mean now shift this a pretty powerful Insight a lot of people fussing around with their weight and smoking and now Pat knows that if she does she’s always known that if she exercises for three months your waight will probably go down that never got on their on the bike she’s saying she shifted to showing up so that the getting on the bike has an impact today she shifted the in the worldness of being on the bike to an impact today and she says that that shifting of that in theor worldness gets her on the bike not bad that’s a hell of an opening you understand I’m not saying that that’s true what Pat says that that’s the recipe for doing exercise I’m saying that it’s a valid domain of inquiry that that’s worth inquiring into what you just opened up for us brilliant go ahead that’s what’s the other one the the other one is my commitment to this working with you so if I can’t if I know that in my head isn’t the place to go and if I sit through these seminars and keep thinking that I’m supposed to figure something out realize something that makes a difference my commitment is in the work and in in the work in the below the line in the trying it out in figuring out seeing how it’s going to work in the context of Team how it’s going to work in my life yeah brilliant that’s sort of my half of the bargain and I have a commitment to that bargain dynamite dynamite very very useful okay look what impacts the showing up is the clearing for that which shows up you can’t reorganize the world in some polyana positive thinking way that doesn’t alter the showing up it says that things are lousy and you speak positively about them things aren’t lousy why do you need to have positive thinking why not just think straight if things aren’t lousy things are good you think straight you don’t think positively so in this quick survey I’m inviting you to see that the clearing determines the quality of what shows up in the clearing you can impact the world as it’s a car for your action which actions as Pat points out then impact the world impact the drift by having something to do with the clearing which you are I invite you to consider the possibility that accomplishment is that impact of the drift which you created in language wherein the drift was impacted by a shift in the clearing a shift in who you are such that the world showed up so that your actions changed in such a way that they impacted the drift so that what you were committed to in the beginning got accomplished now there’s a whole part of that that I left out that I brought out in commitment and that was if it don’t happen in the world it ain’t an accomplishment something private something kept to yourself something not made public is never an accomplishment now you can be your own public so accomplishment takes you out into the world now if you make a promise and it constrains you what the kind of behavior you’re going to get is behavior as good as you can get constrained in other words constrained Behavior has a certain value don’t go in the street you say to your child that constrained Behavior has a certain value don’t let the little sucker make up his own mind tell him don’t go in the street it’s better that way than if he makes up his own mind by the same token if much of your project is action derived from the constraint of Promise then you and I both know that that action is not going to impact the drift in the way we want it to impact the drift okay I have this distinction which I call an opening for Action as distinct from a constraint for action some people are able to promise and Liz pointed out that from time to time she’s able to promise and the and I’ve seen it with her because she and I have worked together where the promise becomes this enormous opening for Action it frees her down and I’ll tell you when you get to that level of function you’ve gotten to a very powerful level of function most of us are not there and even those of us who are there in some instances are probably not there in all instances there’s some bad news it’s really up to you there is no recipe there is no solution there is no formula which works there are recipes Solutions and formulas which may Empower people but when they get stuck with them they always die with them nothing sacred about promising you ought to promise whatever empowers you if promising what you can’t do and some of you are wired up like that empowers you then promise what you can’t do if promising what you can surely do empowers you promise what you can surely do but promise in a way that empowers you the shot that the pool player is shooting for a master pool player is never the shot about which he’s concerned it is the shot three balls later which he’s worried about about how to leave the cuq ball in the right place to take the next shot to leave the Q ball in the right place to take the shot at the ball is’s worried about what I’m trying to say is that your projects will defeat you by constraining you to the degree that you don’t stay out in front of them don’t let your projects make any demands on you expand the commitment so that you’re always out in front of the project see I don’t let my concern for people participating in the for Forum be my project I make sure I got a project that’s so big that people participating in the Forum is like an obvious need to do that obviously that’s appropriate you can never affect the results ever the results come after the action and there’s no affecting the results forget it I know about all lot stuff about feedback and Highly Questionable and no matter H if I was the greatest exhorter in the world and I could exhort you more powerfully than you’ve ever been exhorted before to give up you’re concerned for the results you’d still be concerned for the results why because the being of human beings has wired into it and already always concerned for the results in the possibility of being you can give up the concern for the results in fact defeat your concern for the results it’s like putting a guy an American on a tennis court with a tennis rack in his hand when that ball comes over you can bet everything you own that sucker is going to swing at the ball particularly no even if you tell him don’t bother swinging at the ball it’s not necessary we just want to see where the ball goes he’s going to swing what there is to be concerned about is managing the showing up for the tennis player a concern for the ball not for hitting the ball and if you can put all that together that commitment and accomplishment you begin to get some sense of a whole where commitment and accomplishment really belong together and say something to each other and speak to each other that commitment sets up the possibility of accomplishment and accomplishment fulfills the possibility of commitment the tape you just heard was made by wner Erhard and Associates an education and Communications Enterprise which creates and delivers transformational programs transformation a method of inquiry into the basic questions of human existence actually enables and empowers an individual’s ability to live and work in the world in an impactful creative and authentic way more than half a million people worldwide have participated in this inquiry since its Inception in 1971 the basic course known as The Forum as well as courses and workshops in communication and productivity are offered by area centers throughout the United States Canada Western and Eastern Europe Asia and Australia for information contact Werner aart and Associates at 765 California Street San Francisco California 94108 or by phone at 415 39199 one1 effective action and accomplishment was produced by Michael poris the sound engineer was Don Snider copyright wner ard 1985.
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