A Mason's Work

Something I want to talk about, about group dynamics.

And so when you get into a group of men of any shape, color, size, creed, interest, what

have you, you're going to find very quickly in a group setting that a good number of the

men and non-drivial percentage, I would say upwards of 90, maybe even 95% of the men

are just along for the ride.

And I'm not trying to diminish like what that is, right?

There's a lot of organizations that were just being along for the ride, it's fine.

Sometimes just the crew of like-minded folks being in the same room creates a valuable

experience.

But what's more likely and important relative to our last episode is that you're going

to find a lot of guys will complain about the experience that they're having in large

or in any of the groups, the special groups that groups they might have, why don't we do

this, why don't we do that, we shouldn't we do X, Y or Z, or they'll complain, you know,

we don't do enough of this or that or the other thing.

We're going to find that this is a common occurrence and it is super important to not

bite on any of that stuff because that's all nonsense.

It's people complaining that they want something different, but they're unwilling to do the

work to make it happen, which means even if you did all the work to make it happen,

you are essentially playing the wrong game.

In corporate America they call it find me a rock and the idea is your boss or the manager

or whomever gives you a project.

I need you to go find me a rock down by the river.

And so you go and not knowing what you're looking for, you grab a rock and you bring it back

and you hand it to the boss and they go, now not that rock, I'm looking for something

a little more rock like.

Okay, and you go back down to the river and you get another one and you do this forever

because people don't know what they want more often than not.

They know what they don't want.

And when we start looking at lodges and the logic experience and things like that, if

you don't have a concrete vision of what you're trying to create, you don't have a perfect

dash of art in mind if you don't have the layout of the temple you're building, then you

can't be upset with what you got.

That doesn't mean that guys aren't upset with what they got because there's tons of

guys, the human capacity to complain seems limitless.

But when you hear it, your role as a change agent, as a leader, as somebody who's going

to think of this process and becoming the best version of yourself that you can be,

the next question needs to be or could be or should be depending on who you ask.

Wow, it sounds like you're upset about that.

What steps can we take together to fix it?

You'll find 90% of the time the answer is I don't know and it doesn't matter or I know

what we could do but I don't want to do it because it's going to take too much time

or too much effort.

This is also why you can't work anybody else's stone, you can't fix anybody else's problems.

The challenges that you're going to face in your life, all of your complaints, all of

the experiences you're trying to create, everything is just for you.

The relationships, you know, your intimate relationships with family and all that kind

of stuff, that's a little bit different.

You co-create those but the properties of those relationships, just like the properties

of your logic experience emerge from the effort of the members.

The logic experience internally and externally is an emergent property of the work of the

members doing it, the members doing the work.

So, when things come up and they do, what are the causes that brought us to this situation

and who is willing to undertake the work to fix it?

Should be your sort of vital triage and then understand that even if you were to try

and fix the environment on behalf of someone else, they're playing, find me a rock, they're

going to find the next thing you can complain about and none of that really matters anyway.

So take control and responsibility of your own effort, take control and responsibility

of your own complaints.

And then as you do this, as you become more of an agent of change and more of a leader

in your lodge, you will be able to influence that logic experience as a byproduct of your

effort, not end direct result because it doesn't work that way.

Again, the group experience is a byproduct of the effort of the members.

And as a fundamental sort of side note here, that's where the fraternity has historically

been super successful is that the fraternity itself, the experience, the fraternitas,

the togetherness is supposed to be experienced through the work, not merely by assemblage.

You don't just get a bunch of guys in a room and expect them to cleave.

That's not the way it works.

You do the work together, you do your work, they do their work, you experience the hardships

and trials and tribulations that come with it.

And you build meaningful relationships and the fraternity there is emergent from that

work.

So with that, go forth, work your stone.