A Mason's Work

[00:00] Yesterday, I used the word softening, and I want to stay here because the word softening
[00:06] is doing more work than it seems.
[00:08] And I know as men, socially, we're conditioned to be hard.
[00:13] And so the word softening raises the alarm.
[00:18] So let's talk about what it is and what it means, and we'll get to why it's important
[00:22] in the context of the fellow craft recanting and all that kind of stuff.
[00:26] So softening is not capitulation.
[00:30] It is not the sort of resignation of someone who's tried and got tired and given up.
[00:39] It's not a lowering of standards.
[00:42] It's not any of those things.
[00:44] Softening is something more important.
[00:47] It is the sort of refusal to solidify.
[00:51] And I recognize that I've given you the opposite definition and tried to make that make sense.
[00:59] There's a lot of heavy lifting to be done here.
[01:02] So when we talk about refusing to edify or refusing to harden as the definition for softening,
[01:11] that's a big part of it.
[01:13] But underneath softening as well is this understanding of sort of mutual vulnerability.
[01:20] And so this becomes really important to understand.
[01:25] And I'll explain why by talking about something else completely different.
[01:29] So there was a guy named Alfred Hitchcock.
[01:32] And if you're old enough, you'll remember maybe some of his movies.
[01:36] He called one of his core concepts in filmmaking the MacGuffin.
[01:42] And the MacGuffin is the object in the story that everyone's sort of desperately chasing.
[01:46] It's the briefcase or the microfilm or the secret formula or the little golden icon.
[01:53] And the actual sort of reason for chasing it is kind of or what it actually does or represents is kind of beside the point.
[02:02] The MacGuffin's only function is to organize the pursuit.
[02:06] It gives the characters somewhere to kind of aim in their wanting.
[02:10] And the moment is obtained or lost or revealed to not have any value.
[02:15] The story ends or it finds a new MacGuffin.
[02:20] Here's what happened with the fellow craft.
[02:24] The fellow craft didn't fail because they're weak.
[02:28] They failed because they made the master's word a MacGuffin.
[02:33] They took the desire to be recognized and to be known as capable and turn that into an object that had more value than the relationships in their life.
[02:46] And this is what happens when we stick in the meta conversation.
[02:51] We create this edified structure around the work.
[02:56] We create this one thing that becomes causal.
[03:00] We create this one strong object that we think is the truth.
[03:06] When in fact, every time you do this in your life, you're personally in your family life.
[03:12] Every time you make that missing piece.
[03:18] This structural component of the conversation that would make everything right.
[03:22] You have actually broken the entire experience because you have made something hard in an environment where the only real rational solution is actually softness.
[03:35] And you'll see this a lot in social groups when you're talking to folks and they get really wrapped around the axle of a solution.
[03:44] They'll say, for example, too many people keep stepping in my yard.
[03:52] Right.
[03:52] And so we should put up a fence.
[03:55] Well, what then you end up talking about for the entirety of the conversation is building fences.
[04:03] When in fact, the real problem is too many people are stepping in your yard.
[04:09] And maybe that's not a problem at all.
[04:11] Maybe there's other solutions to it.
[04:14] When we get stuck around these codified sort of solutions to problems, we forget the humanity underneath them and the reasons and the purpose and the design intent of the experience.
[04:29] Because when you look at the fellow craft, they did not take this sense of self-consciousness and turn it into the catalyzing surrender to the moment and just decide to work harder to prove that they were capable of earning the word.
[04:48] They took the other route because the word was more important than the work because they prided themselves on not wanting to do more or not being capable of doing more.
[05:02] They thought to themselves that this structure of this relationship, the only way out was to get this magic word.
[05:09] When we soften, that all goes away.
[05:14] When we soften and say, listen, I understand you feel uncomfortable.
[05:18] I understand that you want the world to be different than it is.
[05:22] But the only way to solve that problem is by going through some level of collective adversity, some work, some problem that we want to solve, some mechanic that we need to evolve through.
[05:34] And reintegrate in the conversation, the emotional content that comes with that.
[05:40] You can then begin to meaningfully solve problems.
[05:43] Until then, the meta conversation, the sort of if-only sentiment, if only the Grand Lodge didn't do this, or if only the political environment allowed for that, that is going to continue to edify and solidify and become the MacGuffin.
[06:02] And that makes it, by default, impossible to acquire and irrelevant to the quest.
[06:09] Right?
[06:09] Nobody cares what's inside.
[06:12] You'll never get it anyway.
[06:13] So as you work through the conversation, as you work through, use your own intraceptive analysis.
[06:24] Use your own body, your own signals that your body is giving you.
[06:28] Think about in your own sanctum sanctorum, the emotional content of what you're really looking for and find that seed of joy.
[06:36] Rediscover that place of play that allows you to approach the problem-solving capacities of working with others in your everyday life to become that place to bring folks together, not create reasons to keep them separate.
[06:52] Thanks, like this.