A Mason's Work

[00:00] if you're like me, and I imagine that some of you are, you've grown up in a society that teaches you
[00:07] in many ways that giving up is bad, that giving up is not desirable. It's the mark of somebody
[00:15] who doesn't know that their next great amazing thing is right around the corner.
[00:21] And I bring that up now in the context of these conversations, because what happens with these
[00:27] MacGuffins that we create for ourselves, the weight loss goals, the financial goals, the things like
[00:32] that, is you quite literally are chasing a goal that is a fiction. Because you're chasing the wrong
[00:42] thing, you have created something that's literally impossible. It cannot close the gap. The number in
[00:51] your bank account cannot make you feel a certain way. You make you feel that way. You do this.
[01:02] Your weight goals cannot make you feel, you know, achieving those goals cannot make you feel a
[01:07] certain way. You have to, upon achieving those goals, make yourself feel that way. So when you're doing
[01:15] this stuff to yourself, when you're having these experiences, both of the gap you're trying to
[01:22] create or close and the gap that, you know, you've, you've given a name to, when you are experiencing
[01:31] these things, you're doing all of that. You're doing both sides of the game. It's kind of like a trick.
[01:39] You're playing a game on yourself and with yourself. And the problem again is if you take that game and
[01:45] you say, okay, well, I'm doing this, I'm pursuing this goal to try and create this experience.
[01:50] And so I'm not allowed to have this experience until I get to this goal. And then when you get
[01:55] there, you don't have the experience. You can see kind of what a fiction the game is.
[02:02] And how do you get through it? How do you deprogram this in yourself? So you can start to
[02:09] meaningfully change stuff. And like, that's, that's part of the conversation here is you can
[02:16] undergo meaningful change. You can undergo goals and objectives and pursue these things with value.
[02:23] But what you can't do is create these situations that are not designed to solve the problem.
[02:30] And if you don't know what the problem is, you certainly can't build a solution to it.
[02:34] So this is where the sort of other lodge officers conceptually kick it.
[02:40] In the lodge, the junior warden sits in the South and he observes the sun at High Meridian and calls
[02:47] the craft off from labor to refreshment. What the junior warden represents is this capacity internally
[02:56] to know what's going on with the body, with the corpus of the lodge, with the workman.
[03:04] If the workmen are overtaxed or we're not getting proper signals from the workmen about the job,
[03:12] we stop. Stopping isn't quitting. Stopping isn't running away. Stopping is I don't have enough data
[03:23] to continue. In programmatic language for folks that are of an IT bent, you'll see things where you don't
[03:31] have enough data. And the best thing you can do when you don't have enough data is not just keep
[03:37] on going. You have to stop, collect more information, and then proceed. If you let the program keep going,
[03:44] there's a good chance it's going to have a negative outcome. It's going to delete all your files. It's
[03:47] going to be a crazy nightmare. With the junior warden as a function and the way we pursue goal
[03:53] achievement as a people, it's the same problem. If you don't have a dashboard to see where you're going,
[04:00] you're not going to get there. We oftentimes do this process where we try and close this gap
[04:10] from where we think we are to where we want to go. We draw a map. And the problem with using a map to
[04:19] navigate is the map is not the territory. You don't have a territory map, a map of the feelings
[04:26] you're going to have along the way. And more importantly, a trianage plan for those feelings
[04:32] as they arise. Most men are taught to ignore all that stuff, but feeling stuff is for somebody else.
[04:39] But for us as masons and as people who are trying to cultivate a better version of ourselves,
[04:44] you have to stop and get in touch with what it is your body is telling you.
[04:49] What it is your emotions are telling you. That knock at the door, those sensations, the tension,
[04:54] the feelings, all should inform the sense of progress more so than the numbers.
[05:04] And I recognize that that's counterintuitive because we're taught in a lot of ways that you
[05:10] have to see it in the bank account. It doesn't count if it's not in the outcome.
[05:16] But we've talked about this in other episodes. When we attach to process and the understanding
[05:23] what we're going through and the experiences we're creating along the way, the outcomes
[05:27] typically will take care of themselves. So sitting in that junior warden space and looking at the place
[05:34] you want to go, the Worshipful Masters kind of direction set, and trying to do that translation
[05:39] with the data you're getting from your body, from the systems you have access to, begins the process
[05:46] of deprogramming the poor translation of kind of vibes and emotional content to outcomes and objectives
[05:54] and lets you begin to deconstruct that stuff.
[05:58] For the next couple of days, we're going to talk just a little bit more about this and dig in just a
[06:03] touch more on how to make this make more sense. Bear with me. This isn't something you're going
[06:10] to be used to doing. This drive-by-wire kind of drive-by-gut feeling is something that we often
[06:17] discourage. But as you'll soon find out when we go through this, it's actually the best barometer
[06:23] and the best way, the best indicator that you're going to have that you're doing the right thing.
[06:28] We'll talk more tomorrow.