A Mason's Work

If the sort of second level or relational reflective understanding of the rough ashlar is the foundation of

charity and compassion,

the

third level of the rough ashlar is the beginning of understanding of humility.

We as we pursue the systemic

understanding of the rough ashlar at a kind of

holistic level, you come to grips very quickly with the notion that

it is the rough ashlar itself which creates the impetus for all change growth and development.

Without the imbalance of the idealized solution, the perfect ashlar and the current state,

nothing would ever progress in the world.

So we begin at a systemic level to really appreciate that

rawness or that unfinishedness in the world.

It starts to become its own form of endearing

place to find and nurture compassion and care.

The systemic rough ashlar looks around the world,

recognizes that it's not perfect,

does not advocate responsibility, so I want to be clear.

But it does kind of

bring to this understanding that everything is perfect even in its own imperfection.

This, it's like a continuous

in Eastern language we would use or in the Eastern religions we might use

like this notion of a continuously perfect mistake

where all of the tensions in the growth and development of an individual

again are emergent from the rough ashlar itself from this state of imperfection.

It is the discomfort or example of sitting on rocks on the ground that gave rise to things

like chairs. So as you start to look around the situations in your life,

you'll begin to get a much more systemic understanding of how these imperfections kind of feed

each other and how to give rise to the systems we have. This will help you become a better

change agent in the world around you as you grow. You should be able to from that systemic

understanding again, looking across the whole landscape of imperfections

with this kinder eye towards what you can change and an understanding that

the things that maybe are the symptoms of the problem aren't necessarily the places where your

effort should be better applied. It should be perhaps in causes and they may be tangential

causes or secondary or tertiary causes. And again, this just helps you with this when you have

this systemic perspective to understand where the opportunities for growth and development are

in your community, in yourself, in the people around you in such a way where

you can dress meaningful root cause as well. So again, none of this is to take away from

good project management, good problem solving skills, all that kind of stuff.

But to just understand and have compassion and sort of an emotional,

create emotional space for the imperfections of the world and how they interact

and how they give rise to the present moment.