A Mason's Work

Alright, I am fired up. Super excited. I want to talk to you today about a process I'm going to go through here over the next several episodes to pair up a Masonic symbol for each of the chapters of the book of five rings by me a mnemo msashi.

This book is absolutely amazing. In many ways it beats some of the more conventional classics in it's both its simplicity and its directness.

It does not it does not encourage you to move through a bunch of cryptic language to understand what's going on.

Instead the clear communication style and structure allows you to explore the concept and the implications of the application of that concept.

And so the first thing I want to talk about in that is the concept of from a sonic perspective of the square.

Now the square in Masonic terms reminds us to square our actions against the square of virtue. And when we talk about virtue as a concept we're not strictly talking from a moral perspective.

When we talk about virtue or something being virtuous we ascribe to it a condition and that condition is one of excellence.

So when you have virtuous behavior behavior that is consistently virtuous continues to yield excellent outcomes in general right when none of us is perfect blah blah blah blah.

So as you begin to really start to understand concepts like the content of the book of five rings one of the very first things you learn is the square as a concept is very much a cognitive.

A cognitive slicing tool.

The square will help you look at your current behavior set and evaluate what's important and what isn't it'll help you create and define what is structural in your behavior and structural in your beliefs set.

To help you achieve those higher qualities of excellence those higher standards and it will help you remove those behaviors and concepts that don't yield those excellent outcomes.

And so to just parallel it really quickly with a hypothetical example.

You can believe that your neighbor is out to get you and that that perspective offers you some relief because it helps you understand the misfortunes you're experiencing in your life or helps you give label to it.

But it is ineffective at actually remediating the problem in any meaningful way. You can't solve the problem with your neighbor by believing that they're in a conspiracy to ruin your day or your life or what have you.

And instead that belief set is actually not virtuous right it doesn't create the opportunity for excellence. So the square really does help you evaluate all of your actions and behaviors.

And in the same way the book of five rings particularly the first chapter helps you understand from a structural level what what behaviors are going to help you achieve your objective and what isn't building the foundation of your kind of life behavior belief set stuff being structural and intentional about it is really kind of the first and fundamental step both in free masonry.

And in the book of five rings because without really taking time and conducting that evaluative process to determine what excellence looks like for you relative to the situation you're in.

And then understanding what you're doing to contribute that and not contribute to that and use the Apple accordingly is really kind of like the beginning of taking these working tools and really getting a whole lot further.

Now again the the the evaluative context of the square will help you look at those behaviors and the GABA will help you remediate them in the way it's that's appropriate right so.

None of these tools are really designed to be used strictly speaking in isolation they're great for individual reflection but you use all these tools together just like everything else you don't deny yourself the access to a tool unless your current usages are somewhat compulsory or problematic but continue with the work here and I think you'll find the square has a lot more to teach us than meets the eye.