A Mason's Work

I'm a practical in behavioral context.

When we talk about the world, we're talking in many ways about cold, hard reality.

We're talking about the difference between intent and all of the stuff that goes on,

you know, perhaps in your head or in your heart and emotional context versus the actuality

of lived experience.

We talk a lot about kind of creating these ideals in the craft.

And ideals, we think, you know, for example, one day will be rich or famous or powerful

or any of the things that we talk about one day, you know, my life will change in this

way.

And we wait for it.

But the world does not have that in mind, right?

The world itself is really just the field in which we are all working to try and figure

out the creation of our own lives.

The more of the world you kind of accept as reality without having to judge or evaluate

or interpret, the better you're going to be at creating meaningful plans.

There's tons of Masonic symbolism that can help with this once you get to an understanding

of what that reality is.

For example, you know, there's 24 hours in a day.

And the how you spent yesterday is a fact, not an idealized reality.

How you're spending this moment is in many ways a fact.

And it's a fact known only to you, which is also just kind of interesting little side

note.

But this place in which we all interact does not have for lack of a better way, say it,

an interior.

It just is.

And all of our interiors, notwithstanding, will continue to behave the same way over and

over again.

So we change how we interact with it.

And this gets to some other Masonic understanding.

But we want to talk about the behavioral components here and how we interact in the

world.

And we want to review what we're doing on a day to day basis so that we can start to create

a different reality.

Again, not in an idealized future, but in a practical one.

That is something that you can share in the terms of lived experience of other people.

There are ways that we can go about this.

Ways we can curate our behavior and create systems and operate in the world.

And the way we're going to do that is we're going to go kind of into these other spaces,

reflection, for example, your lodge, for example, and develop a plan that then gets tested

in the world.

Right.

So we need both of these things.

We need that internal place where you're going to conduct your plans or the social place

where you're going to work with others to build, you know, an idealized future together.

Or if you listened to last week's episodes on the craft, a team of people that will help

you essentially work in the world.

But we're going to want to do that internal work and then test it in the regular kind

of lived outside world.

As we do this, as we start taking that data from the world, we're going to be able to better

cultivate our plans and designs and improve in all of the things we're trying to improve

in.

As we move through this, when we get to the relational side of it tomorrow, we'll talk about how

those pieces start to fit together and meaningfully move forward for right now, for your sort

of daily look at this, look at what you are currently experiencing in the world and try

and evaluate how you have contributed to what's happening right now.

And we'll see you tomorrow.