A Mason's Work

[00:00] So it's April and summer between January and now something went away.
[00:09] You know what I'm talking about?
[00:11] The New Year's resolution, the plan, the version of yourself you were going to be by summer.
[00:16] Maybe it was the gym membership or the diet or the number on the scale, the number in
[00:21] the bank account, all the things that you said, maybe only to yourself that you were
[00:28] going to have by this time of the year.
[00:31] On the first of the year, you start with this genuine mindset, like this strong intention.
[00:37] You weren't being performative.
[00:39] You weren't like, you know, putting a medal on your chest before you got started.
[00:44] You really meant it.
[00:46] And then February hit, then March, and now it's April.
[00:54] And while the goal might still be technically true, it's mostly a source of low grade guilt.
[01:02] And you've really got good at not looking at what you were supposed to do.
[01:08] That's one take.
[01:11] There's another one.
[01:13] It's April.
[01:15] You've hit your objective, whatever you thought it was, the number in the bank account, the
[01:19] promotion, the title, the thing you've been working for all that time, and you got it.
[01:26] And you got it.
[01:27] And the feeling that was supposed to come with it, the one that you always kind of expected
[01:32] would happen when you were planning and executing and all of that stuff, that vibe never hit.
[01:42] It didn't show up.
[01:43] You got the, gave yourself the pat on the back for just a minute and it was gone.
[01:51] And you were already looking for the next thing, already negotiating with yourself about why
[01:56] this time you beat the game.
[01:58] It didn't quite count as well as the next time you're going to beat the game.
[02:03] Both of those experiences, while having wildly different outcomes, are led by the same mechanism.
[02:11] And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago about the MacGuffin, the object in the
[02:15] story that you're so deeply convinced is important that it's actually kind of not important to
[02:22] the quest, right?
[02:23] The quest itself becomes driven to achieve this thing, whatever it is.
[02:29] The MacGuffin's goal in the films is to organize the pursuit of the thing, right?
[02:33] You got to get whatever that is.
[02:34] It's the Maltese Falcon.
[02:36] It's the, you know, Death Star plans, whatever.
[02:39] But what we don't often understand is that we create these things for ourselves.
[02:50] The beach body that you were working towards is its own type of MacGuffin.
[02:56] The resolution or the job goals or the, you know, the gold star on your vest or that one
[03:03] more ritual or that one more title or degree.
[03:07] All of these things are these objects, these objectified understandings that we create to
[03:17] try and move ourselves forward.
[03:21] But when the arrival comes, it's just not there.
[03:25] And this is important to know because it's not to suggest that these objectives that you
[03:33] create are wrong.
[03:35] It's not to say that goals aren't a good idea.
[03:38] But if the underlying intention isn't real and worth following somewhere along the way, somewhere
[03:48] on that path between what you think you want and what you get, you lose all of the stuff
[03:57] that makes it matter.
[03:58] And this is where we want to talk to a real meaningful understanding about what it means to want a thing
[04:09] versus to want a way.
[04:13] We oftentimes will want objects.
[04:17] We'll create these desires.
[04:18] And from them, we'll want the objective outcome.
[04:24] And when you don't build the things you want or your ambition or your desire around the experience
[04:35] about what you were actually trying to feel and what you want that to play out in your everyday
[04:44] experience, you never get there from here.
[04:47] That closing of that gap never happens.
[04:50] So you create these objects, these, these, you know, uh, chest metals or things like that
[04:56] with this sense that there's a vibe that's going to come with it and the vibe doesn't show up.
[05:01] And then the achievements hollow over the course of this week, we're going to explore this a little
[05:06] bit because it's, uh, it's a pervasive thing that happens when we try and make the translation
[05:12] from what we want to feel and what we end up creating.
[05:18] So over the course of this week, we'll talk more about that.
[05:21] See you tomorrow.
[05:22] Bye.
[05:23] Bye.
[05:23] Bye.