Latest / The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons / The Masonic Roundtable - 0573 - Passions

Transcript

The Masonic Roundtable - 0573 - Passions · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:22
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:25
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:31
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are
• 0:34
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the participants and do not
• 0:37
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge statements or positions.
• 0:39
  Speaker: Make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:40
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:43
  Speaker: We love seeing you live every
• 0:44
  Speaker: Thursday night in Facebook and
• 0:46
  Speaker: YouTube land.
• 0:46
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 0:48
  Speaker: And remember, your chats may
• 0:49
  Speaker: show up in the show, but they're
• 0:51
  Speaker: still fun.
• 0:52
  Speaker: And as always, if you can't
• 0:53
  Speaker: catch us live, catch us in the
• 0:54
  Speaker: replay or in your favorite
• 0:56
  Speaker: podcast app.
• 0:58
  Speaker: You know me, John T Ruark, past
• 1:00
  Speaker: master of the Patriot Lodge,
• 1:01
  Speaker: number nineteen fifty seven, in
• 1:03
  Speaker: Fairfax, Virginia.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Next up for his introduction we
• 1:06
  Speaker: have the one, the only, Jason M
• 1:09
  Speaker: Richards.
• 1:11
  Speaker: Everybody.
• 1:12
  Speaker: Jason Richards, past master of
• 1:13
  Speaker: Acacia Lodge, number sixteen in
• 1:15
  Speaker: Clifton, Virginia, and glad to
• 1:17
  Speaker: be here.
• 1:21
  Speaker: Better to be seen than viewed.
• 1:23
  Speaker: And then, uh, also, who else do we have?
• 1:25
  Speaker: We have Robert Johnson.
• 1:27
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 1:30
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:31
  Speaker: Good evening, Robert Johnson, past master Waukegan, seventy
• 1:35
  Speaker: eight and eleven eighty three, uh, current host of the Whence
• 1:40
  Speaker: Came You podcast and, um, Secretary of all things of all.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Cheers.
• 1:48
  Speaker: Cheers.
• 1:48
  Speaker: Cheers.
• 1:49
  Speaker: Current host.
• 1:52
  Speaker: Otherwise.
• 1:52
  Speaker: Oh, yeah, I shouldn't have said current host like the host, the
• 1:56
  Speaker: producer, the guy.
• 1:57
  Speaker: Yeah, I'm not going anywhere, guy.
• 1:59
  Speaker: I'm not going anywhere.
• 2:01
  Speaker: Not going anywhere.
• 2:01
  Speaker: Much to some people's chagrin.
• 2:05
  Speaker: Uh, we're not going anywhere.
• 2:07
  Speaker: Thanks to the patrons who support the show.
• 2:09
  Speaker: You guys are amazing.
• 2:10
  Speaker: Head over to Patreon.
• 2:11
  Speaker: Keep it up past twenty forty.
• 2:14
  Speaker: We'll keep doing the show.
• 2:16
  Speaker: Is that a threat?
• 2:18
  Speaker: There won't be masonry to speak of.
• 2:21
  Speaker: It could be.
• 2:22
  Speaker: It could be a threat.
• 2:22
  Speaker: You know, if you keep keep
• 2:24
  Speaker: donating, we're going to still
• 2:25
  Speaker: have funds to keep hosting this
• 2:27
  Speaker: thing.
• 2:28
  Speaker: So just be careful what you wish for.
• 2:33
  Speaker: But we appreciate it because you guys are amazing.
• 2:36
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 2:36
  Speaker: Head over to patreon dot com slash Masonic roundtable.
• 2:42
  Speaker: Hey, it's getting into fall.
• 2:45
  Speaker: Almost the holidays.
• 2:47
  Speaker: Remember every year we do a Secret Santa coming up.
• 2:53
  Speaker: Hey, for those patrons who are
• 2:55
  Speaker: registered in the Knights and
• 2:57
  Speaker: Squires tier.
• 2:59
  Speaker: Um, like you will be entered to win, you know, a special package
• 3:07
  Speaker: from one of the four of us.
• 3:11
  Speaker: Could have worded that differently, but yes, yes.
• 3:13
  Speaker: Um, yeah, you can get John's special package.
• 3:17
  Speaker: Yes.
• 3:18
  Speaker: That's where I was going with that.
• 3:21
  Speaker: Um coming up soon.
• 3:23
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:23
  Speaker: So expect to see that around Thanksgiving.
• 3:26
  Speaker: Yep.
• 3:26
  Speaker: It's a lot of fun.
• 3:28
  Speaker: Yes.
• 3:29
  Speaker: And it's like it's a lot of fun.
• 3:31
  Speaker: And it's, it's, uh, it's what do you call it?
• 3:35
  Speaker: Low effort, high reward, low effort, high yield.
• 3:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:38
  Speaker: And you know what?
• 3:39
  Speaker: Who doesn't like getting
• 3:40
  Speaker: something cool and secret in the
• 3:41
  Speaker: mail?
• 3:43
  Speaker: Well.
• 3:47
  Speaker: They like secret that you planned on.
• 3:48
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:49
  Speaker: That you play.
• 3:49
  Speaker: Okay, there we go.
• 3:52
  Speaker: It's like, sounds like a Unabomber thing.
• 3:54
  Speaker: Okay, let's get back on track and, uh, go to everyone's
• 4:00
  Speaker: favorite segment, including Joe, who's not here tonight.
• 4:03
  Speaker: That's right.
• 4:04
  Speaker: He will be.
• 4:05
  Speaker: It's tarot card of the week.
• 4:11
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 4:20
  Speaker: It never gets old.
• 4:27
  Speaker: Tonight, in honor of spooky time, we have the not spooky
• 4:31
  Speaker: tarot, but the spooky, spooky.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Love it.
• 4:36
  Speaker: Little Kawhi.
• 4:39
  Speaker: What was the name of that Kawhi style of artwork?
• 4:44
  Speaker: So cute.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Tonight we have the Page of Pentacles.
• 4:48
  Speaker: Ooh.
• 4:49
  Speaker: Okay.
• 4:50
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:52
  Speaker: Talking about material possessions.
• 4:56
  Speaker: Manifestations, maybe.
• 4:57
  Speaker: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker: New job, new opportunity.
• 5:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker: I like, I like new job because
• 5:04
  Speaker: it fits kind of what I think
• 5:05
  Speaker: about, which is like, uh, skill
• 5:07
  Speaker: development.
• 5:08
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 5:09
  Speaker: Material skill development.
• 5:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:15
  Speaker: So that, that kind of, that kind of ties into passions.
• 5:19
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 5:19
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:20
  Speaker: How do you develop those skills early as a page, as it were?
• 5:27
  Speaker: I like it.
• 5:29
  Speaker: Good tie in.
• 5:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker: All right.
• 5:33
  Speaker: Well, let's do that.
• 5:33
  Speaker: Let's flex those skill muscles as we dive into a topic that I
• 5:39
  Speaker: wanted to go into for a while, because as a young mason, like I
• 5:44
  Speaker: was one of those people that was like dissecting each word.
• 5:47
  Speaker: What, what do we say this word
• 5:49
  Speaker: instead of like plain language
• 5:51
  Speaker: here.
• 5:51
  Speaker: Um, there's got to be something about it's tradition.
• 5:54
  Speaker: The ritual.
• 5:55
  Speaker: Yes.
• 5:55
  Speaker: Because it's always been that way.
• 5:56
  Speaker: So don't change it.
• 5:58
  Speaker: Um, one of those words being passions comes up a couple times
• 6:03
  Speaker: in our ritual.
• 6:05
  Speaker: So tonight we'll explore some possible meanings, some possible
• 6:09
  Speaker: modern interpretations, and how we as Masons should or shouldn't
• 6:14
  Speaker: follow our passions.
• 6:20
  Speaker: So before we do anything to start things off, Jason.
• 6:24
  Speaker: So I think we should I mean, I think we should start by really
• 6:28
  Speaker: defining it, um, because like masonry tells you to subdue them
• 6:35
  Speaker: and circumscribe them and, you know, do all of these things to
• 6:39
  Speaker: limit your passions, but doesn't necessarily tell you what
• 6:44
  Speaker: passions are and why they need to be kept in due bounds.
• 6:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:53
  Speaker: Probably a good place to start.
• 6:55
  Speaker: I like that.
• 6:56
  Speaker: And, um, when when was the word inserted into our ritual also
• 7:03
  Speaker: makes a difference as well.
• 7:05
  Speaker: Because some words today might
• 7:07
  Speaker: mean something a little bit
• 7:08
  Speaker: different.
• 7:09
  Speaker: Charity.
• 7:10
  Speaker: And so it's good to go back and see when they were inserted.
• 7:15
  Speaker: Uh, let's, let's go to the Google dictionary.
• 7:19
  Speaker: Um, modern day use of the word passion is a very, very powerful
• 7:23
  Speaker: feeling, strong emotion or deep and intense enthusiasm for an
• 7:29
  Speaker: activity person or cause.
• 7:33
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 7:35
  Speaker: You can be passionate towards someone.
• 7:38
  Speaker: And, uh, one thing I, I get
• 7:41
  Speaker: right into is a very, very
• 7:42
  Speaker: powerful feeling, but it hasn't
• 7:46
  Speaker: Said.
• 7:47
  Speaker: Which way?
• 7:48
  Speaker: Powerful.
• 7:49
  Speaker: Positive.
• 7:50
  Speaker: Powerful.
• 7:50
  Speaker: Negative.
• 7:52
  Speaker: So that's an interesting, powerful indifference.
• 7:58
  Speaker: There's nothing like passionate
• 7:59
  Speaker: indifference, powerful
• 8:01
  Speaker: neutrality.
• 8:03
  Speaker: I have no strong opinion on this matter in either way.
• 8:07
  Speaker: Switzerland has entered the chat.
• 8:11
  Speaker: Yes.
• 8:12
  Speaker: So we see that go into the the Masonic lexicon.
• 8:17
  Speaker: Um, we have it in the Regis poem, which is thirteen ninety.
• 8:21
  Speaker: Um and the Etymology dictionary.
• 8:24
  Speaker: When you looked up passions
• 8:27
  Speaker: circa fourteen, ten ish, um they
• 8:30
  Speaker: have an entry that says um we
• 8:34
  Speaker: practice rules that, uh,
• 8:36
  Speaker: practical behavioral like don't
• 8:38
  Speaker: steal, don't fight on the job
• 8:40
  Speaker: site, don't cover covet a
• 8:42
  Speaker: brother's wife and avoid
• 8:44
  Speaker: drunkenness.
• 8:46
  Speaker: Um, we see early, uh,
• 8:49
  Speaker: speculative around seventeen
• 8:51
  Speaker: twenty three and that's in James
• 8:54
  Speaker: Anderson's constitutions.
• 8:56
  Speaker: Uh, seventeen twenty three edition.
• 8:57
  Speaker: And it introduces the moralized
• 9:00
  Speaker: rules warning the brethren
• 9:02
  Speaker: against private piques and
• 9:04
  Speaker: quarrels, malice and emotional
• 9:07
  Speaker: excess inside and outside the
• 9:10
  Speaker: lodge.
• 9:11
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 9:11
  Speaker: And then the formalization of the ritual.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Seventeen twenty two.
• 9:16
  Speaker: This is when we see the word officially tied to ritual
• 9:19
  Speaker: symbolism through William Preston and his seminal work,
• 9:23
  Speaker: illustrations of masonry.
• 9:25
  Speaker: Uh, and it's this Preston
• 9:26
  Speaker: codified the lecture system and
• 9:28
  Speaker: explicitly linked the compasses
• 9:31
  Speaker: to the now classic lesson to
• 9:33
  Speaker: circumscribe our desires and
• 9:36
  Speaker: keep our passions within due
• 9:38
  Speaker: bounds.
• 9:39
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 9:40
  Speaker: Which is why it's later adopted by Thomas, with Webb Thomas
• 9:44
  Speaker: Smith Webb in seventeen ninety seven as well.
• 9:47
  Speaker: So. So I shouldn't I shouldn't
• 9:50
  Speaker: be overflowing with desire for
• 9:52
  Speaker: Robert Johnson.
• 9:54
  Speaker: I mean, inside or outside the lodge or or look, you could it's
• 9:59
  Speaker: just, you know, I don't know.
• 10:02
  Speaker: You could you could you could do it.
• 10:06
  Speaker: Robert Johnson's Johnson.
• 10:09
  Speaker: So yeah, so I, I'm glad that you
• 10:11
  Speaker: pulled that that thread because
• 10:13
  Speaker: I was trying, I was reading my
• 10:15
  Speaker: mind.
• 10:15
  Speaker: I was going to see when was the earliest you think about Robert
• 10:19
  Speaker: Johnson's Johnson too.
• 10:20
  Speaker: I was thinking about passions
• 10:23
  Speaker: and where they are found in the
• 10:25
  Speaker: ritual.
• 10:27
  Speaker: Um, and some of the earliest, um, exposés or references.
• 10:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker: And so to go along with that, not only do those words, you
• 10:38
  Speaker: know, they, they pop up when we start codifying them.
• 10:41
  Speaker: But what I thought was really
• 10:42
  Speaker: interesting was this idea of
• 10:45
  Speaker: refinement instead of
• 10:48
  Speaker: suppression.
• 10:49
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 10:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 10:52
  Speaker: So the ritual not advocating for eliminating emotions altogether.
• 10:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 10:57
  Speaker: We're talking.
• 10:58
  Speaker: So now we're starting to get into, uh, a realm.
• 11:01
  Speaker: John does a lecture on stoicism.
• 11:04
  Speaker: Uh, rather, it urges temperance in your passions, uh, and then
• 11:10
  Speaker: emphasizes reason for the compasses and whatnot.
• 11:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker: There you go.
• 11:13
  Speaker: Temperance John's favorite symbol.
• 11:16
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 11:17
  Speaker: The circle.
• 11:18
  Speaker: You got it.
• 11:20
  Speaker: Um, going back to the etymology
• 11:24
  Speaker: of that, um, in the context of
• 11:29
  Speaker: philosophy, um, I did, did get a
• 11:33
  Speaker: reference here where the, uh,
• 11:36
  Speaker: the term passion probably came
• 11:39
  Speaker: in the in the modern context
• 11:40
  Speaker: that we know today became part
• 11:44
  Speaker: of the lexicon through the
• 11:46
  Speaker: influence of Descartes passions
• 11:47
  Speaker: of the soul in sixteen forty
• 11:49
  Speaker: nine, and became a general
• 11:52
  Speaker: tendency to see emotions as
• 11:54
  Speaker: receptive, passionate, passive
• 11:56
  Speaker: states.
• 11:57
  Speaker: And it was not the only term used to describe that, because
• 12:03
  Speaker: effect and sentiment was also used very often, as well as
• 12:08
  Speaker: perturbation and emotion.
• 12:12
  Speaker: But emotion usually meant little more than just motion.
• 12:16
  Speaker: It was the rest of the terms more represented what we would
• 12:19
  Speaker: consider emotions today.
• 12:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker: Passio suffer.
• 12:23
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 12:24
  Speaker: Acted upon things that were what
• 12:26
  Speaker: they considered raw emotional
• 12:28
  Speaker: states, uh, impulses even so
• 12:31
  Speaker: urges.
• 12:33
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 12:34
  Speaker: And so like today, somebody might have a passion for
• 12:37
  Speaker: something and we use it a lot in the term of like, uh.
• 12:40
  Speaker: Um, an enthusiastic, you know, uh, feeling about passion for
• 12:46
  Speaker: rock climbing or something like.
• 12:47
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:51
  Speaker: Which is, it's interesting
• 12:52
  Speaker: because we have even in
• 12:55
  Speaker: eighteenth century British
• 12:56
  Speaker: philosophy.
• 12:57
  Speaker: So again, albeit where Grand
• 13:00
  Speaker: Lodge of Eng was starting to be
• 13:01
  Speaker: formed in the early seventeen
• 13:02
  Speaker: hundreds.
• 13:02
  Speaker: Right.
• 13:03
  Speaker: You had um, sentiment was more
• 13:06
  Speaker: of a popular term at that time
• 13:08
  Speaker: frame.
• 13:09
  Speaker: Um so it was already being used less to describe your emotional
• 13:16
  Speaker: state or your um strong desire state, whereas sentiment was um,
• 13:22
  Speaker: um, preferably used in that term, but um, still was
• 13:29
  Speaker: interchangeable still in that time frame, um, where um,
• 13:33
  Speaker: sometimes passion indicated a raw, uncorrected emotion which
• 13:38
  Speaker: may be violent in the sense of either agitating us or being
• 13:42
  Speaker: unresponsive to reason at all.
• 13:45
  Speaker: So obviously you'd want to not have that kind of passion where
• 13:49
  Speaker: you can't reason out of it.
• 13:50
  Speaker: You, you know, you're just kind of you.
• 13:54
  Speaker: You.
• 13:54
  Speaker: Bruce Banner it.
• 13:55
  Speaker: Yes.
• 13:57
  Speaker: Way, way down into the tiny little ball into a tiny little
• 14:02
  Speaker: ball until you get an ulcer.
• 14:04
  Speaker: No, no, don't do that.
• 14:08
  Speaker: Well, you do have to.
• 14:08
  Speaker: You do have to wonder if this idea played into.
• 14:16
  Speaker: Kind of the the history of male figures, at least in America,
• 14:22
  Speaker: being taught to, to just like push their emotions to the side.
• 14:27
  Speaker: Kind of be a man.
• 14:29
  Speaker: Don't cry.
• 14:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker: Like I wonder, I wonder if this had any impact on like some of
• 14:35
  Speaker: the earlier generations around kind of shoving your emotions.
• 14:38
  Speaker: Yeah, that that's a, that's a great that's a great point.
• 14:42
  Speaker: I mean, what we're talking about today, you know, we can see
• 14:45
  Speaker: this, you know, stemming from the forties, fifties and
• 14:47
  Speaker: sixties, uh, as what we, you know, that that's sort of like
• 14:51
  Speaker: white t shirt, James Dean masculine sort of identity.
• 14:55
  Speaker: Um, and, you know, boys don't cry.
• 14:58
  Speaker: But, uh, what is so interesting about that concept is like at
• 15:03
  Speaker: the time that this stuff is written, we're talking about,
• 15:05
  Speaker: uh, eighteenth century, um, when, when we're, you know, late
• 15:09
  Speaker: eighteenth century, when these things are being introduced.
• 15:12
  Speaker: Uh, this is a time of like, you know, heavy, um.
• 15:18
  Speaker: Uh, concepts of, of, uh, social morality and what you're allowed
• 15:25
  Speaker: to do in public.
• 15:26
  Speaker: I mean, you look at, uh, the, the virtues George Washington
• 15:29
  Speaker: copies out, right?
• 15:31
  Speaker: You know, don't pick your nose
• 15:32
  Speaker: in public and all of these
• 15:34
  Speaker: things.
• 15:34
  Speaker: And amongst them is to have this
• 15:36
  Speaker: idea that you can't show any
• 15:37
  Speaker: emotion, right?
• 15:37
  Speaker: Because it does convey some sort of a sign of, of weakness.
• 15:44
  Speaker: So keep your passions within due bounds, right?
• 15:47
  Speaker: Otherwise you're not going to close the deal or something.
• 15:52
  Speaker: I think it just goes from there.
• 15:54
  Speaker: Like, you know, uh, building
• 15:56
  Speaker: into what we have today,
• 15:57
  Speaker: probably from a, um, philosophy
• 16:01
  Speaker: aspect.
• 16:02
  Speaker: I also looked at, um, there's the new new advent Catholic
• 16:06
  Speaker: Dictionary where they talk about passions at the time.
• 16:11
  Speaker: Um, and they were called
• 16:13
  Speaker: passions because they cause a
• 16:15
  Speaker: transformation of the normal
• 16:17
  Speaker: condition of the body and its
• 16:19
  Speaker: organs, which often appears
• 16:21
  Speaker: externally.
• 16:24
  Speaker: So it was, you know, these things where, um, and they're
• 16:28
  Speaker: talking kind of passions of sin, Right where you.
• 16:32
  Speaker: You give in to your your bad natures, your your bad passions,
• 16:37
  Speaker: which then show up.
• 16:39
  Speaker: You present them to the world as bad virtues.
• 16:44
  Speaker: Right.
• 16:44
  Speaker: We talked about virtue ethics, uh, last, um, last episode.
• 16:50
  Speaker: So, um, it's, it's not saying
• 16:53
  Speaker: that you can't have passions,
• 16:57
  Speaker: right?
• 16:57
  Speaker: It's just saying that, uh, if
• 16:59
  Speaker: you don't keep them in check,
• 17:02
  Speaker: like we talked about in the
• 17:03
  Speaker: Virtuous Life episode, then you
• 17:05
  Speaker: will have externalities, uh,
• 17:08
  Speaker: that are going to cause trouble
• 17:10
  Speaker: for others.
• 17:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:13
  Speaker: That reminds me of taskmaster syndrome.
• 17:19
  Speaker: Um, this kind of unchecked
• 17:21
  Speaker: passion that taskmasters have,
• 17:25
  Speaker: um, regarding lodge politics and
• 17:28
  Speaker: everything else that goes along
• 17:29
  Speaker: with it.
• 17:29
  Speaker: They are passionate.
• 17:30
  Speaker: Line, line.
• 17:31
  Speaker: Line.
• 17:32
  Speaker: Progression, squabbles.
• 17:33
  Speaker: Uh, just sort of like an irrational, rigid adherence to
• 17:39
  Speaker: things that maybe a new master wants to move away from.
• 17:42
  Speaker: And he can't keep his passions within due bounds.
• 17:45
  Speaker: And it sort of starts to come out, right?
• 17:48
  Speaker: Like you're talking about it and it affects others and it creates
• 17:51
  Speaker: a hostile environment.
• 17:53
  Speaker: Um, that or like a brother who might sort of, uh, value his,
• 18:02
  Speaker: uh, his vision for the lodge, letting it outweigh, uh, you
• 18:10
  Speaker: know, the devotion to lodge harmonies that never really been
• 18:15
  Speaker: pushing it, you know?
• 18:19
  Speaker: What about such a devotion to lodge harmony that a brother
• 18:23
  Speaker: doesn't take a stand for what's right has no passion.
• 18:28
  Speaker: Oh. That's really so that's that's that's like one of those
• 18:35
  Speaker: interesting conundrums, like, you know, subdued it too much.
• 18:39
  Speaker: Can.
• 18:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:40
  Speaker: Can an all powerful God create a
• 18:43
  Speaker: stone heavy enough that he can't
• 18:44
  Speaker: lift?
• 18:45
  Speaker: Uh, this is this one might say he would choose not to.
• 18:49
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker: So, so here we are.
• 18:53
  Speaker: We, we have this, we have this impasse where, where passion for
• 18:58
  Speaker: harmony outweighs the, the passion for right.
• 19:05
  Speaker: Or the passion to, uh, oh, man,
• 19:09
  Speaker: there's so many ways you can
• 19:10
  Speaker: dissect that.
• 19:11
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 19:12
  Speaker: You're welcome.
• 19:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:14
  Speaker: I'm not going to thank you for it because I'm going to be
• 19:15
  Speaker: thinking about it.
• 19:16
  Speaker: It's like that meme, like brain
• 19:17
  Speaker: is still awake at two a m. Can I
• 19:22
  Speaker: be too passionate about
• 19:24
  Speaker: Neutrality.
• 19:27
  Speaker: And.
• 19:28
  Speaker: Grey.
• 19:32
  Speaker: Um. Aggressive indifference.
• 19:37
  Speaker: Uh, so in the ritual, we, we use
• 19:39
  Speaker: terms like, like you've heard
• 19:40
  Speaker: already, subduing my passions,
• 19:42
  Speaker: circumscribing my desires,
• 19:44
  Speaker: keeping passions within due
• 19:46
  Speaker: bounds.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Uh, let's talk, let's pull that temperance thread a little bit.
• 19:50
  Speaker: Jason.
• 19:50
  Speaker: Um, where.
• 19:55
  Speaker: Is the goal to.
• 19:58
  Speaker: Get to know little or no passions at all?
• 20:02
  Speaker: Like what's, what's the goal here?
• 20:04
  Speaker: Or what are we taught?
• 20:07
  Speaker: So I think this is kind of the quintessential lesson of
• 20:11
  Speaker: everything in moderation.
• 20:16
  Speaker: Including moderation.
• 20:21
  Speaker: Can you can you have excessive moderation?
• 20:27
  Speaker: Perhaps.
• 20:29
  Speaker: Can you be intemperate in your intemperance?
• 20:34
  Speaker: I feel like we're not going to
• 20:36
  Speaker: get any of these questions
• 20:37
  Speaker: answered.
• 20:39
  Speaker: You've got some people are just going to get upset us.
• 20:42
  Speaker: Um, but we will remind them to
• 20:45
  Speaker: keep their passions within due
• 20:46
  Speaker: bounds toward all podcasts and
• 20:51
  Speaker: podcast hosts.
• 20:53
  Speaker: More especially this of ours.
• 20:55
  Speaker: MM. So.
• 20:59
  Speaker: Yeah, I. Yeah.
• 21:04
  Speaker: My train derailed.
• 21:06
  Speaker: So I think there's, it goes off the cliff.
• 21:10
  Speaker: So I think what I heard you
• 21:12
  Speaker: crater now what I heard you
• 21:14
  Speaker: smash into the rocks um say is
• 21:18
  Speaker: that it's the goal is to be
• 21:20
  Speaker: temperate but not gone
• 21:23
  Speaker: completely.
• 21:23
  Speaker: Right?
• 21:24
  Speaker: The goal should not be zero.
• 21:26
  Speaker: No, no. And I think like I, I think you don't want to be a
• 21:32
  Speaker: shell of a human being, right?
• 21:35
  Speaker: You want to have a fully lived,
• 21:38
  Speaker: fully human experience, but not
• 21:41
  Speaker: in a way that infringes upon the
• 21:46
  Speaker: lived experiences of those
• 21:47
  Speaker: around you.
• 21:49
  Speaker: And I think, you know, some of
• 21:52
  Speaker: what Robert talked about early
• 21:53
  Speaker: on is just this, this impact on
• 21:58
  Speaker: other people.
• 22:00
  Speaker: And, you know, I think when used
• 22:02
  Speaker: in a passions sense, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker: it can connote a deeply or
• 22:08
  Speaker: profoundly negative impact on
• 22:11
  Speaker: others.
• 22:12
  Speaker: So if you have that Hulk out moment, um, like people aren't
• 22:18
  Speaker: going to want to be around you And you know, if you're just a
• 22:24
  Speaker: crotchety old bastard in a lodge just yelling at people like
• 22:33
  Speaker: nobody wants to be around that.
• 22:35
  Speaker: Like we all know that past master where we're just like,
• 22:42
  Speaker: they are having a net negative impact on the lodge.
• 22:47
  Speaker: Like, I think that's what we're talking about.
• 22:50
  Speaker: Like we don't, we don't want yes men, but we want people who
• 22:56
  Speaker: bring culture and Grand Lodge.
• 22:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Speaker: Well, I know I'm not touching that.
• 23:04
  Speaker: For another.
• 23:06
  Speaker: It's a forty foot pole for you.
• 23:07
  Speaker: Jason, go touch that.
• 23:09
  Speaker: What's what's super interesting,
• 23:10
  Speaker: what's super interesting about
• 23:11
  Speaker: this is that often we chunk
• 23:14
  Speaker: these things into, you know,
• 23:17
  Speaker: their they're categories right
• 23:18
  Speaker: there.
• 23:19
  Speaker: Swim lanes like the four cardinal virtues.
• 23:21
  Speaker: And then you've got, uh, the things we're supposed to work on
• 23:25
  Speaker: and, and all of these things.
• 23:26
  Speaker: But what's wild is they sort of
• 23:28
  Speaker: just all play off each other,
• 23:29
  Speaker: right?
• 23:30
  Speaker: Like if we think about an
• 23:33
  Speaker: analogy, I'm king, I'm king of
• 23:35
  Speaker: stupid analogies, but, um, truly
• 23:38
  Speaker: stupid ones, nobody ever gets
• 23:39
  Speaker: them.
• 23:39
  Speaker: But maybe this one will land.
• 23:41
  Speaker: Um, like if, if an individual mason has an engine inside of
• 23:47
  Speaker: him, it's passion.
• 23:49
  Speaker: And then temperance is the governor, right?
• 23:52
  Speaker: Like if we can think about
• 23:54
  Speaker: passions, is all of your drive,
• 23:57
  Speaker: uh, in a practical sense, you
• 23:59
  Speaker: know, speaking about it
• 24:00
  Speaker: practically in a, in a modern
• 24:02
  Speaker: nomenclature, uh, you've got all
• 24:04
  Speaker: this drive, uh, charity and your
• 24:07
  Speaker: creativity and brotherhood and
• 24:09
  Speaker: everything.
• 24:09
  Speaker: And, and temperance acts as this
• 24:10
  Speaker: governor that sort of prevents
• 24:12
  Speaker: our engine from overheating,
• 24:14
  Speaker: from burnout.
• 24:15
  Speaker: And then eventually, like what happens to an engine that
• 24:18
  Speaker: continually overheats, right?
• 24:19
  Speaker: It seizes up, it's dead.
• 24:21
  Speaker: It's done.
• 24:22
  Speaker: So in that same way, we can think about it.
• 24:25
  Speaker: Um, how these and then going back to the idea that these
• 24:29
  Speaker: things all connect, right.
• 24:30
  Speaker: Like, like passion and
• 24:33
  Speaker: temperance and, you know, pick,
• 24:37
  Speaker: pick your other Masonic words,
• 24:39
  Speaker: tenets and cardinal virtues and
• 24:41
  Speaker: you can sort of connect them all
• 24:42
  Speaker: and how they, you know, they,
• 24:44
  Speaker: they drive and connect to each
• 24:46
  Speaker: other.
• 24:47
  Speaker: There's a, there's a part in one of the lectures, uh, where we
• 24:50
  Speaker: refer to the manual, the pedal, the pectoral kind of thing.
• 24:53
  Speaker: And in that same lecture, we
• 24:55
  Speaker: were making these logical
• 24:57
  Speaker: connections to these different
• 24:59
  Speaker: parts.
• 25:00
  Speaker: Uh, and I think it, it, maybe
• 25:02
  Speaker: that's something that should be
• 25:03
  Speaker: explored a little bit more is
• 25:05
  Speaker: sort of the roadmap that's going
• 25:07
  Speaker: on there.
• 25:08
  Speaker: Um, you know, when we think about, uh, the passions and then
• 25:13
  Speaker: we've got temperance and then how do we get rid of the things
• 25:17
  Speaker: that are pushing us too passionately, like maybe the
• 25:20
  Speaker: common gavel, right?
• 25:21
  Speaker: Um, that's sort of removes vices and superfluities, uh, maybe
• 25:26
  Speaker: something that it potentially acts negatively upon our
• 25:31
  Speaker: temperance, uh, which because our passions are so great for
• 25:36
  Speaker: that thing, you know, it is a wild sort of web that it weaves,
• 25:41
  Speaker: but the brilliance is in that it all makes perfect sense, uh,
• 25:46
  Speaker: when viewed together.
• 25:48
  Speaker: And, you know, as we're talking about it now, it is a difficult
• 25:51
  Speaker: sort of topic to talk about.
• 25:53
  Speaker: Uh, and as Jason said, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker: people are going to be mad
• 25:55
  Speaker: because we're just asking
• 25:56
  Speaker: questions.
• 25:57
  Speaker: But that's, that's the name of the game.
• 26:00
  Speaker: I mean, passions is a philosophical topic.
• 26:03
  Speaker: So. Oh, Joe mobile mobile.
• 26:06
  Speaker: Joe mobile.
• 26:07
  Speaker: Joe Glary eyed Joe.
• 26:09
  Speaker: Oh, uh, so just the reflection.
• 26:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker: And so you hit a couple things.
• 26:15
  Speaker: Um, you should have passion, right?
• 26:17
  Speaker: Um, we want to have entered
• 26:19
  Speaker: apprentices to have zeal for the
• 26:20
  Speaker: fraternity, right?
• 26:21
  Speaker: We want them to be zealous and passionate in their endeavors.
• 26:26
  Speaker: Be industrious.
• 26:27
  Speaker: Um, you know, we want hard workers in the lodge.
• 26:31
  Speaker: So there's a balance there.
• 26:34
  Speaker: Um, so patients can be a good thing.
• 26:38
  Speaker: And, uh, I'll let Joe chime in if he wants.
• 26:43
  Speaker: I'll give him a breath of fresh
• 26:45
  Speaker: air to hop in and, um, talk
• 26:49
  Speaker: about passions.
• 26:52
  Speaker: If you want.
• 26:53
  Speaker: If not, no big deal.
• 26:58
  Speaker: Hello?
• 26:59
  Speaker: Hello.
• 27:00
  Speaker: Hi. Are you doing your passions tonight?
• 27:04
  Speaker: Uh, no. Well, actually, no. Uh, we were at a table Lodge.
• 27:08
  Speaker: Me and, uh, Brother Henry over here.
• 27:10
  Speaker: Hi. Um, he is my DH for the evening so I, yes, I am my
• 27:14
  Speaker: passions to uh, drive myself home tonight so that good job.
• 27:25
  Speaker: So we have slurring Joe.
• 27:27
  Speaker: That's good.
• 27:28
  Speaker: All right.
• 27:29
  Speaker: Um, well while he, uh, reconnects the, the other thing
• 27:33
  Speaker: I thought about too, when I was thinking about this episode was
• 27:37
  Speaker: there's a, there's a line from an old Chris Rock bit that he
• 27:40
  Speaker: did back in the late nineties where he says, like, you really
• 27:45
  Speaker: haven't been in love.
• 27:48
  Speaker: Like really, really in love with someone.
• 27:51
  Speaker: Um, if you haven't ever had that moment, like I could just smack
• 27:55
  Speaker: the crap out of him, right?
• 27:58
  Speaker: Because, um, being passionately
• 28:01
  Speaker: in love and passionate in an
• 28:05
  Speaker: opposite reaction.
• 28:07
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 28:07
  Speaker: There's, there's, uh, Psychology to back this up.
• 28:10
  Speaker: Jason.
• 28:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Speaker: That, um, haven't ever wanted to strike my partner, but okay,
• 28:15
  Speaker: it's it's a comedy bit.
• 28:17
  Speaker: Don't take it literal.
• 28:18
  Speaker: Okay.
• 28:18
  Speaker: But, um, it's just saying Sam Kinison.
• 28:22
  Speaker: No, no, it's an old Chris Rock bit.
• 28:24
  Speaker: Anyway, um, but he's saying
• 28:26
  Speaker: that, um, if, if you've been
• 28:29
  Speaker: neutral towards your partner,
• 28:30
  Speaker: then you, your, your highs and
• 28:33
  Speaker: your lows are at equal
• 28:35
  Speaker: amplitude, uh, based off of the
• 28:40
  Speaker: passion meter.
• 28:42
  Speaker: Right.
• 28:42
  Speaker: So, um, if you're really close
• 28:46
  Speaker: friends with someone like you
• 28:47
  Speaker: can have some really heated
• 28:48
  Speaker: arguments because you care,
• 28:51
  Speaker: right?
• 28:51
  Speaker: If you didn't care, then you just brush them off.
• 28:54
  Speaker: So there that it's just saying that passions, while they can be
• 28:58
  Speaker: good or bad, right?
• 29:00
  Speaker: It's the definition just means a strong emotion or opinion on, on
• 29:05
  Speaker: a person or cause.
• 29:06
  Speaker: But, um, it can, it can also
• 29:09
  Speaker: imply that like there's a, you
• 29:13
  Speaker: can have, um, a, a strong
• 29:17
  Speaker: indication for either one of
• 29:18
  Speaker: those.
• 29:20
  Speaker: And like we talked about with, with the virtues, you can be too
• 29:24
  Speaker: charitable because you're giving your own shirt off your back and
• 29:27
  Speaker: then you're cold.
• 29:28
  Speaker: Right?
• 29:28
  Speaker: So there's always the negative side of even a good passion.
• 29:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:33
  Speaker: And you need discipline for a negative passion.
• 29:36
  Speaker: For example, one thing that's we've struggled here, I think a
• 29:39
  Speaker: little bit is that passions is such a broad topic that we, um,
• 29:46
  Speaker: it's, it's sort of abstract because it's so large.
• 29:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:50
  Speaker: And I, I was, as you guys were
• 29:52
  Speaker: talking about it, I started
• 29:53
  Speaker: picking up these little
• 29:55
  Speaker: compartmentalised versions of
• 29:57
  Speaker: passions.
• 29:58
  Speaker: So like, if we talk about passions of, uh, of the body,
• 30:04
  Speaker: you know, appetites.
• 30:06
  Speaker: And, uh, whether those are, you
• 30:08
  Speaker: know, physical vices or sexual
• 30:10
  Speaker: vices.
• 30:11
  Speaker: You know, I shouldn't say sexual vices.
• 30:12
  Speaker: That's not a thing, really.
• 30:13
  Speaker: Um, but, you know, sexual sexual impulses or, um, you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker: gluttony, physical impulses.
• 30:20
  Speaker: But then we've also got sort of, um, ego driven passions.
• 30:24
  Speaker: You know, title seekers and, and things of that nature that we
• 30:27
  Speaker: see, you know, we do see quite a bit in masonry.
• 30:31
  Speaker: Um, and then we also have
• 30:32
  Speaker: passions of, of like ideological
• 30:36
  Speaker: passions where people are, um,
• 30:39
  Speaker: sort of, maybe they're very well
• 30:42
  Speaker: rounded everywhere else, but
• 30:44
  Speaker: they're, they fall into a
• 30:46
  Speaker: category of fanaticism, um,
• 30:49
  Speaker: which, you know, rigid dogma or,
• 30:53
  Speaker: um, you know, like there are
• 30:58
  Speaker: these different aspects of
• 31:00
  Speaker: passions that we have all these
• 31:05
  Speaker: ways to all these things to
• 31:06
  Speaker: contend with.
• 31:08
  Speaker: You know, it's not just passions, right?
• 31:12
  Speaker: There's there's there's subtle levels to it.
• 31:17
  Speaker: No, that's a good point.
• 31:19
  Speaker: Um, because I have kind of a trick question near the end, but
• 31:23
  Speaker: I'll save that for later.
• 31:24
  Speaker: Um, the, the point within a circle.
• 31:27
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:27
  Speaker: We talk about that and using those compasses to keep our
• 31:31
  Speaker: passions within due bounds.
• 31:33
  Speaker: Um. How do you guys interpret that.
• 31:39
  Speaker: Keeping passions within due bounds, specifically with by the
• 31:42
  Speaker: application of the compasses.
• 31:46
  Speaker: Or the point within the circle, the compasses make the circle.
• 31:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 31:51
  Speaker: And so you want to be at a certain point within that.
• 31:55
  Speaker: And so the due bounds are the you know, the extent past the
• 32:00
  Speaker: three hundred and sixty degrees of of the circle.
• 32:06
  Speaker: Practically.
• 32:08
  Speaker: Um. I kind of see that circle as, you know, that circle
• 32:15
  Speaker: borders everyone else.
• 32:20
  Speaker: And if you extend past that
• 32:22
  Speaker: extent, you actually move into
• 32:26
  Speaker: encroach upon someone else's
• 32:28
  Speaker: circle.
• 32:29
  Speaker: My liberty ends where your liberty begins.
• 32:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Speaker: And it's not, it's not like a perfect construct.
• 32:37
  Speaker: But, you know, I'm, I'm big about, you know.
• 32:45
  Speaker: Not verging on the inalienable
• 32:49
  Speaker: rights of others, etc. so go be
• 32:54
  Speaker: crazy.
• 32:54
  Speaker: Except I extend that, try to extend that to all people, go
• 32:57
  Speaker: break stuff, but just don't hurt anybody else or their property
• 33:01
  Speaker: or anything like that.
• 33:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:04
  Speaker: I think you try to be genuinely good to everybody you meet and.
• 33:12
  Speaker: That's got to be enough.
• 33:14
  Speaker: And you have to reign in stuff that you would otherwise want to
• 33:17
  Speaker: do, or reign in desires or urges that you have.
• 33:22
  Speaker: And that's a follow up question, right, is to truly be good.
• 33:25
  Speaker: Do you bring those compasses in?
• 33:27
  Speaker: Do you tighten that circle or or when does your circle drift out?
• 33:32
  Speaker: Robert.
• 33:34
  Speaker: This is where I'm having sort of an interesting thought process
• 33:39
  Speaker: around the idea of the moveable jewels and the immovable jewels.
• 33:46
  Speaker: Uh, we often sort of, uh, people
• 33:50
  Speaker: will be like, oh, the, the
• 33:51
  Speaker: compasses have to be at this
• 33:54
  Speaker: opening.
• 33:55
  Speaker: Mark.
• 33:56
  Speaker: Uh, you know, in some jurisdictions, the compasses are
• 33:59
  Speaker: the square, plumb and level or, you know, movable jewels.
• 34:04
  Speaker: And in that sort of in that analogy, we're often thinking
• 34:10
  Speaker: about, okay, the point is the individual brother and the
• 34:13
  Speaker: compasses circumscribe and keep us within due bounds.
• 34:17
  Speaker: But the question I have is, as a non-fixed jewel.
• 34:24
  Speaker: When does the when does when does the circle expand?
• 34:29
  Speaker: Like when, when does that happen?
• 34:32
  Speaker: And I feel like there's this idea of.
• 34:40
  Speaker: The circle can expand when the duty to humanity arises, right?
• 34:48
  Speaker: There has to.
• 34:49
  Speaker: When something, when something.
• 34:51
  Speaker: Uh. A lot.
• 34:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 34:56
  Speaker: That was the question.
• 34:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 34:58
  Speaker: When do you go outside of that circle?
• 35:00
  Speaker: And I'll think I'll pull the thread because I think my answer
• 35:04
  Speaker: was going to be exactly where you were going.
• 35:06
  Speaker: Um is it is it always right to
• 35:11
  Speaker: keep your passions within due
• 35:12
  Speaker: bounds?
• 35:14
  Speaker: Um, what if you have a duty for
• 35:16
  Speaker: justice or relief, right where
• 35:21
  Speaker: you, you need to go above and
• 35:24
  Speaker: beyond.
• 35:25
  Speaker: Um.
• 35:26
  Speaker: Right.
• 35:27
  Speaker: And the, the, what is that?
• 35:29
  Speaker: I feel like that falls into a different category.
• 35:33
  Speaker: Well, is that, you know, keeping my passions within due bounds is
• 35:37
  Speaker: an excuse for apathy, right?
• 35:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:40
  Speaker: That's that's what we're trying to avoid, right.
• 35:42
  Speaker: We want to keep our irregular passions and, and then expanding
• 35:46
  Speaker: the circle in times of crisis.
• 35:49
  Speaker: Right.
• 35:51
  Speaker: I love it.
• 35:52
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 35:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker: So we tend to think of it just
• 35:56
  Speaker: in terms of checking yourself,
• 36:00
  Speaker: right as Masons right before you
• 36:02
  Speaker: wreck yourself.
• 36:03
  Speaker: I have to find that I have to find this quote.
• 36:05
  Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to hit you up in a minute.
• 36:06
  Speaker: I gotta find this quote while you say this.
• 36:08
  Speaker: And then, um, but the compasses can be opened up as well.
• 36:13
  Speaker: And so I think, yeah, back to the point of we're not trying to
• 36:16
  Speaker: eliminate all passions.
• 36:17
  Speaker: Uh, we're trying to tame our
• 36:18
  Speaker: passions and have the wisdom to
• 36:21
  Speaker: know when do we apply temperance
• 36:25
  Speaker: or not?
• 36:25
  Speaker: You know, when do we apply prudence or.
• 36:28
  Speaker: Sorry, um, you know, justice or not?
• 36:33
  Speaker: All right.
• 36:34
  Speaker: So I found this.
• 36:34
  Speaker: I found this quote and it's,
• 36:36
  Speaker: it's sort of abstract, but I
• 36:37
  Speaker: think I think it works, which is
• 36:39
  Speaker: it says if the point is a fire
• 36:43
  Speaker: or the passion and the circle is
• 36:45
  Speaker: a hearth around it, expanding
• 36:47
  Speaker: the hearth allows you to build a
• 36:49
  Speaker: bigger fire.
• 36:50
  Speaker: When you expand your capacity for self control, You don't
• 36:53
  Speaker: extinguish the fire.
• 36:54
  Speaker: You give yourself room to burn
• 36:56
  Speaker: brighter without setting the
• 36:57
  Speaker: house ablaze.
• 36:59
  Speaker: MM. MM. MM. So it hits.
• 37:07
  Speaker: In an interesting way.
• 37:09
  Speaker: When I read it before, it was better.
• 37:10
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 37:12
  Speaker: No, I'll dig it.
• 37:14
  Speaker: That's a that's a perfect example of.
• 37:16
  Speaker: You're still constraining it.
• 37:18
  Speaker: You're still setting boundaries.
• 37:21
  Speaker: Uh, but you are doing it, uh, with malice aforethought, right?
• 37:27
  Speaker: You're doing it intentionally
• 37:28
  Speaker: instead of, uh, emotionally or
• 37:31
  Speaker: rationally.
• 37:32
  Speaker: I guess that's the best way to think of it.
• 37:35
  Speaker: Um, there's some good questions in the chat too.
• 37:37
  Speaker: Let's see.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Um, uh oh, brother Chad Kopinski John Scherer jr uh, definitely
• 37:45
  Speaker: seems like it's a concerted effort to make a distinction
• 37:47
  Speaker: between us and animals.
• 37:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 37:51
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 37:52
  Speaker: I think that's a large aspect of our ability to use.
• 37:57
  Speaker: Reason why we have morality is that we have we have the, the
• 38:03
  Speaker: ability to think these these more abstract things.
• 38:10
  Speaker: But, you know, uh, man measures
• 38:15
  Speaker: things through the things that
• 38:17
  Speaker: he's invented to measure things,
• 38:19
  Speaker: right?
• 38:20
  Speaker: So, you know, there could be
• 38:24
  Speaker: order in his favorite species of
• 38:26
  Speaker: cat.
• 38:28
  Speaker: His cats might rule the world.
• 38:30
  Speaker: He doesn't know it.
• 38:32
  Speaker: We don't know.
• 38:33
  Speaker: I'm good with that.
• 38:37
  Speaker: Uh, Steve says, you know, passions or desires for
• 38:40
  Speaker: pleasures of the flesh or just desire in general, uh, seem to
• 38:44
  Speaker: be a big sin in religion.
• 38:45
  Speaker: So I'll abstract that a bit to
• 38:48
  Speaker: say, inasmuch as they hurt other
• 38:57
  Speaker: people.
• 38:59
  Speaker: Back.
• 38:59
  Speaker: Back to you.
• 39:00
  Speaker: My, my freedom ends where yours begins.
• 39:02
  Speaker: Um. But where I was.
• 39:05
  Speaker: What I was trying to pull the thread here on that one was
• 39:08
  Speaker: about, um, desire.
• 39:13
  Speaker: Right.
• 39:13
  Speaker: Um, you know, you take the
• 39:15
  Speaker: Buddhist view of to end all
• 39:16
  Speaker: suffering.
• 39:17
  Speaker: End desire.
• 39:19
  Speaker: Or if we're trying to temper it, then are we supposed to reduce
• 39:24
  Speaker: our desires, our irregular desires, and then therefore find
• 39:28
  Speaker: a little bit more peace, a regular to according to whom?
• 39:34
  Speaker: Your moral compass.
• 39:39
  Speaker: Oh, we don't have time to go into.
• 39:44
  Speaker: We're not prescribing versus relativism.
• 39:47
  Speaker: That's correct.
• 39:48
  Speaker: But we we do have each brother
• 39:50
  Speaker: has their own moral compass
• 39:52
  Speaker: that, uh, they should be
• 39:54
  Speaker: following.
• 39:56
  Speaker: And it's the application of that
• 39:57
  Speaker: moral compass that is what
• 40:00
  Speaker: limits their passions for
• 40:03
  Speaker: themselves.
• 40:04
  Speaker: For themselves.
• 40:06
  Speaker: Yes.
• 40:07
  Speaker: It is not prescribed.
• 40:08
  Speaker: Don't.
• 40:09
  Speaker: Don't go and apply your moral compass.
• 40:12
  Speaker: No. I'm supposed to put my compass around you.
• 40:15
  Speaker: I'm supposed to apply my compass to Robert.
• 40:19
  Speaker: Why are you guys holding
• 40:21
  Speaker: yourself and others to my
• 40:22
  Speaker: standard?
• 40:23
  Speaker: You guys are failing my standard.
• 40:25
  Speaker: Stop sounding like a Grand Lodge officer.
• 40:27
  Speaker: Day in, day out.
• 40:29
  Speaker: Because I interpret it this way.
• 40:31
  Speaker: That's the way it is.
• 40:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:35
  Speaker: Unfortunately, we just don't have.
• 40:39
  Speaker: I'm not sure we have an answer for that yet.
• 40:42
  Speaker: You know, the the collective subjective equals the objective.
• 40:45
  Speaker: So. Who knows?
• 40:51
  Speaker: It's all about data, right?
• 40:55
  Speaker: Say more.
• 40:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:57
  Speaker: You get one person's moral compass.
• 41:03
  Speaker: Yeah, that's one data point.
• 41:05
  Speaker: But if you have moral compasses from millions of persons, where
• 41:12
  Speaker: do where do those data points sort of connect?
• 41:14
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:14
  Speaker: It's like a plot point graph.
• 41:15
  Speaker: Like when you take those things,
• 41:17
  Speaker: it's like, you know, what's what
• 41:19
  Speaker: quadrant of the four square
• 41:21
  Speaker: political spectrum?
• 41:23
  Speaker: Where are you?
• 41:24
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:24
  Speaker: It's data point.
• 41:26
  Speaker: Where do we see us?
• 41:28
  Speaker: And those data points, the points are colors red and blue,
• 41:32
  Speaker: maybe green and yellow.
• 41:35
  Speaker: But the quadrants are like they
• 41:38
  Speaker: almost hurt your feelings
• 41:40
  Speaker: because it's like, I care about
• 41:42
  Speaker: people.
• 41:43
  Speaker: I care about the economy.
• 41:45
  Speaker: Um, like all of those things, right?
• 41:47
  Speaker: And then you find yourself in an area where you're like, I do I
• 41:49
  Speaker: care more about people.
• 41:50
  Speaker: Push me over there.
• 41:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:52
  Speaker: Just nudge that dot over.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker: So yeah, passions can certainly
• 41:57
  Speaker: be defined, uh, relative to, you
• 42:01
  Speaker: know, a given society's moral
• 42:03
  Speaker: compass.
• 42:04
  Speaker: You know, when he asked or when he made the mention of, of
• 42:08
  Speaker: passions and sexual, you know, sexual nature type stuff.
• 42:13
  Speaker: And you mentioned that Jason said, you know, it depends on or
• 42:17
  Speaker: not depends on.
• 42:17
  Speaker: But the, you know, if it if it hurts somebody.
• 42:20
  Speaker: And what I find interesting about that is like, that is very
• 42:23
  Speaker: much how it is today, but eighteenth century, seventeenth
• 42:29
  Speaker: century, sixteen, it's nothing but a complete.
• 42:37
  Speaker: Erasure of any sort of outward Sexuality.
• 42:43
  Speaker: You know, think about those
• 42:44
  Speaker: those things people wore around
• 42:46
  Speaker: their necks.
• 42:47
  Speaker: And, uh, you know, there's not, there's people didn't talk
• 42:51
  Speaker: about, uh, those, those types of things on the regular.
• 42:55
  Speaker: I mean, until you get to the Victorian era where it starts to
• 42:58
  Speaker: get a little.
• 43:00
  Speaker: Wonky.
• 43:03
  Speaker: I gotta chew on that one.
• 43:05
  Speaker: It's cool.
• 43:06
  Speaker: I'm not sure where you were going with that one.
• 43:09
  Speaker: Robert.
• 43:09
  Speaker: I'm sorry.
• 43:09
  Speaker: Oh, no, no, no, I was just saying.
• 43:11
  Speaker: So you had mentioned when they
• 43:13
  Speaker: were talking about, um, when our
• 43:15
  Speaker: brother asked about passion for
• 43:17
  Speaker: desire.
• 43:17
  Speaker: Pleasure, flesh seems to be a big sin in religion.
• 43:20
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:20
  Speaker: And you equate that with sexuality.
• 43:24
  Speaker: And when earlier you had
• 43:26
  Speaker: mentioned something about, uh,
• 43:29
  Speaker: ensuring that the, you know,
• 43:31
  Speaker: those passions in that arena
• 43:35
  Speaker: would be things that, you know,
• 43:38
  Speaker: the over passion in that arena
• 43:40
  Speaker: would be potentially harmful to
• 43:42
  Speaker: somebody.
• 43:43
  Speaker: Maybe I misheard you.
• 43:45
  Speaker: Yeah, I wasn't, so I wasn't
• 43:47
  Speaker: connecting that with sexual
• 43:49
  Speaker: passions.
• 43:49
  Speaker: Oh, okay.
• 43:51
  Speaker: I was, I was thinking more like,
• 43:53
  Speaker: you know, like my past master
• 43:56
  Speaker: example of like, you know,
• 43:59
  Speaker: you're very passionate, you feel
• 44:02
  Speaker: all the emotions and you use
• 44:04
  Speaker: those emotions to verbally abuse
• 44:07
  Speaker: the candidate.
• 44:08
  Speaker: Ah, right.
• 44:09
  Speaker: Gotcha.
• 44:10
  Speaker: That is, that is passions that need to be reined in because
• 44:14
  Speaker: otherwise they're causing damage to another person.
• 44:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:18
  Speaker: It's like, um, related.
• 44:21
  Speaker: Uh, brother Chad.
• 44:22
  Speaker: Two for two.
• 44:23
  Speaker: Um, power should be tempered by wisdom, but you need both.
• 44:27
  Speaker: So the will to act, along with knowing how and when to act are
• 44:32
  Speaker: passions the same way?
• 44:33
  Speaker: Um, because we just talked about
• 44:35
  Speaker: having, um, zeal for the
• 44:38
  Speaker: institution, and yet being too
• 44:41
  Speaker: zealous can rub people the wrong
• 44:43
  Speaker: way.
• 44:43
  Speaker: Can look as like electioneering or campaigning.
• 44:47
  Speaker: They can be harmful.
• 44:49
  Speaker: So absolutely.
• 44:50
  Speaker: Um, there's, there's an answer that's somewhere in the middle.
• 44:53
  Speaker: I think we don't talk about that enough.
• 44:54
  Speaker: We talk about subduing the passions.
• 44:56
  Speaker: Um, but I don't think we do a good job of.
• 45:04
  Speaker: Instructing men that it's okay to, um, to have both, uh, power
• 45:12
  Speaker: and mercy, but you have to find that balance in the middle.
• 45:19
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Speaker: I also think about this idea of tempered wisdom, the will to and
• 45:24
  Speaker: the will to act.
• 45:25
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:26
  Speaker: I, I often like, I equate it
• 45:27
  Speaker: with, um, you know, maybe you're
• 45:29
  Speaker: very passionate about something
• 45:31
  Speaker: and you see something happen and
• 45:33
  Speaker: you have the will to act, But
• 45:38
  Speaker: can you temper that will to a
• 45:40
  Speaker: point where you are, uh,
• 45:43
  Speaker: restraint.
• 45:44
  Speaker: You show a restraint like you're not going to knock somebody out.
• 45:50
  Speaker: You're going to, you know, speak
• 45:53
  Speaker: firmly or take care of the
• 45:54
  Speaker: issue.
• 46:00
  Speaker: No. I'm taking it.
• 46:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:06
  Speaker: I'm I'm just thinking of, of balance.
• 46:08
  Speaker: I'm thinking of like, uh, like
• 46:11
  Speaker: the Kabbalistic tree where you
• 46:13
  Speaker: have two different pillars,
• 46:15
  Speaker: right?
• 46:15
  Speaker: And you're trying to stay within the pillars.
• 46:17
  Speaker: You're trying not to stay within the circle.
• 46:19
  Speaker: Now you're staying within the pillars.
• 46:21
  Speaker: And those become the parallel
• 46:24
  Speaker: lines, which you have to stay
• 46:25
  Speaker: between.
• 46:27
  Speaker: Um, because too much of anything is a bad thing.
• 46:32
  Speaker: It's too much.
• 46:33
  Speaker: Joe.
• 46:33
  Speaker: Too much.
• 46:34
  Speaker: Joe.
• 46:35
  Speaker: No bueno.
• 46:36
  Speaker: That's why I've only been on in snippets.
• 46:40
  Speaker: You subdued your passions, I
• 46:41
  Speaker: love it, I did, and I made it
• 46:43
  Speaker: home.
• 46:44
  Speaker: Good.
• 46:46
  Speaker: And you're handsome.
• 46:47
  Speaker: Handsome?
• 46:49
  Speaker: Devilishly.
• 46:50
  Speaker: So.
• 46:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 46:52
  Speaker: You guys are not subduing your your lust.
• 46:55
  Speaker: Keep it in check.
• 46:57
  Speaker: Before we wrap up, Jo, um.
• 46:58
  Speaker: Your thoughts?
• 47:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:00
  Speaker: Great show.
• 47:01
  Speaker: Um, everything was spot on.
• 47:05
  Speaker: Um.
• 47:06
  Speaker: Yes.
• 47:06
  Speaker: No, uh, I really wish I was here for that.
• 47:08
  Speaker: Uh, a lot of I, I caught everything, uh, even though my
• 47:12
  Speaker: Wi-Fi wouldn't let me join.
• 47:13
  Speaker: Um, yeah, I think this is
• 47:16
  Speaker: probably something we can, uh,
• 47:18
  Speaker: appeal into and talk about a lot
• 47:19
  Speaker: more.
• 47:20
  Speaker: Um, because I don't think we do
• 47:22
  Speaker: it enough as masons, you know,
• 47:23
  Speaker: it's all.
• 47:24
  Speaker: Oh, this symbol, that symbol.
• 47:25
  Speaker: But we don't actually take the,
• 47:27
  Speaker: the value sets that we learn
• 47:29
  Speaker: and.
• 47:30
  Speaker: Oh, hey, what's up buddy?
• 47:32
  Speaker: Um, we don't take the value sets
• 47:33
  Speaker: that we learned and then apply
• 47:35
  Speaker: them to how we live as human
• 47:36
  Speaker: beings, right?
• 47:37
  Speaker: It's all just aprons and lapel pins and green beans, which I
• 47:40
  Speaker: had tonight, begrudgingly.
• 47:42
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 47:43
  Speaker: So, but yeah, I, I, I love the
• 47:45
  Speaker: topic and wish we did more of
• 47:47
  Speaker: it.
• 47:47
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 47:48
  Speaker: Well, let's segue to final
• 47:51
  Speaker: Thought, which is do you subdue
• 47:53
  Speaker: your passions still to this day
• 47:55
  Speaker: after your many years of
• 47:56
  Speaker: amazing, uh, Joe's giving me a
• 47:59
  Speaker: clear indicator.
• 47:59
  Speaker: He does not.
• 48:00
  Speaker: But, um, if so, where do you see
• 48:06
  Speaker: yourself trying to apply, uh,
• 48:09
  Speaker: restraint or constraint in
• 48:12
  Speaker: subduing your passions even
• 48:14
  Speaker: today?
• 48:15
  Speaker: Or if you've got it all solved
• 48:16
  Speaker: and figured out, let me know the
• 48:17
  Speaker: secret.
• 48:20
  Speaker: So let's start with Jason.
• 48:23
  Speaker: I try very hard not to complain about lodge dinners this year.
• 48:32
  Speaker: And so instead of.
• 48:40
  Speaker: I was making a joke.
• 48:41
  Speaker: Love you buddy.
• 48:43
  Speaker: Love you too, buddy.
• 48:44
  Speaker: Um, no. Um, I think.
• 48:52
  Speaker: You know, where where I try to
• 48:55
  Speaker: do my passions in masonry is,
• 48:57
  Speaker: um.
• 49:04
  Speaker: I tried to be respectful of.
• 49:09
  Speaker: You know, organizations that,
• 49:12
  Speaker: um, you know, I don't jive well
• 49:16
  Speaker: with.
• 49:17
  Speaker: There are a lot of appendant bodies of masonry.
• 49:19
  Speaker: They're not all for me.
• 49:20
  Speaker: Um, and that's okay.
• 49:22
  Speaker: Well, the question also includes
• 49:24
  Speaker: non-masonic like, how are you
• 49:26
  Speaker: doing your passions in the
• 49:28
  Speaker: world?
• 49:29
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker: That's not just in Lodge, are you?
• 49:33
  Speaker: Are you still applying it?
• 49:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker: No, um, I'm looking for the magic answer.
• 49:38
  Speaker: So the magic answer, um, one of us has to be genuinely good to
• 49:47
  Speaker: everyone I meet.
• 49:48
  Speaker: And that.
• 49:52
  Speaker: Involves a lot of me thinking bad things and telling myself
• 49:56
  Speaker: I'm an idiot and, uh, not following it up with something
• 50:02
  Speaker: that escapes my mouth.
• 50:06
  Speaker: It's a good thing.
• 50:08
  Speaker: It's a good thing.
• 50:10
  Speaker: How about you, Robert?
• 50:13
  Speaker: How are you subduing your passions?
• 50:16
  Speaker: Man, I think I'm doing okay with it.
• 50:20
  Speaker: Um, but it's only because
• 50:23
  Speaker: continually adjusting, uh, with
• 50:29
  Speaker: daily reflections.
• 50:31
  Speaker: Um, I think about within the lodge.
• 50:35
  Speaker: I think about not, I'm not super overly passionate about anything
• 50:41
  Speaker: in lodge as long.
• 50:43
  Speaker: And that's to the credit of the brothers I sit in lodge with
• 50:48
  Speaker: nobody is, you know, pushing any sort of agenda any way.
• 50:53
  Speaker: We've got a great group.
• 50:54
  Speaker: Right.
• 50:55
  Speaker: But where I struggle masonically or where I used to struggle
• 50:58
  Speaker: Masonically was in the digital Masonic spaces, um, subduing a
• 51:03
  Speaker: passion for, you know, online commentaries, uh, flame wars on
• 51:09
  Speaker: Grand lodge jurisdiction pages.
• 51:12
  Speaker: Um, a long, long time ago, you'd
• 51:14
  Speaker: get caught up defending the
• 51:16
  Speaker: craft on social media from
• 51:17
  Speaker: people who thought we were
• 51:18
  Speaker: lizard people and things
• 51:20
  Speaker: generally.
• 51:21
  Speaker: Today I find myself in the the
• 51:25
  Speaker: largest area that I find I have
• 51:27
  Speaker: to subdue.
• 51:27
  Speaker: My passion is public political debate.
• 51:33
  Speaker: Uh, I'm at a point in my life where I just, I, I care, but I
• 51:39
  Speaker: don't care what.
• 51:42
  Speaker: Like is whatever.
• 51:43
  Speaker: Like, I'll just tell you how I feel about something I don't
• 51:46
  Speaker: really care about.
• 51:48
  Speaker: Uh, if you're going to, if I say what I say is going to ruffle
• 51:51
  Speaker: your feathers, like that's okay.
• 51:53
  Speaker: You can say what you're going to say.
• 51:54
  Speaker: It's not going to ruffle my feathers, right?
• 51:56
  Speaker: It's this idea that right now we
• 51:59
  Speaker: have a world that's thriving on,
• 52:00
  Speaker: on outrage, and we have
• 52:02
  Speaker: tribalism and all of these
• 52:03
  Speaker: things.
• 52:05
  Speaker: So online, at least, I really try to subdue my passion there
• 52:10
  Speaker: and not take the bait, you know what I'm saying?
• 52:15
  Speaker: Um, and, and that's hard
• 52:17
  Speaker: sometimes, but, uh, we've got
• 52:19
  Speaker: great brothers out there who
• 52:22
  Speaker: will send me a text or send me a
• 52:25
  Speaker: PM and they'll be like, don't do
• 52:27
  Speaker: it.
• 52:28
  Speaker: Like, okay, I won't.
• 52:30
  Speaker: I'll walk away.
• 52:31
  Speaker: So your other brothers are applying your compasses on you.
• 52:35
  Speaker: Okay, good.
• 52:35
  Speaker: My other brothers are practicing whispering good counsel.
• 52:40
  Speaker: And I thank God for those brothers.
• 52:43
  Speaker: You know, like I don't I'm not out to make anybody upset.
• 52:47
  Speaker: That's not what I want to do.
• 52:49
  Speaker: Right?
• 52:49
  Speaker: That's contrary to what masonry teaches.
• 52:52
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 52:54
  Speaker: Brother Joe, uh, the question
• 52:55
  Speaker: for you is, when will you start
• 52:57
  Speaker: subduing your fantastic final
• 53:01
  Speaker: question?
• 53:01
  Speaker: Thank you, Brother John.
• 53:03
  Speaker: Um, yeah, no, I loved everybody's responses.
• 53:06
  Speaker: I think for me, I, I do struggle with subduing my passions
• 53:09
  Speaker: because my first reaction in, in life, at work and lodge is to
• 53:15
  Speaker: just get right out there and say the thing or do the thing that's
• 53:19
  Speaker: on my mind.
• 53:20
  Speaker: Um, so showing restraint for me is something that I've learned.
• 53:24
  Speaker: Uh, I try to as often as possible, um, but I think it's
• 53:29
  Speaker: always going to be a struggle for me because as much as I
• 53:31
  Speaker: don't want to, I still care about a lot of things, right?
• 53:36
  Speaker: I care about, um, my work life.
• 53:39
  Speaker: I care about my home life, I
• 53:41
  Speaker: care about, I still care about
• 53:42
  Speaker: Lodge, right?
• 53:42
  Speaker: Even though I was, you know, eighteen times a past master and
• 53:46
  Speaker: I should be exhausted by it.
• 53:47
  Speaker: Now, I still care about these things.
• 53:49
  Speaker: So the more I care, the the
• 53:51
  Speaker: harder it is for me to subdue my
• 53:53
  Speaker: passions.
• 53:54
  Speaker: Um, so I think for me, it's
• 53:56
  Speaker: going to be a lifelong journey,
• 53:57
  Speaker: unfortunately.
• 53:58
  Speaker: Um, but I try and, you know, I, I give myself a pat on the back
• 54:04
  Speaker: for making the attempt.
• 54:06
  Speaker: So be the change.
• 54:09
  Speaker: Be the change, baby.
• 54:11
  Speaker: Nice.
• 54:13
  Speaker: Uh, let's see.
• 54:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 54:15
  Speaker: Um, as for me, I try to do it.
• 54:19
  Speaker: Uh, stoicism has helped.
• 54:20
  Speaker: Um, brother Scott has a banger of a comment.
• 54:23
  Speaker: I've learned in my older age not
• 54:25
  Speaker: to let anything upset me if I
• 54:27
  Speaker: have no control over that thing
• 54:30
  Speaker: or situation.
• 54:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 54:32
  Speaker: And boy, what glorious appellation to attain.
• 54:38
  Speaker: Like to get to right.
• 54:39
  Speaker: Like that's so liberating.
• 54:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 54:42
  Speaker: Oh, and I fail miserably quite a bit.
• 54:45
  Speaker: But yet it's the wisdom to know
• 54:46
  Speaker: the difference of what those
• 54:48
  Speaker: things are that you could just
• 54:50
  Speaker: let go.
• 54:51
  Speaker: Have you ever played the game called is it stoicism or the
• 54:54
  Speaker: pills I'm on?
• 54:58
  Speaker: No, but I'm willing to try.
• 55:00
  Speaker: So that's a good one.
• 55:01
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 55:02
  Speaker: So it's this is one that I think
• 55:05
  Speaker: I was more passionate to coin a
• 55:08
  Speaker: term about this episode where
• 55:11
  Speaker: we're not trying to become
• 55:14
  Speaker: robots, we're not trying to
• 55:14
  Speaker: become fully stoic in the
• 55:17
  Speaker: negative sense.
• 55:18
  Speaker: The Stoics were full of emotions themselves, and it was.
• 55:22
  Speaker: When do we apply it in the right situation?
• 55:24
  Speaker: When do we balance our duty to
• 55:28
  Speaker: stay within the bounds and to
• 55:30
  Speaker: stay, and to go outside of the
• 55:31
  Speaker: bounds for just causes, for
• 55:33
  Speaker: those things that we are truly
• 55:35
  Speaker: passionate about?
• 55:36
  Speaker: We're only on the earth for a limited amount of time.
• 55:39
  Speaker: We only have a limited amount of energy.
• 55:41
  Speaker: And so we should be passionate.
• 55:42
  Speaker: We should absolutely be
• 55:43
  Speaker: passionate for those things
• 55:44
  Speaker: that, you know, make us better
• 55:47
  Speaker: and make society and human
• 55:50
  Speaker: nature better.
• 55:51
  Speaker: So take that for what it's worth.
• 55:53
  Speaker: This has been a fun episode, and
• 55:55
  Speaker: I want to thank you all very
• 55:56
  Speaker: much for watching and keep
• 55:58
  Speaker: searching for more like, have a
• 55:59
  Speaker: good night.
• 56:00
  Speaker: Wow.
• 56:03
  Speaker: Wow.
• 56:05
  Speaker: Be the change.