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The Masonic Roundtable - 0563 - Followers or Thinkers · 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
• 0:33
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• 0:34
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• 0:35
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• 0:36
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge or
• 0:38
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• 0:39
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• 0:43
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  Speaker: So hello and good evening!
• 0:48
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• 0:53
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• 0:57
  Speaker: You know me, John Ruark, past
• 0:59
  Speaker: master of the Patriot Lodge,
• 1:00
  Speaker: number nineteen fifty seven in
• 1:02
  Speaker: Fairfax, Virginia.
• 1:03
  Speaker: And who else do we have tonight?
• 1:05
  Speaker: We have Jason M Richards.
• 1:08
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 1:12
  Speaker: And you're on mute and my mic is muted.
• 1:16
  Speaker: Jason Richards, past master of
• 1:17
  Speaker: Acacia Lodge, number sixteen in
• 1:19
  Speaker: Clifton, Virginia.
• 1:20
  Speaker: Glad to be here.
• 1:21
  Speaker: Woo.
• 1:22
  Speaker: And last but not least for now, because Joe decided to break his
• 1:26
  Speaker: phone at the last minute.
• 1:28
  Speaker: Robert Johnson Yeah, I mean, uh,
• 1:32
  Speaker: I'll do anything to get out of
• 1:34
  Speaker: the show.
• 1:34
  Speaker: He just threw it on the ground.
• 1:35
  Speaker: Literally anything.
• 1:36
  Speaker: He threw it on the ground.
• 1:38
  Speaker: Literally.
• 1:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker: Robert Johnson, uh, past master
• 1:42
  Speaker: stuff and things, uh, host of
• 1:43
  Speaker: the podcast, happy to be here
• 1:45
  Speaker: this evening to talk about this
• 1:48
  Speaker: wonderful topic.
• 1:50
  Speaker: More to come.
• 1:51
  Speaker: Woo.
• 1:52
  Speaker: All right.
• 1:53
  Speaker: As usual, giving extra love to
• 1:55
  Speaker: the patrons who support the
• 1:56
  Speaker: show.
• 1:57
  Speaker: You guys are amazing.
• 1:57
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• 1:59
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• 2:01
  Speaker: education for many years to come, or until twenty forty,
• 2:06
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• 2:10
  Speaker: Roundtable and beat the odds.
• 2:12
  Speaker: Beat the spread.
• 2:13
  Speaker: We could do this.
• 2:14
  Speaker: We got this.
• 2:17
  Speaker: I'm not saying the fate of Freemasonry is in your hands.
• 2:21
  Speaker: Is that, like, flattening the curve?
• 2:23
  Speaker: Yes.
• 2:23
  Speaker: It's two weeks to flatten the curve.
• 2:26
  Speaker: That's all it takes.
• 2:27
  Speaker: Just two weeks.
• 2:28
  Speaker: That's two weeks.
• 2:31
  Speaker: Patreon dot com slash Masonic roundtable.
• 2:34
  Speaker: Woo!
• 2:36
  Speaker: All right.
• 2:36
  Speaker: And then we also have Joe's favorite topic that he's going
• 2:42
  Speaker: to miss because Joe's being Joe.
• 2:45
  Speaker: That is a tarot card of the week.
• 2:48
  Speaker: You're not bitter at all about that.
• 2:49
  Speaker: Not at all.
• 2:50
  Speaker: Rub it in.
• 2:51
  Speaker: Rub it in.
• 2:52
  Speaker: Joe.
• 2:55
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 3:04
  Speaker: We should call him up right now and just tell him what the tarot
• 3:06
  Speaker: card is of the week.
• 3:08
  Speaker: Yeah, there we go.
• 3:09
  Speaker: Um, so I picked this deck specifically for Joe.
• 3:13
  Speaker: This is the new choice.
• 3:16
  Speaker: Tarot de Marseille.
• 3:18
  Speaker: Ooh, it's very sparkly.
• 3:22
  Speaker: It is sparkly.
• 3:24
  Speaker: Like our personality.
• 3:26
  Speaker: Are the cards sparkly?
• 3:28
  Speaker: Um, the cards are nice.
• 3:33
  Speaker: And we have the.
• 3:37
  Speaker: Hardly dressed Knight of swords.
• 3:42
  Speaker: Wow, look at that.
• 3:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:46
  Speaker: Knight of swords.
• 3:47
  Speaker: Always the action card.
• 3:49
  Speaker: So we're talking about followers or thinkers.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Is this guy a follower or is this guy a thinker?
• 3:56
  Speaker: I. I would imagine as these swords deal with intellect, I
• 4:04
  Speaker: think he's a fast thinker.
• 4:07
  Speaker: He is action oriented.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Yes.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Yes.
• 4:10
  Speaker: Driven to succeed.
• 4:12
  Speaker: Succeed.
• 4:14
  Speaker: Um, I think it's interesting to note that particular card.
• 4:17
  Speaker: I know we don't ever focus on
• 4:19
  Speaker: reverse cards too much because
• 4:21
  Speaker: whatever.
• 4:22
  Speaker: Um.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Wait.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Sucks.
• 4:24
  Speaker: Um. But I think in Pentacles and not Pentacles.
• 4:31
  Speaker: That's right.
• 4:32
  Speaker: I think in masonry though, uh,
• 4:34
  Speaker: it is something to, to be aware
• 4:36
  Speaker: of in terms of the Knight of
• 4:37
  Speaker: Swords.
• 4:38
  Speaker: On occasion I've driven, I've, uh, taken that card and I sort
• 4:44
  Speaker: of said, well, what is, what does it mean if it is inverted?
• 4:47
  Speaker: And I, I, it looked like burnout, you know.
• 4:52
  Speaker: So yeah, I think for if you're in any sort of order, a cult,
• 4:58
  Speaker: Masonic, whatever, you know, be mindful of your burnout.
• 5:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:04
  Speaker: If you rush into everything,
• 5:06
  Speaker: you're going to be burned out of
• 5:08
  Speaker: everything.
• 5:09
  Speaker: That's true.
• 5:10
  Speaker: Now, I have a question for you guys.
• 5:11
  Speaker: When you do your average pool, do you do reversed or not?
• 5:17
  Speaker: Um, I, I typically don't.
• 5:24
  Speaker: Because one could argue there's
• 5:25
  Speaker: enough balance in positive and
• 5:28
  Speaker: negative cards.
• 5:30
  Speaker: I think someone did, did some sort of layout or some analysis
• 5:34
  Speaker: years ago and said it's, it's, I think it's ten tending toward
• 5:38
  Speaker: more positive than negative, but I think it was, um, I think it
• 5:44
  Speaker: was Mitch Horowitz when I was talking to him at Esoteric Con a
• 5:50
  Speaker: couple of years back.
• 5:51
  Speaker: I think he was the one who said he doesn't read reversed.
• 5:56
  Speaker: I'm like, you know what?
• 5:59
  Speaker: It's good enough for Mitch.
• 6:02
  Speaker: Yeah, I mean, leather jackets and all of that aside.
• 6:06
  Speaker: No I'm kidding.
• 6:07
  Speaker: I love Mitch.
• 6:07
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 6:09
  Speaker: Reverse cards.
• 6:10
  Speaker: Although you could say that, uh, by doing a reverse card, uh, you
• 6:15
  Speaker: are sort of forced to find the good in a situation or.
• 6:19
  Speaker: The good news is that you.
• 6:21
  Speaker: Have you pulled a card that ostensibly means something is a
• 6:28
  Speaker: warning, maybe negative.
• 6:30
  Speaker: And the good news is you recognized it.
• 6:34
  Speaker: So there's that.
• 6:36
  Speaker: I'm a reversed guy because, you know, there's always like the
• 6:40
  Speaker: other side of the coin, right?
• 6:42
  Speaker: The other, the other side of the story.
• 6:44
  Speaker: Because you could have even the sun, right?
• 6:46
  Speaker: You could have someone who's
• 6:47
  Speaker: super happy and bubbly but could
• 6:49
  Speaker: be annoying to other people,
• 6:50
  Speaker: right?
• 6:50
  Speaker: You're like, hey, maybe you need
• 6:52
  Speaker: to tone down your your optimism
• 6:54
  Speaker: a little.
• 6:55
  Speaker: You're starting to like, give people sweet tooth.
• 6:58
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 7:01
  Speaker: All right.
• 7:02
  Speaker: Cavities.
• 7:03
  Speaker: We give people cavities.
• 7:04
  Speaker: That's right.
• 7:05
  Speaker: Um, where'd Robert go?
• 7:08
  Speaker: I think it's his computer crashed.
• 7:10
  Speaker: That'll be fun.
• 7:12
  Speaker: Cool.
• 7:13
  Speaker: Well, let's keep rolling.
• 7:14
  Speaker: Uh, tonight's topic should be fun.
• 7:17
  Speaker: I think this was actually Robert's topic in the backlog.
• 7:21
  Speaker: Does masonry produce followers or thinkers?
• 7:28
  Speaker: So tonight we will look at the outcomes and outputs of the
• 7:33
  Speaker: Masonic system that we have and do some analysis to determine
• 7:38
  Speaker: between, um, followers or thinkers or both.
• 7:44
  Speaker: What type of results Does Mason reproduce and why?
• 7:51
  Speaker: So, Robert, since this was your
• 7:53
  Speaker: topic, do you want to elaborate
• 7:54
  Speaker: on that?
• 7:56
  Speaker: It's going to be the question
• 7:57
  Speaker: what type of masonry produces
• 7:59
  Speaker: what.
• 8:00
  Speaker: Ooh that's a that's a great question.
• 8:05
  Speaker: Uh, as we traverse the topic.
• 8:08
  Speaker: So this, this comes up all the time.
• 8:10
  Speaker: And I feel like, uh, whether it is, uh, in a practical sense,
• 8:15
  Speaker: practical masonry or reading or, you know, you can take it all
• 8:19
  Speaker: the way back to, uh, people love that article, including myself.
• 8:23
  Speaker: I love that article by, uh, by, uh, Mackey, uh, Masons who read
• 8:28
  Speaker: and Masons who don't read, um, in which he's talking about
• 8:32
  Speaker: Masons who consider themselves to be informed, uh, when in fact
• 8:38
  Speaker: they've never read a Masonic book, yada, yada, yada.
• 8:41
  Speaker: And the argument there, I
• 8:43
  Speaker: suppose, is that's the first
• 8:44
  Speaker: step in sort of internalizing
• 8:47
  Speaker: some of the the teachings of
• 8:49
  Speaker: masonry, whether whether you get
• 8:50
  Speaker: that from a book or, you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker: learning from it in a lecture or
• 8:54
  Speaker: in a lodge or expanding on any
• 8:57
  Speaker: of the number of, of, of the
• 8:59
  Speaker: degrees and the philosophies
• 9:01
  Speaker: they contain.
• 9:02
  Speaker: Are you choosing to actively pursue those tenants and those,
• 9:12
  Speaker: those charges, if you will?
• 9:14
  Speaker: Or are you sort of you got them and you understand that?
• 9:20
  Speaker: Oh, yeah, I'm being asked to do these things.
• 9:22
  Speaker: And it's just sort of assumed that throughout your life, being
• 9:25
  Speaker: a good person, you are naturally gravitating toward, uh, this
• 9:31
  Speaker: sort of good behaviors.
• 9:33
  Speaker: But in actuality, it requires a sort of a cognizant moment where
• 9:38
  Speaker: you have to say, wait a second, do I do those things?
• 9:44
  Speaker: Uh, do I do these things?
• 9:47
  Speaker: Like, uh, uh, classic example,
• 9:51
  Speaker: uh, you know, people say, oh,
• 9:54
  Speaker: the charges are not the
• 9:55
  Speaker: obligation.
• 9:55
  Speaker: Well, I think they're equally as binding.
• 9:57
  Speaker: But anyway, uh, not to say
• 9:59
  Speaker: anything about those gentlemen,
• 10:01
  Speaker: but there are parts of the
• 10:02
  Speaker: charge in each degree where you
• 10:05
  Speaker: are told like you should be, uh,
• 10:07
  Speaker: as, uh, how about as an
• 10:11
  Speaker: individual, you are charged to
• 10:13
  Speaker: practice the domestic and public
• 10:14
  Speaker: virtue, like temperance and
• 10:16
  Speaker: fortitude.
• 10:16
  Speaker: Support prudence, direct and justice.
• 10:18
  Speaker: Be the guide in all of your things.
• 10:20
  Speaker: Oh, that sounds so wonderful and flowery.
• 10:23
  Speaker: I assume if I'm never going to think about that, I just assume
• 10:26
  Speaker: maybe I do those things.
• 10:27
  Speaker: Or maybe they're just language.
• 10:30
  Speaker: Uh, but I feel like the thinking.
• 10:34
  Speaker: Mason.
• 10:36
  Speaker: Um, I don't want to say like the real Mason.
• 10:39
  Speaker: I'm not going to be that that uh, egregious?
• 10:42
  Speaker: No true Scotsman would say that, Robert.
• 10:45
  Speaker: No. True Scotsman.
• 10:48
  Speaker: But you do have to at least admit that without taking those
• 10:58
  Speaker: elements, putting them into some way that you can understand, and
• 11:03
  Speaker: then asking yourself if you are actively pursuing those goals,
• 11:08
  Speaker: those tenets, those things that are being asked of you, are you
• 11:15
  Speaker: truly being a Mason?
• 11:19
  Speaker: And I think that's, that's where
• 11:20
  Speaker: the that's where the argument
• 11:22
  Speaker: comes in.
• 11:23
  Speaker: Um, now, of course, uh, there's
• 11:27
  Speaker: the artwork you created for the
• 11:29
  Speaker: show.
• 11:29
  Speaker: Um, seems like very, it could go either way.
• 11:34
  Speaker: Right.
• 11:35
  Speaker: But, and I don't want to disparage the, the non thinker,
• 11:39
  Speaker: the non practicer.
• 11:42
  Speaker: Maybe I could just say I hope to.
• 11:44
  Speaker: In this episode I hope we can, uh, inspire.
• 11:51
  Speaker: Well, I think we, you know, I think we can do that, you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker: by, by offering that by offering up, you know, I think arguments
• 12:01
  Speaker: in favor of both paths, right.
• 12:06
  Speaker: Like if, right, if masonry is about making good men better,
• 12:14
  Speaker: who are role models than part of the Masonic experience as being
• 12:20
  Speaker: a follower of those role models.
• 12:24
  Speaker: So like, it's not, it's, it's the yin and yang there.
• 12:29
  Speaker: Solid point.
• 12:30
  Speaker: You can't you can't be all
• 12:32
  Speaker: thinking or you're just an
• 12:34
  Speaker: asshole.
• 12:35
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 12:36
  Speaker: And you know, you can't be following without thinking
• 12:41
  Speaker: because then you're just sheep.
• 12:43
  Speaker: So that is a wonderful point
• 12:47
  Speaker: that that should have been my
• 12:49
  Speaker: final thought.
• 12:52
  Speaker: I glazed over that.
• 12:53
  Speaker: But you are absolutely correct.
• 12:55
  Speaker: You know, I think there's
• 12:56
  Speaker: there's a great argument for
• 12:57
  Speaker: some guys out there who will say
• 12:59
  Speaker: like, oh, well, how do we become
• 13:01
  Speaker: better men?
• 13:02
  Speaker: And in the thinkers of the group, you know, we'll say
• 13:07
  Speaker: something like, uh, by practicing what we talk about.
• 13:11
  Speaker: Um, and then there's other folks who say things like, well,
• 13:14
  Speaker: simply being around other people of high quality sort of
• 13:19
  Speaker: influence you and can influence.
• 13:20
  Speaker: And that's true too, right?
• 13:21
  Speaker: We osmosis.
• 13:23
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:24
  Speaker: I the, the whole virtue by osmosis.
• 13:27
  Speaker: Yes.
• 13:28
  Speaker: You are the average of the five
• 13:29
  Speaker: people you hang around with the
• 13:30
  Speaker: most.
• 13:30
  Speaker: Right?
• 13:31
  Speaker: Damn.
• 13:32
  Speaker: I'm screwed.
• 13:33
  Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker: Uh, so when I was in us.
• 13:44
  Speaker: We've asked him to ask permission before.
• 13:47
  Speaker: Oh, geez.
• 13:48
  Speaker: Um, so when I was thinking about this episode, uh, because this
• 13:51
  Speaker: is, this is a. A topic that makes you, like, really ponder.
• 13:56
  Speaker: What does that mean?
• 13:58
  Speaker: And I was really thinking a lot
• 14:01
  Speaker: more about the, what does
• 14:04
  Speaker: masonry produce?
• 14:06
  Speaker: Um, because I tend to default to a type of thinking called
• 14:13
  Speaker: systems thinking, right?
• 14:15
  Speaker: Where like when you look at the whole, like what?
• 14:19
  Speaker: Um, the inputs and outputs, right?
• 14:22
  Speaker: Those are, those are fine, but
• 14:23
  Speaker: like, what does the entire
• 14:25
  Speaker: system produce?
• 14:27
  Speaker: Right?
• 14:27
  Speaker: Because you, for example, you
• 14:30
  Speaker: could have excellent ritual, but
• 14:31
  Speaker: horrible, like festive boards,
• 14:33
  Speaker: right.
• 14:34
  Speaker: or horrible dinners, right.
• 14:35
  Speaker: Or you could have brothers who love coming to lodge.
• 14:39
  Speaker: Never hang out outside a lodge.
• 14:41
  Speaker: Right?
• 14:41
  Speaker: And so the system has optimized parts, but weak other parts.
• 14:48
  Speaker: And so for we've all, you know, if you watched any of our
• 14:52
  Speaker: episodes, you know, we talk about like these, these great,
• 14:54
  Speaker: you know, Masonic ideals and, you know, ideals, experiences.
• 15:00
  Speaker: And so related to that, that big systems thinking view.
• 15:06
  Speaker: Another quote comes to mind that
• 15:07
  Speaker: a system gets the results it was
• 15:11
  Speaker: designed for.
• 15:13
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 15:15
  Speaker: Or I've also heard it say a
• 15:16
  Speaker: system gets the results it
• 15:18
  Speaker: deserves.
• 15:19
  Speaker: Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker: So what does that mean?
• 15:20
  Speaker: That means that like, hey, why,
• 15:23
  Speaker: why do I keep sleeping in every
• 15:25
  Speaker: morning?
• 15:25
  Speaker: Well, because you just don't set
• 15:27
  Speaker: your alarm and you're not, and
• 15:28
  Speaker: you're doomscrolling at two a m,
• 15:30
  Speaker: you know, if you change that,
• 15:32
  Speaker: then you'll probably wake up on
• 15:35
  Speaker: time.
• 15:36
  Speaker: And so you can't blame like some people only see the results and
• 15:41
  Speaker: don't think about all the myriad of steps before then.
• 15:45
  Speaker: The system that got to that end state.
• 15:48
  Speaker: And we we as Westerners, love to
• 15:50
  Speaker: just look at the end state and
• 15:51
  Speaker: say, we need to fix the end
• 15:53
  Speaker: state without thinking about the
• 15:55
  Speaker: chain of events and activities
• 15:58
  Speaker: that led to the domino effect of
• 16:02
  Speaker: the output.
• 16:04
  Speaker: If you want a really cool way to see systems thinking and action
• 16:08
  Speaker: or lack thereof, um, look up the beer game by Peterson.
• 16:15
  Speaker: Uh, s e n g e um, Peter Senge,
• 16:20
  Speaker: uh, brilliant author who did a
• 16:24
  Speaker: lot of thought leadership and
• 16:26
  Speaker: systems thinking.
• 16:27
  Speaker: He, he essentially at his
• 16:30
  Speaker: retreats, um, to which I've
• 16:35
  Speaker: attended um or one of which I've
• 16:37
  Speaker: attended.
• 16:38
  Speaker: Uh, they essentially, uh, he
• 16:40
  Speaker: lays out a game where, um, you
• 16:45
  Speaker: essentially take the role of a
• 16:47
  Speaker: brewery and a distributor and it
• 16:52
  Speaker: shows systemically how
• 16:56
  Speaker: disruptions and pivots in the
• 16:58
  Speaker: supply chain, you know, have
• 17:01
  Speaker: reverberating impacts.
• 17:03
  Speaker: If you don't understand the
• 17:06
  Speaker: systems that are pulled
• 17:07
  Speaker: together.
• 17:09
  Speaker: Um, and the systems that depend
• 17:10
  Speaker: on each other or in Robert's
• 17:13
  Speaker: terms, right.
• 17:13
  Speaker: What's the lean six Sigma?
• 17:14
  Speaker: What's the lean for, for masonry, right.
• 17:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker: Not many lean Masons know.
• 17:21
  Speaker: We, we don't quote Brian Winston to quote Brian Simmons.
• 17:27
  Speaker: Uh, we love making good men better, but not healthy facts.
• 17:35
  Speaker: Very true.
• 17:36
  Speaker: It happens.
• 17:37
  Speaker: Or an anonymous call.
• 17:39
  Speaker: Mason I was talking to a decade ago.
• 17:41
  Speaker: Masonry makes good men bitter.
• 17:46
  Speaker: Uh, yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker: That too.
• 17:50
  Speaker: So that's how I'm going to view
• 17:52
  Speaker: the lens of tonight's episode,
• 17:53
  Speaker: right?
• 17:53
  Speaker: Is the system view.
• 17:55
  Speaker: Um, because the next question
• 17:58
  Speaker: becomes, well, what does masonry
• 18:03
  Speaker: build?
• 18:03
  Speaker: What does masonry provide?
• 18:06
  Speaker: What is masonry product?
• 18:08
  Speaker: Right.
• 18:09
  Speaker: And if you ask Grand Lodge and I
• 18:11
  Speaker: have heard this come out that,
• 18:14
  Speaker: well, I've heard this come out
• 18:15
  Speaker: of the, uh, the Grand Lodge of
• 18:19
  Speaker: Virginia's.
• 18:20
  Speaker: I can't remember who in the grand line said it, but, um, we
• 18:24
  Speaker: won't name names.
• 18:25
  Speaker: We'll get fifteen years.
• 18:26
  Speaker: That's true.
• 18:26
  Speaker: Fifteen years or so ago, um,
• 18:29
  Speaker: they said that the product of a
• 18:32
  Speaker: blue lodge is to create more
• 18:33
  Speaker: masons.
• 18:36
  Speaker: What gets measured, gets managed.
• 18:38
  Speaker: Oh, tell me more about that, because I love that idea.
• 18:43
  Speaker: So what does that mean looking at.
• 18:47
  Speaker: Metrics, you know, OKRs, you know, KPIs.
• 18:54
  Speaker: You know, you're looking at
• 18:55
  Speaker: indicators of performance and
• 18:57
  Speaker: how you can quantitatively
• 18:59
  Speaker: measure, um, progress toward a
• 19:04
  Speaker: given goal.
• 19:05
  Speaker: You know, what you, what you
• 19:07
  Speaker: decide to measure is going to
• 19:12
  Speaker: consume the lion's share of your
• 19:16
  Speaker: focus.
• 19:17
  Speaker: And so if you decide that the number of Masons in your grand
• 19:24
  Speaker: Jurisdiction is the way that you view success or quantify success
• 19:35
  Speaker: as a grand lodge.
• 19:37
  Speaker: You will put every effort into managing that number of Masons
• 19:44
  Speaker: to get that output.
• 19:45
  Speaker: Yep.
• 19:45
  Speaker: Hello?
• 19:46
  Speaker: One day.
• 19:46
  Speaker: Conferrals.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Right.
• 19:48
  Speaker: That's the first thing I came roaring the bark.
• 19:50
  Speaker: Get in.
• 19:51
  Speaker: Right.
• 19:51
  Speaker: Like, I don't think I'm saying anything terribly shocking.
• 19:56
  Speaker: Um, you know, we've we've all
• 20:00
  Speaker: been part of grand jurisdictions
• 20:02
  Speaker: that have kind of ratcheted back
• 20:04
  Speaker: on like the catechism
• 20:06
  Speaker: requirements and things like
• 20:07
  Speaker: that.
• 20:08
  Speaker: And it's, it's with this kind of
• 20:10
  Speaker: boresighted vision of we must
• 20:13
  Speaker: manage our key metric of
• 20:15
  Speaker: success.
• 20:18
  Speaker: Super interesting too.
• 20:20
  Speaker: I mean.
• 20:23
  Speaker: We've also been in the
• 20:24
  Speaker: fraternity long enough, I don't
• 20:26
  Speaker: want to say lived long enough to
• 20:27
  Speaker: see, but we have seen some
• 20:29
  Speaker: really interesting, uh, pushback
• 20:33
  Speaker: against things like the lowering
• 20:36
  Speaker: of the bar and, uh, the one day
• 20:41
  Speaker: conferrals and things by
• 20:42
  Speaker: jurisdictions that I just never
• 20:46
  Speaker: thought in a million years would
• 20:47
  Speaker: be the one to advocate for the,
• 20:51
  Speaker: you know, the antithesis of
• 20:53
  Speaker: these ideas.
• 20:54
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 20:54
  Speaker: Um, I can recall one grand
• 20:57
  Speaker: master saying, uh, master's
• 21:02
  Speaker: class is an innovation and that
• 21:04
  Speaker: we should pull recognition from
• 21:05
  Speaker: all jurisdictions who do one day
• 21:08
  Speaker: classes.
• 21:10
  Speaker: Bold strategy.
• 21:11
  Speaker: Cotton.
• 21:12
  Speaker: It was a bold strategy.
• 21:14
  Speaker: Strategy.
• 21:15
  Speaker: Uh, I had also seen something, uh, from that same jurisdiction
• 21:21
  Speaker: where somebody said that they should pull jurisdiction from,
• 21:29
  Speaker: um, all jurisdictions that, uh, discriminate versus, you know,
• 21:36
  Speaker: on any number of, uh, you know, human qualities, uh, which I
• 21:43
  Speaker: also heard when that person said that certain grand lodges got up
• 21:48
  Speaker: and left the room.
• 21:50
  Speaker: I know exactly what you're referencing.
• 21:53
  Speaker: So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's looking at you.
• 21:56
  Speaker: Tennessee.
• 21:58
  Speaker: Well, maybe, uh, but yeah, so, so, so we've got like this kind
• 22:02
  Speaker: of idea of, of, uh, the thinking, uh, and maybe the
• 22:07
  Speaker: thinking version of stuff is, is putting it in a, in a, a higher
• 22:14
  Speaker: sort of skin in the game, uh, camp and, and maybe the
• 22:19
  Speaker: following, element of this is sort of lowering the the
• 22:25
  Speaker: qualifications of somebody coming in and simply saying,
• 22:29
  Speaker: hey, I mean, all you got to do is follow the thing.
• 22:32
  Speaker: Uh, you don't necessarily have to do all this other stuff.
• 22:36
  Speaker: Uh, but also, as I started to
• 22:40
  Speaker: describe that, I said, you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker: there's, there's a religious
• 22:42
  Speaker: practice that comes to mind with
• 22:44
  Speaker: that also.
• 22:45
  Speaker: Um, but I'll steer clear of that.
• 22:49
  Speaker: But look, it's Joe.
• 22:50
  Speaker: Hey, Joe.
• 22:51
  Speaker: Hi. Joe Martinez.
• 22:53
  Speaker: You may remember me from such films as.
• 22:57
  Speaker: Oh, those are not for, uh, not
• 23:00
  Speaker: till after eleven p m. Beach
• 23:03
  Speaker: Blanket, ninety five TMR after
• 23:06
  Speaker: dark.
• 23:07
  Speaker: What's, uh.
• 23:08
  Speaker: What were those?
• 23:09
  Speaker: Wants to see that.
• 23:10
  Speaker: What are those?
• 23:11
  Speaker: Worse than, uh, like after Sharknado came out, they had,
• 23:13
  Speaker: like, Veloci pastor.
• 23:15
  Speaker: Oh, that's a good one.
• 23:16
  Speaker: Yeah, they had a whole bunch of other ones.
• 23:18
  Speaker: Sharknado six.
• 23:20
  Speaker: One of my favorite was Carnosaur that came out in the nineties.
• 23:24
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 23:26
  Speaker: What are we talking about?
• 23:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:29
  Speaker: You know, movies now.
• 23:31
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 23:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker: What were we talking about?
• 23:36
  Speaker: We were just about ready to go deeper on, uh.
• 23:43
  Speaker: How does masonry create followers?
• 23:46
  Speaker: Let's start there.
• 23:48
  Speaker: We're going to we're going to
• 23:49
  Speaker: stay on the follower track right
• 23:50
  Speaker: now.
• 23:51
  Speaker: So how do we create followers
• 23:53
  Speaker: followed by how do we create
• 23:54
  Speaker: thinkers?
• 23:55
  Speaker: Is that what we're going to do?
• 23:56
  Speaker: Yep.
• 23:56
  Speaker: That's that's the plan.
• 23:57
  Speaker: So let's start with followers.
• 23:59
  Speaker: How is that system of masonry set up so that the output it
• 24:04
  Speaker: gets are follower masons.
• 24:08
  Speaker: What are the types of things that enable that.
• 24:11
  Speaker: Are we talking about the ideal
• 24:14
  Speaker: state or how it actually
• 24:15
  Speaker: happens?
• 24:15
  Speaker: How it how it actually is.
• 24:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 24:19
  Speaker: We do cool stuff.
• 24:22
  Speaker: We rely on third parties to put
• 24:24
  Speaker: out propaganda, and then we hope
• 24:27
  Speaker: to reap the benefits and let let
• 24:29
  Speaker: people down.
• 24:30
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 24:33
  Speaker: Dan Brown thanks.
• 24:35
  Speaker: Incorrect.
• 24:36
  Speaker: Yeah, that's that's kind of
• 24:37
  Speaker: where I was going when I asked
• 24:38
  Speaker: the question.
• 24:38
  Speaker: I'm sorry that I'm jumping in late if you already touched on
• 24:41
  Speaker: some of this stuff, but, um.
• 24:43
  Speaker: No, that's what I mean.
• 24:44
  Speaker: I mean, there is an ideal of the value of Freemasonry that would
• 24:50
  Speaker: engender following that path versus what actually happens,
• 24:55
  Speaker: you know what I mean?
• 24:55
  Speaker: Um, I definitely joined for the ideal of it, you know, and was
• 25:00
  Speaker: most quickly disappointed.
• 25:01
  Speaker: But then and I think we'll get into this when we get into the
• 25:05
  Speaker: thinker part, right?
• 25:06
  Speaker: You know, then you do take a pivot, um, at some point or you
• 25:09
  Speaker: just stop showing up or, you know, or you pay dues and never
• 25:12
  Speaker: come back, or you just stop paying dues after three years
• 25:14
  Speaker: and you become a name on a roll.
• 25:16
  Speaker: So, um, yeah, but I think I think there's enough there in
• 25:21
  Speaker: the, the ideal state to create lots of followers if we did
• 25:25
  Speaker: well, I mean, so let me prime the pump a little bit here too.
• 25:30
  Speaker: In thinking about that question,
• 25:31
  Speaker: I was thinking about our, um,
• 25:35
  Speaker: like our hacking the craft
• 25:36
  Speaker: episode, right?
• 25:37
  Speaker: Episode five fifty four, where we have incentives and nudges
• 25:41
  Speaker: and what, what is the thing that gets measured to Jason's point?
• 25:44
  Speaker: Because what gets measured gets done.
• 25:46
  Speaker: So we have a minimum requirement for entry of like, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker: supreme being, you know, not not a criminal, not a felon
• 25:58
  Speaker: jurisdictional, but even then, George Washington, that is true.
• 26:04
  Speaker: So you, um, so then you have, um, like a minimum requirement
• 26:10
  Speaker: of catechism or understanding the degree And you have can you
• 26:15
  Speaker: pay your dues?
• 26:16
  Speaker: Right.
• 26:17
  Speaker: So you check those boxes, continue to have a pulse.
• 26:20
  Speaker: And the output is you can you can actually have the status of
• 26:25
  Speaker: being a master mason.
• 26:28
  Speaker: And that requires no additional thinking that requires no
• 26:30
  Speaker: additional, um, lodge visits.
• 26:34
  Speaker: Right.
• 26:34
  Speaker: You could never come back after your third degree.
• 26:36
  Speaker: As long as you pay your dues, you're good to go, right?
• 26:41
  Speaker: And in, you know, most again, I'd argue and I have in the past
• 26:45
  Speaker: that like even for professional certifications, you still have
• 26:50
  Speaker: like additional training or pdus or these things that require you
• 26:55
  Speaker: to like still know your stuff before you just get to pay and
• 26:59
  Speaker: get that certification.
• 27:00
  Speaker: What's PD you like a professional development unit?
• 27:04
  Speaker: Unit.
• 27:04
  Speaker: Okay, so you've taken some additional training to know that
• 27:07
  Speaker: you're not getting stale, right?
• 27:09
  Speaker: Okay.
• 27:10
  Speaker: So if we had if we if we required here's here's what that
• 27:13
  Speaker: would look like for existence.
• 27:16
  Speaker: If if, uh, we said you need a continuing development unit for
• 27:22
  Speaker: masonry, write a paper once every two years, just write a
• 27:27
  Speaker: paper on a Masonic topic.
• 27:28
  Speaker: Can you just do that to prove
• 27:30
  Speaker: that you're still your head,
• 27:31
  Speaker: still in the game, and you're
• 27:32
  Speaker: not just a follower that's just
• 27:35
  Speaker: stamping out, um, the minimum
• 27:37
  Speaker: requirements?
• 27:37
  Speaker: I mean, we do have to do that in other aspects of life.
• 27:41
  Speaker: I mean, they make fake driver's
• 27:43
  Speaker: license tests over and over
• 27:44
  Speaker: again.
• 27:45
  Speaker: Uh, prove that somebody told my mother that.
• 27:49
  Speaker: Okay.
• 27:52
  Speaker: No, but I, I think for, for the non govy folk, um, you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker: like continuing professional education or continuing legal
• 28:00
  Speaker: education, like if you have some sort of degree or standard in
• 28:06
  Speaker: the working world.
• 28:07
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker: Like if you're a lawyer, you gotta get so many continuing
• 28:11
  Speaker: legal education credits every year to maintain your bar.
• 28:14
  Speaker: Um, if you're a professional with a certification, you got to
• 28:17
  Speaker: do so many certain things.
• 28:18
  Speaker: But I struggle with, with explaining that because for
• 28:23
  Speaker: those, they have an end state.
• 28:25
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 28:26
  Speaker: It's like if I do this, I will continue to be a lawyer.
• 28:30
  Speaker: I will continue to be a medical profession.
• 28:33
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 28:34
  Speaker: We don't have that in Freemasonry.
• 28:36
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 28:36
  Speaker: It's like, okay, you, you, you check those boxes.
• 28:39
  Speaker: You did your thing, now you're a mason.
• 28:41
  Speaker: Now you can open the Choose Your
• 28:44
  Speaker: Own adventure book, or you can
• 28:45
  Speaker: leave it closed forever, you
• 28:46
  Speaker: know?
• 28:46
  Speaker: Yep.
• 28:48
  Speaker: And, uh, I think Brother Jose has a good point.
• 28:51
  Speaker: You know, we tell candidates
• 28:53
  Speaker: they must learn certain things
• 28:54
  Speaker: from memory.
• 28:54
  Speaker: They do the mouth to ear, they do the catechism.
• 28:58
  Speaker: So therefore they must be followers, at least at first.
• 29:03
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:04
  Speaker: So that that kind of leads to my next question, which is, is that
• 29:10
  Speaker: really a bad thing?
• 29:13
  Speaker: We did an episode a while back,
• 29:14
  Speaker: um, about, you know, uh, just
• 29:18
  Speaker: dues paying members versus
• 29:20
  Speaker: active members.
• 29:22
  Speaker: And we came out of that episode saying we need them both, right?
• 29:26
  Speaker: We need, uh, the guys who are just there because they're happy
• 29:31
  Speaker: to be there.
• 29:32
  Speaker: And we need that, that fraternity.
• 29:34
  Speaker: That's great.
• 29:37
  Speaker: I genuinely and you both had seen it.
• 29:39
  Speaker: I genuinely every stated meeting where I was master.
• 29:42
  Speaker: When we did introductions, I thanked every single person who
• 29:45
  Speaker: paid dues and never showed up so that we could continue to put
• 29:49
  Speaker: our shiny things on and continue to be Masons, because without
• 29:52
  Speaker: them, it would not happen.
• 29:53
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 29:54
  Speaker: And it was a genuine thank you.
• 29:57
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker: Which begs the question, are
• 30:03
  Speaker: just followers a good or bad
• 30:06
  Speaker: thing?
• 30:11
  Speaker: Well, well, that kind of depends on what Freemasonry is.
• 30:15
  Speaker: You know, if um, because again,
• 30:17
  Speaker: we can go two ways with this,
• 30:18
  Speaker: with this, with this answer
• 30:19
  Speaker: here.
• 30:20
  Speaker: You know, if Freemasonry is meant to be a stepping stone to
• 30:25
  Speaker: you, starting on a journey to learn more about yourself and
• 30:31
  Speaker: your place in the world and among others, then yeah, you,
• 30:35
  Speaker: you can have minders and grinders all day long, you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker: because it doesn't, it doesn't require the umbrella of overhead
• 30:43
  Speaker: that we currently have now.
• 30:45
  Speaker: But if it's not, if it is a, um, you know, down at its bare
• 30:50
  Speaker: essence, if it is a fraternal organization that requires an
• 30:54
  Speaker: administrative structure in order to exist.
• 30:58
  Speaker: True, then no, you do need to have some people who want to
• 31:03
  Speaker: lead As well as some people who can actually lead.
• 31:07
  Speaker: So. So it depends.
• 31:11
  Speaker: It's not the answer I was looking for.
• 31:12
  Speaker: I'm sorry.
• 31:13
  Speaker: Everybody has to lead though, right?
• 31:16
  Speaker: In any organization.
• 31:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:19
  Speaker: I mean and that's that's a really excellent point, Jason.
• 31:21
  Speaker: Because in natural organic
• 31:25
  Speaker: social systems, there will
• 31:28
  Speaker: always be a bell curve
• 31:30
  Speaker: distribution of those who are
• 31:33
  Speaker: doing the most work, those who
• 31:34
  Speaker: are leading, those who are
• 31:36
  Speaker: following.
• 31:37
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:37
  Speaker: Not if everyone leads then then no one's a leader, right?
• 31:42
  Speaker: If everyone falls back, then you
• 31:44
  Speaker: get you get eaten by the tiger,
• 31:46
  Speaker: right?
• 31:46
  Speaker: So net nature follows that
• 31:50
  Speaker: distribution of of leaders and
• 31:52
  Speaker: followers.
• 31:52
  Speaker: And that's not necessarily a bad thing because you need, you need
• 31:56
  Speaker: both to survive as a herd.
• 31:59
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:59
  Speaker: But masonry is not set up that way in many places.
• 32:02
  Speaker: It's very lopsided in one direction or the other, you
• 32:06
  Speaker: know, say more.
• 32:08
  Speaker: Um, sure.
• 32:09
  Speaker: So the, the less offensive one
• 32:10
  Speaker: is you have a very loose
• 32:13
  Speaker: government structure, you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker: you're smaller.
• 32:16
  Speaker: I don't want to say you're smaller organizations, right,
• 32:18
  Speaker: that are very democratic.
• 32:21
  Speaker: Or, um, if we're using business terms tonight, you know, you've
• 32:25
  Speaker: got the subject matter experts that have their niche in the
• 32:29
  Speaker: world and they do that niche very well and they never need to
• 32:31
  Speaker: do anything else.
• 32:32
  Speaker: You know, going back to your,
• 32:34
  Speaker: your hunter gatherer analogy,
• 32:35
  Speaker: right.
• 32:35
  Speaker: Um, it's like, oh, I know Jason.
• 32:38
  Speaker: He's the one that beats up bears.
• 32:40
  Speaker: So we're going to leave all the bears to Jason.
• 32:42
  Speaker: And Jason's fine eating, you know, killing bears.
• 32:45
  Speaker: But, um, we're not going to have him.
• 32:47
  Speaker: We're not going to have him do the laundry or cook or something
• 32:50
  Speaker: like that's his name.
• 32:50
  Speaker: Nice bears.
• 32:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:52
  Speaker: Well, you know, that's that's up to you.
• 32:54
  Speaker: But it's so, so you've got that, you know, that, uh, egalitarian,
• 33:00
  Speaker: you know, um, doing good for all type of mentality in, in your,
• 33:05
  Speaker: your smaller types of organizations and bodies.
• 33:07
  Speaker: And then the other side of that is some Masonic organizations
• 33:12
  Speaker: are so damn top heavy, right?
• 33:14
  Speaker: Everybody is a right and a thrice and a venerable and a
• 33:17
  Speaker: this and a that, and you've got more leaders in a room than you
• 33:20
  Speaker: have actual, you know, warm bodies, um, too many cooks.
• 33:25
  Speaker: And it's all the kids who got bullied in school and stuffed
• 33:31
  Speaker: into lockers who have a chip on their shoulder and think they
• 33:35
  Speaker: got something to prove.
• 33:38
  Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean, that's any of that masonry.
• 33:40
  Speaker: Especially not that's that's
• 33:43
  Speaker: definitely that's on them of
• 33:44
  Speaker: you.
• 33:45
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, no, I mean, but to, to that point, um, and I
• 33:50
  Speaker: think you were alluding to this before, Jason, a lot of Masonic
• 33:54
  Speaker: organizations don't really prep people for leadership at all.
• 33:59
  Speaker: It's basically just a you know, you sat in this chair, you sat
• 34:02
  Speaker: in that chair.
• 34:03
  Speaker: You've been here three years.
• 34:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:05
  Speaker: You're the boss now, you know,
• 34:06
  Speaker: and that's just a recipe for
• 34:08
  Speaker: failure.
• 34:08
  Speaker: And we all know it, you know?
• 34:10
  Speaker: Yep.
• 34:11
  Speaker: We prep people to be able to confer the degrees, though,
• 34:14
  Speaker: because that's what gets measured in some places.
• 34:18
  Speaker: Some places.
• 34:19
  Speaker: Yes.
• 34:19
  Speaker: All right.
• 34:19
  Speaker: Shifting gears, how does masonry create thinkers?
• 34:28
  Speaker: Well that's easy.
• 34:32
  Speaker: I would say I would ask does masonry create thinkers or do
• 34:37
  Speaker: thinkers join masonry.
• 34:40
  Speaker: Ooh chicken and the egg.
• 34:44
  Speaker: Uh. Let's see.
• 34:45
  Speaker: Oh, do you have an answer?
• 34:46
  Speaker: Go. Uh, I'm just going to say I think that I mean, because we
• 34:50
  Speaker: hold ritual so sacrosanct that like, we have probing lessons in
• 35:02
  Speaker: our morality plays that we.
• 35:05
  Speaker: We actually have things that are left unfinished.
• 35:07
  Speaker: We have things that are, um, the symbol.
• 35:10
  Speaker: We only explain the surface explanation of a symbol.
• 35:15
  Speaker: And so it would not be a hard stretch to say that, uh, because
• 35:20
  Speaker: we don't give the Mason all the answers to everything on their
• 35:26
  Speaker: journey that we are deliberately leaving the, the back half of
• 35:32
  Speaker: the book unfinished.
• 35:33
  Speaker: And we're, and we're, we're saying, here you go, you've got
• 35:36
  Speaker: enough to get started.
• 35:38
  Speaker: Um, we're giving you some guidelines.
• 35:41
  Speaker: We give you a charge, you know, how you're supposed to act and
• 35:43
  Speaker: think, but, you know, um, after that, you got to do the work.
• 35:48
  Speaker: And that's, that is a common,
• 35:50
  Speaker: um, thing I hear for newly
• 35:53
  Speaker: raised master Masons, they're
• 35:54
  Speaker: like, great.
• 35:55
  Speaker: I'm a master Mason.
• 35:56
  Speaker: Now what?
• 35:59
  Speaker: Right.
• 36:01
  Speaker: I think I think it's a little bit of both.
• 36:03
  Speaker: I think there absolutely are thinkers that join masonry.
• 36:06
  Speaker: Right.
• 36:06
  Speaker: And and people who.
• 36:09
  Speaker: Yep.
• 36:09
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 36:09
  Speaker: Brother Andre.
• 36:10
  Speaker: Um, but then I think it also does create thinkers because
• 36:15
  Speaker: I've, I've seen it firsthand.
• 36:17
  Speaker: And so have you, like, you got
• 36:18
  Speaker: people that join masonry because
• 36:20
  Speaker: their dad was a mason and that
• 36:21
  Speaker: was their primary reason for
• 36:22
  Speaker: joining.
• 36:23
  Speaker: And then they're there for a
• 36:24
  Speaker: couple of years and they're
• 36:25
  Speaker: like, Holy crap, there's all
• 36:26
  Speaker: this other stuff here that I did
• 36:27
  Speaker: not my dad never talked about,
• 36:29
  Speaker: you know, or my granddad never
• 36:31
  Speaker: talked about.
• 36:32
  Speaker: But it's all here.
• 36:33
  Speaker: Um, and it's for the taking.
• 36:35
  Speaker: You just have to go and grab it.
• 36:38
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 36:41
  Speaker: Maybe thinkers join because they know there's depth.
• 36:44
  Speaker: Those who join for other reasons can discover more than they
• 36:47
  Speaker: first saw it and grow.
• 36:48
  Speaker: I was definitely, I personally was definitely the latter.
• 36:50
  Speaker: Like, I knew there were some
• 36:51
  Speaker: mysteries of Freemasonry, but I
• 36:52
  Speaker: thought it was just, a surface
• 36:54
  Speaker: level.
• 36:55
  Speaker: Oh, look at us.
• 36:56
  Speaker: We're behind closed doors.
• 36:57
  Speaker: When I got in and I started searching the internet and I
• 37:00
  Speaker: started going down rabbit holes, I was like, Holy smokes, there's
• 37:03
  Speaker: a lot more here.
• 37:04
  Speaker: Um, but that's not what I exactly was looking looking for.
• 37:08
  Speaker: But no, I was looking for the, the stuff at the end of a Dan
• 37:12
  Speaker: Brown book when I joined.
• 37:13
  Speaker: And I realized that that was kind of not it, at least what
• 37:17
  Speaker: was being sold to me.
• 37:18
  Speaker: But, you know, I, I found you do find the mystery.
• 37:22
  Speaker: If you if you look with with open eyes, you know, and it's
• 37:26
  Speaker: there for you.
• 37:27
  Speaker: But again, it's that and you talked about this earlier, it is
• 37:32
  Speaker: kind of a one player game.
• 37:33
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 37:34
  Speaker: It's they set the path out for you.
• 37:36
  Speaker: You just gotta choose to walk down it.
• 37:38
  Speaker: And if people come along with you, great.
• 37:40
  Speaker: But it's not not a requirement.
• 37:42
  Speaker: You know, uh, I, I keep thinking back to a. An adaptation Of a
• 37:53
  Speaker: Mark Twain quote, which he never really said, which was in the
• 37:58
  Speaker: context of masonry.
• 37:59
  Speaker: You become a mason twice, once when you're raised and again
• 38:03
  Speaker: when you find out why.
• 38:04
  Speaker: Why some people don't get to that second point.
• 38:09
  Speaker: Right.
• 38:10
  Speaker: And that's okay.
• 38:14
  Speaker: And so, you know, again, what else do we do to like inspire
• 38:18
  Speaker: thinkers in masonry?
• 38:21
  Speaker: If anything.
• 38:27
  Speaker: What do we do to inspire them?
• 38:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:30
  Speaker: I'm just saying, is the system
• 38:32
  Speaker: that a system of American craft
• 38:36
  Speaker: masonry, does it produce as an
• 38:39
  Speaker: output thinkers.
• 38:41
  Speaker: And if so, how does what else is there in the machine that helps
• 38:44
  Speaker: to spit out thinkers?
• 38:50
  Speaker: I think masonry gives.
• 38:59
  Speaker: The intellectually curious.
• 39:04
  Speaker: Something to ruminate and think on.
• 39:09
  Speaker: And so I think I think there needs to be a baseline level of
• 39:13
  Speaker: intellectual curiosity to grasp that, hey, there's something
• 39:19
  Speaker: more to this than just, you know, green beans and chili.
• 39:24
  Speaker: Um, and so I would, I would perhaps phrase it as masonry.
• 39:33
  Speaker: Enhances thinkers or, or accentuates thinkers, um, by
• 39:41
  Speaker: giving them a rich, you know, enlightenment, philosophical
• 39:46
  Speaker: tradition to, to dig into.
• 39:50
  Speaker: But if you're if you're just
• 39:54
  Speaker: like, yeah, masonry is just the
• 39:56
  Speaker: guys getting together and we
• 39:58
  Speaker: can't drink.
• 39:59
  Speaker: So we go next door to the shrine
• 40:01
  Speaker: and then we drink, you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker: like, or I mean, I don't know
• 40:07
  Speaker: how much.
• 40:13
  Speaker: If there's no curiosity there, then, you know, is the person
• 40:20
  Speaker: really a thinker?
• 40:21
  Speaker: Kind of at least as we've described it tonight?
• 40:25
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:26
  Speaker: I think that the one missing piece there and.
• 40:29
  Speaker: Well, I think the answer is education.
• 40:33
  Speaker: You have to have education in one form or another.
• 40:35
  Speaker: Right?
• 40:36
  Speaker: So just to spur on and, and titillate those people that
• 40:40
  Speaker: Jason was talking about, you've got to have some.
• 40:42
  Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
• 40:43
  Speaker: With both hands, you gotta have some form of education.
• 40:46
  Speaker: You know, I've you know, and all of you have know of them.
• 40:50
  Speaker: There is absolutely most worshipful, Tony.
• 40:54
  Speaker: There are lodges that for decades upon decades there.
• 40:57
  Speaker: There's not been anything
• 40:58
  Speaker: remotely close to Masonic
• 40:59
  Speaker: education.
• 41:00
  Speaker: So how do the guys there who were raised in those lodges,
• 41:05
  Speaker: grew up in those lodges, brought their children and grandchildren
• 41:08
  Speaker: into those lodges?
• 41:09
  Speaker: How do they promote that if they didn't know it existed?
• 41:13
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 41:14
  Speaker: That's that's my conundrum, which kill your system of
• 41:20
  Speaker: banality, veiled in alimony and illustrated by squirrels.
• 41:26
  Speaker: Yeah, I think that was a Mackey quote.
• 41:27
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:28
  Speaker: Verbatim.
• 41:29
  Speaker: We can make it one.
• 41:33
  Speaker: Um, but I think you guys are getting to a great point that
• 41:37
  Speaker: you guys said earlier, and now I want to bring it back is what
• 41:42
  Speaker: kind of masonry Produces followers and what kind of
• 41:47
  Speaker: masonry produces thinkers.
• 41:52
  Speaker: So let's start with the followers.
• 41:56
  Speaker: Because not we all agree
• 41:58
  Speaker: different cultures, different
• 42:00
  Speaker: practices, different
• 42:01
  Speaker: jurisdictional things.
• 42:04
  Speaker: What kind of masonry produces think, uh, followers.
• 42:08
  Speaker: I think the lodges that have
• 42:11
  Speaker: really strong leaders and really
• 42:14
  Speaker: strong mentors produce excellent
• 42:18
  Speaker: followers.
• 42:21
  Speaker: I like that.
• 42:22
  Speaker: That's a good point because we,
• 42:24
  Speaker: we can all think of examples of
• 42:26
  Speaker: stalwarts of the lodge, icons of
• 42:28
  Speaker: the lodge, the guy who taught
• 42:30
  Speaker: everybody their, their
• 42:31
  Speaker: catechism.
• 42:32
  Speaker: Right.
• 42:33
  Speaker: Um, and because they're still there and because everyone looks
• 42:37
  Speaker: up to them that by default they are, they are followers.
• 42:41
  Speaker: That's an excellent point.
• 42:45
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 42:45
  Speaker: My back's hurting.
• 42:49
  Speaker: From carrying the show.
• 42:51
  Speaker: From carrying.
• 42:56
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:56
  Speaker: You are on fire tonight.
• 42:58
  Speaker: Um. And fuego.
• 43:02
  Speaker: So. But I do think too.
• 43:04
  Speaker: So the.
• 43:05
  Speaker: That would be the opposite of thinking.
• 43:06
  Speaker: So that would mean that maybe you don't have enough education.
• 43:09
  Speaker: Maybe you have great social
• 43:11
  Speaker: events, um where people want to
• 43:15
  Speaker: be there.
• 43:16
  Speaker: Hence, hence I want to follow, I want to be part of something
• 43:20
  Speaker: bigger than myself, but I'm not there to diverge and to go off
• 43:26
  Speaker: into my own, my own lane.
• 43:29
  Speaker: I'm really there to be and to be part of something rather than,
• 43:33
  Speaker: um, just go.
• 43:36
  Speaker: I like that that single player game.
• 43:37
  Speaker: That's a, that's a great metaphor.
• 43:42
  Speaker: And.
• 43:46
  Speaker: What kind of masonry produces thinkers?
• 43:51
  Speaker: Well, I think we we know the answer to that.
• 43:53
  Speaker: It's your your, um, whatever
• 43:57
  Speaker: label you want to give those
• 43:58
  Speaker: lodges, your education focus
• 44:00
  Speaker: lodges, your candidate focus
• 44:02
  Speaker: lodges, um, the ones that
• 44:04
  Speaker: actually care about putting
• 44:05
  Speaker: people through the degrees, the
• 44:06
  Speaker: ones that mentorship focus
• 44:08
  Speaker: lodges.
• 44:08
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 44:10
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:12
  Speaker: The ones that, the ones that don't move people up through the
• 44:17
  Speaker: chairs just cause everybody else does, you know what I mean?
• 44:19
  Speaker: The ones that have that have the psychological safety of saying
• 44:24
  Speaker: no to things, right?
• 44:28
  Speaker: Psychological safety, man, that
• 44:29
  Speaker: could be a whole episode in
• 44:30
  Speaker: itself.
• 44:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:31
  Speaker: Of, of feeling comfortable to say I disagree.
• 44:34
  Speaker: Right.
• 44:35
  Speaker: And that, um, we're not ready to advance this, this candidate.
• 44:39
  Speaker: We're not ready to advance this officer.
• 44:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:42
  Speaker: I mean, that's that's that's bravery.
• 44:45
  Speaker: But that also is independent thought.
• 44:48
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 44:49
  Speaker: And also add to, um, like those
• 44:53
  Speaker: lodges that take the extra step
• 44:55
  Speaker: to require their, um, their
• 44:58
  Speaker: candidates, uh, to like write
• 45:00
  Speaker: papers.
• 45:00
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:01
  Speaker: It's that extra step that's not required.
• 45:03
  Speaker: Jurisdictionally.
• 45:04
  Speaker: But it is that extra like icing
• 45:07
  Speaker: on the cake that they say, hey,
• 45:08
  Speaker: in this lodge, we are adding
• 45:12
  Speaker: another, another measurement
• 45:13
  Speaker: step because what gets measured
• 45:14
  Speaker: gets done.
• 45:15
  Speaker: And so we are requiring you in this lodge to produce a paper so
• 45:21
  Speaker: that we know that you are internalizing these concepts.
• 45:25
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:25
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:26
  Speaker: Yep.
• 45:27
  Speaker: And usually it's not something
• 45:30
  Speaker: that has to be, you know, MLA or
• 45:33
  Speaker: what's the is there a Chicago
• 45:35
  Speaker: formatting and all that, you
• 45:36
  Speaker: know?
• 45:37
  Speaker: Gradient.
• 45:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:39
  Speaker: You know, usually it's not that
• 45:41
  Speaker: hard, but it's the mere fact of
• 45:44
  Speaker: adding that extra layer, that
• 45:45
  Speaker: extra effort to encourage the
• 45:48
  Speaker: thinker to start unpacking and,
• 45:51
  Speaker: you know, savoring, uh, the
• 45:53
  Speaker: ritual.
• 45:56
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:59
  Speaker: All right.
• 45:59
  Speaker: So that brings it home to say.
• 46:05
  Speaker: Does masonry produce followers or thinkers?
• 46:09
  Speaker: Did masonry produces both?
• 46:13
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 46:13
  Speaker: Nice.
• 46:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:15
  Speaker: The the chat already caught on to that too.
• 46:18
  Speaker: Mic drop.
• 46:19
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:22
  Speaker: And is that a good thing?
• 46:23
  Speaker: Yes.
• 46:30
  Speaker: I was thinking it depends on where you are.
• 46:33
  Speaker: Right.
• 46:34
  Speaker: You know if if it really were
• 46:36
  Speaker: this great thing, you know, with
• 46:39
  Speaker: the mic drop Jason moment, if it
• 46:40
  Speaker: really were this great thing,
• 46:42
  Speaker: masonry would be flourishing and
• 46:43
  Speaker: growing, right?
• 46:44
  Speaker: Um, but it's not so I mean.
• 46:53
  Speaker: I. Disagree, you know, I think you're, you might be ascribing
• 47:02
  Speaker: or like I don't.
• 47:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:10
  Speaker: Never mind.
• 47:10
  Speaker: No. Hell no. You need to finish that thought.
• 47:13
  Speaker: I disagree, uh, because like, I
• 47:16
  Speaker: think there are lodges that are
• 47:19
  Speaker: flourishing and having really
• 47:22
  Speaker: great, um, experiences for their
• 47:27
  Speaker: members.
• 47:27
  Speaker: I think of like SpaceX Novum and
• 47:29
  Speaker: what Robert's doing with them,
• 47:31
  Speaker: right?
• 47:31
  Speaker: Like, but saying, you know, Masonry on the whole isn't
• 47:35
  Speaker: flourishing and growing like I mean into the numbers game again
• 47:41
  Speaker: and and like more more Masons doesn't to me it's it's not a an
• 47:48
  Speaker: indicator of success.
• 47:50
  Speaker: And nowhere in my statement did I say our numbers are shrinking.
• 47:54
  Speaker: And nowhere in my statement did I say we don't have little
• 47:58
  Speaker: pockets of healthy lodges that are doing amazing stuff.
• 48:01
  Speaker: I said masonry as a whole is not flourishing because it's not
• 48:05
  Speaker: because we're talking about masonry as this large
• 48:07
  Speaker: institution, right, that spans the globe or the the United
• 48:11
  Speaker: States, whatever border you want to put on it.
• 48:13
  Speaker: Right.
• 48:13
  Speaker: Um, there are less buildings and there are less people.
• 48:18
  Speaker: So you can say from a statistics standpoint, it's dying.
• 48:21
  Speaker: But I would agree with you if
• 48:25
  Speaker: every single one hundred percent
• 48:26
  Speaker: of the people that were coming
• 48:28
  Speaker: into masonry were falling into
• 48:30
  Speaker: these categories of, of great
• 48:33
  Speaker: things that are happening across
• 48:34
  Speaker: the board.
• 48:35
  Speaker: And it's not, it's still those same low percentages.
• 48:37
  Speaker: So it's, I wouldn't I wouldn't call it flourishing.
• 48:40
  Speaker: Is it dying?
• 48:41
  Speaker: No. Is it going to look different in fourteen years.
• 48:44
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 48:45
  Speaker: But I, I couldn't say it's flourishing.
• 48:47
  Speaker: You you couldn't tell me on that.
• 48:49
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 48:51
  Speaker: And I didn't say it was flourishing.
• 48:56
  Speaker: But you disagreed.
• 48:57
  Speaker: When I did.
• 48:58
  Speaker: I, I implied that it was flourishing.
• 49:08
  Speaker: Yes.
• 49:11
  Speaker: You're so right, Jason.
• 49:12
  Speaker: I'm glad we agree.
• 49:14
  Speaker: I forgot who I was talking to.
• 49:15
  Speaker: I didn't not say that.
• 49:17
  Speaker: Don't do that again.
• 49:19
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker: Um, cool.
• 49:24
  Speaker: So let's go to final thoughts.
• 49:26
  Speaker: Let's head over to Joe because he broke his phone and he's late
• 49:33
  Speaker: and I missed a third of the show, but yeah.
• 49:36
  Speaker: Oh. Just thought.
• 49:37
  Speaker: No question.
• 49:37
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 49:39
  Speaker: Thinkers and followers.
• 49:40
  Speaker: So.
• 49:40
  Speaker: Great.
• 49:41
  Speaker: Um. Um, sorry.
• 49:45
  Speaker: I, I feel like I, I missed a good piece of the show and I
• 49:47
  Speaker: apologize to everyone for that.
• 49:48
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, no, I think at the end of the day, um, you do need
• 49:53
  Speaker: a little bit of both.
• 49:54
  Speaker: Um, I think some lodges do some things better than others in
• 49:58
  Speaker: producing these types of masons.
• 50:00
  Speaker: And I think you do need a
• 50:01
  Speaker: healthy mix of both in every
• 50:03
  Speaker: single lodge in order to be
• 50:05
  Speaker: successful.
• 50:05
  Speaker: So when that happens, boom.
• 50:08
  Speaker: I'll be there.
• 50:09
  Speaker: I'll be there regardless.
• 50:10
  Speaker: But yeah, you'll be master probably again.
• 50:15
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:16
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 50:18
  Speaker: Nice.
• 50:18
  Speaker: Agreed.
• 50:19
  Speaker: Jason.
• 50:20
  Speaker: I disagree and fuego with Jason.
• 50:28
  Speaker: Thinkers or followers go porque no Los dos.
• 50:37
  Speaker: Why not both?
• 50:41
  Speaker: To the point I love it.
• 50:44
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 50:45
  Speaker: Um.
• 50:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 50:47
  Speaker: After all, we don't actively recruit.
• 50:49
  Speaker: Jose says.
• 50:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 50:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 50:53
  Speaker: And we alluded to it tonight
• 50:56
  Speaker: where we said, you know, well,
• 51:00
  Speaker: because we are saying we need
• 51:01
  Speaker: both, but we haven't defined
• 51:03
  Speaker: like, what is the what's the
• 51:05
  Speaker: output?
• 51:06
  Speaker: We want to sustain the fraternity.
• 51:08
  Speaker: Right?
• 51:08
  Speaker: If we were to fast forward, um,
• 51:10
  Speaker: fourteen years or whatever it
• 51:12
  Speaker: is, then would we say that the
• 51:17
  Speaker: system gave us the results that
• 51:21
  Speaker: it was designed for over the,
• 51:23
  Speaker: over the next the previous
• 51:24
  Speaker: fourteen years.
• 51:26
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:27
  Speaker: If we're trying to go to
• 51:29
  Speaker: numbers, then what are we doing
• 51:33
  Speaker: now to get back our membership
• 51:34
  Speaker: numbers if we're trying to grow
• 51:36
  Speaker: thinkers?
• 51:37
  Speaker: What are we doing now to grow thinkers?
• 51:41
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:41
  Speaker: Or the balance thereof.
• 51:43
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:44
  Speaker: So again, goes back to strategy,
• 51:46
  Speaker: goes back to long term planning,
• 51:48
  Speaker: right?
• 51:49
  Speaker: It goes back to leadership that
• 51:51
  Speaker: we have a challenge with in the
• 51:53
  Speaker: fraternity.
• 51:53
  Speaker: And we'll all find out here in a couple of years how it's going
• 51:57
  Speaker: to end up.
• 51:58
  Speaker: Um, but we need both for all the best reasons.
• 52:02
  Speaker: And it's going to be up to all
• 52:03
  Speaker: of us to see what happens on the
• 52:04
  Speaker: other side.
• 52:06
  Speaker: So with that, I want to say
• 52:07
  Speaker: thank you all very much for
• 52:08
  Speaker: watching and keep searching for
• 52:10
  Speaker: more light.
• 52:10
  Speaker: Have a good night.
• 52:11
  Speaker: Wow.