IF AWARENESS IS SECOND HAND

History equips us with clarity but not in all cases. History as Dr Margaret MacMillan has writtten, is prone to being abused to suit particular narratives. It's not statistics that are being manipulated to achieve an outcome, it's history. Where censorship and scars are censored, we can find happiness believing what we are told. The hold is what many of us call loyalty. It has a powerful hold on its citizens. If that's what it takes to be happy, to swallow the thinking, why are the papers full of sensationalism? It boils down to culture, until we are uprooted and thrown into a caldron of critical thinking and truth, our culture is strong. Inserting truth into the mix tends to be startling. Truth isn't pretty but its necessary to achieve insight. Truth.  Look at the variety of masonic interpretations around us.  We may long to be that reserved, calculated lodge built on legacy and wisdom.  We have beautiful shrines to our Order but they are a rarity.  When we pick up our tools, it doesn't not automatically make artistry flow through our hands.  We may be a very bright, intense freemasonry. We may be a real narcisstic nuisance, easy to identify and ignore. Acknowledging divergent opinion is not suggesting anything goes. A literalist would want to press that point; without singluar thinking we risk chaos.  It is a well worn and wrong minded assumption in the context of masonry. Masonry is where the human spirit is liberated. Our methods are not single events but bundles of collatoral influences at a point in time.  Because we are always admitting someone into the Order, in a way we are tethered to our start point, on bended knee. However time pushes us into tomorrow.  What have we learned? How do we apply that learning in real life? With humility.  When we learn rhetorical strength, we can press one another until we find the best outcomes.  If a man finds happiness, who am I to deny him?