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On The Level Podcast
Some people think Freemasonry is on the decline, not if we have anything to say about it! Join On the Level Podcast as we explore that Esoteric side of Freemasonry. We talk about the inner workings of our Fraternity, how to apply it's teachings to your every day life to become a better man, and general current events. Join our host and guests as we explore Freemasonry together and bring our ancient craft into the modern age!
On The Level Podcast
The Fourth Turning: Generations in Lodge
This episode delves into the concept of the Fourth Turning, exploring how generational cycles significantly impact Freemasonry. Through engaging conversations, we uncover the key generational archetypes and their relevance to the Masonic experience today.
• Definition and exploration of the Fourth Turning theory
• Breakdown of the four generational archetypes
• Historical context surrounding each archetype’s formation
• Importance of intergenerational communication
• Personal anecdotes illustrating generational interactions
• Calls for deeper engagement within the Masonic community
• Future implications for Freemasonry regarding generational shifts
• Suggestions for practical applications of the theory in lodges
#the4thturning #podcast #bluelodge #freemasonry #freemason
you've reached the internet's home for all things masonry. Join on the level podcast as we plumb the depths of our ancient craft and try to unlock the mysteries, dispel the fallacies and utilize the teachings of freemasonry to unlock the greatness within each of us.
Speaker 2:I have you now, let's go. Oh my goodness, welcome back. Oh, please ladies and gentlemen sit down, please Calm down. Welcome back. Oh please, ladies and gentlemen, sit down. Please Calm down.
Speaker 1:Calm yourself. There you go. Calm down people. It's just Matt and Chris.
Speaker 2:Hey, what's up everybody?
Speaker 1:I hate to go there so quickly. Do you have a gift of a crutch behind you? Is that what I'm looking at A crutch? Is that a crutch with a bow on it?
Speaker 2:no, that is um. Well, it's a little bit further over.
Speaker 1:Hang on, hang on oh, it's a shovel okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you got a, you, you got a gift that was a shovel okay yeah, so, uh, the building that we occupy right now for work, um, it's about a oh gosh, 30,000 square foot warehouse, um, and so this is where I work out of, and that shovel was a gift for whenever they broke ground in 2001, and we finished in early two sorry 2000, we finished in early 2001. That shovel was a gift for breaking ground whenever we started this lab.
Speaker 1:I had to get out of the way because people are going to wonder what the hell is going on behind him there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what? I just keep random gifts in my office. That's just how I roll.
Speaker 1:So every episode we'll see a different thing wrapped in a bow behind you.
Speaker 2:Probably, and it might be me at some point.
Speaker 1:Oh, put it on your forehead girl exactly just like like a christmas ninja head off center, off center. The bow should be like over here, yeah you know what?
Speaker 2:yes, uh, and I should also have cat ears and whatever else the young kids are doing these days.
Speaker 1:I don't know I'm so excited because you have been referencing, for at least the past year, on multiple podcasts, this amazing book you've read, yep, and you often relate it to Freemasonry called the Fourth Turning. I love this book and we we actually saw somebody posting about this publicly and that's why I was like, hey, matt, we should do that like now, because people obviously love this book.
Speaker 2:If you look at, hold on, I got it pulled up right here. Juan Sepulveda. We did an episode with him five months ago where he was looking at a like a space telescope. It wasn't Hubble, what was the one he was looking at? Do you remember the James Webb telescope? The James Webb telescope this brother and I love him. He's the Winding Stairs podcast, so if you haven't checked him out, go check him out. He is phenomenal.
Speaker 2:But Juan was looking at this James Webb Telescope and did an entire block of Masonic education on how, whenever the James Webb Telescope went out into space, the light from the sun was now behind it and it could see more clearly all the stuff that's out there in you know, in the, the universe and the galaxy and everything, and he's like you know what. That's a great example of what we deal with in masonry that whenever you put the noise behind you, you're able to see more clearly. And I'm like this guy is going to put me to sleep in the best way possible. Yeah, it was. He's got such this like smooth, like relaxing voice.
Speaker 2:I'm like this guy can read me cat in the hat and I would be happy yep, yep, I saw him do that presentation live and it was.
Speaker 1:It was kind of hypnotic I, I tell you what.
Speaker 2:what a unique mind to have the fact that you're looking at a telescope and you're like, oh no, this is a great analogy for life. Like talk about putting everything in symbols and allegory, my goodness Well astronomy is one of the big things we talked about that.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about the podcast. We got a lot of good feedback on the last episode we did, which was the top 10 things that Christians hate about Freemasonry or that they think they hate about Freemasonry. I think you did a pretty good job dispelling most of those myths for the Christians.
Speaker 2:Chris, we did a good job at dispelling those myths. Thank you very much. It's a we thing, sir Dang.
Speaker 1:Right, let's go so to be fair, I have not read the Fourth Turning. I have educated myself a little bit about it. Obviously, I've read some things online. I familiarize myself with the authors and who they were when they wrote these books and the theory of generations that they made, which they eventually turned into this book, the Fourth Turning. Yeah, so the authors are William Strauss and Neil Howe. I don't know if they've written other things. Have you read anything else from these guys, or just this book?
Speaker 2:I know I think it was, oh gosh, one of them. So they wrote a follow-up to the fourth turning. I haven't read all the way through it yet because it was just kind of, you know, expanding upon what they've already covered in the fourth turn yeah uh, and then I know one of them is still alive and he still does interviews and and all kinds of stuff, but I haven't seen anything on him recently, um, but yeah, I mean they're still very active in what they do, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Good for them. This, uh, the the strauss how generational theory devised by these guys, basically like the big picture is. It describes a theorized recurring generational cycles in not, I guess, western history. This isn't for the world, right, this is mostly no, they call it anglo-american history which they trace back to the 1400s the 1400s? Yeah, okay, but according to this theory, the historical events are associated with recurring generational personas, or you call them archetypes. Right, archetypes? Yeah, archetypes. I say archtypes, but it's archetypes is the proper pronunciation of that.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming so, because there's an E on it.
Speaker 1:Generational archetype unleashes a new era that they call a turning, which lasts something like 21 years Does that sound right? Yep, in which new social, political and economic climates or moods exist, and those are part of larger cyclical seculum, which is it means a long life, a long human life, which usually spans about 85 years. Yeah right, some have lasted longer. The theory states that a crisis recurs in American history after every seculum, which is followed by a recovery or a high, and during this recovery, institutions and communitarian values get strong. Ultimately, succeeding generational archetypes attack and weaken those institutions in the name of autonomy and individualism, which eventually creates a tumultuous political environment that ripens conditions for another crisis. That's kind of like the gist of how those cycles go right. There's a period of greatness followed by a decline, followed by a crisis, followed by a rebuilding, and those are the four turnings.
Speaker 1:The four turnings, according to his book, are the high. The high is the first turning which occurs after a crisis. Right During the high, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, though those outside the majority often feel stifled by informity. According to the authors, the most recent first turning in the US was post-World War II American High, beginning around 1946 and ended after the assassination of JFK, which was in 1963, which, interestingly, our government just formed a new department that's based on disclosing things about, and the first thing they tackled was JFK. I am so down.
Speaker 2:That MLK Jr. Let's just blow it all off. So there's a guy who's out there in the podcast world called Judge Joe Brown. Have you heard of him? No, okay, judge Joe Brown, he went on a number of podcasts. He went on Patrick Bet-David, candace Owens. This guy knows where all the skeletons are. It's insane. And so he's like no, I've read the MLK files and he's like and the fact is, it was not who they said who shot him. And the same thing with the JFK files. It wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald, it was two Marine snipers that were up on top of a railroad track right down the road. So he calls all of it out, yeah, and he starts naming these people by name, like he has the and because he's a ballistics expert as well. And he knew the type of rifle, he knew the caliber of round, he knew the fact that the government bought 60 of those rifles and only got 59 of them back. Oh yeah, dude, he blows the lid off of all of it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm curious to see what this new agency uncovers, if any of that turns out to be true or not.
Speaker 2:You know what? So, even as a moderately conservative guy, if there is corruption or wrongdoing that's to be had in our government, I want to see it so bad. I want to see it so bad and it's like no, these people have gotten up there with their walkers and their ties and they're in Congress until they're like Dianne Feinstein, I think, like she voted for something the day before she died and it's like no, enough is enough. You guys have had enough. You know, at the steering wheel, it's time Like y'all need to step away.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing that bothers me as a moderate. I call myself a moderate. This new agency is called the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets. I like it. Do you know what the? If you use the first letter, every word spells out Sorry. What was it called again, house Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets. What does it spell? Hot dogs, nice. What does it spell hot dogs, nice. Like this administration is so much about trolling. I. That's the part I can't get past like dude. How much more went into?
Speaker 2:that one. How do I love it? Because I've been following elon musk and doge and cryptocurrency for a couple of years now and whenever they were like you know, because that was elon musk thing is he was like oh, doge to the moon, doge to the moon. And then whenever they're like, oh, we're going to come out with a branch of government, that's strictly about whittling away government efficiency the Department of Government. Efficiency, the Department of Government Efficiency. We're going to call it doge. I'm like oh, the trolling is next level.
Speaker 1:We have the hot dogs. The hot dogs, the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets. Hot dogs.
Speaker 2:Now here's the funny thing. I'm sorry I'll probably get in trouble for saying this here on the livestream, but the funny thing is did you hear what one of the analysts are called that he brought in to Doge? What his screen name is online?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's Big Balls B-A-W-L-Z, so that was his screen name. And so then Elon Musk, because the media jumped on it and everything and they were like how unprofessional all this other stuff, so he changed his Twitter handle to Harry Balls. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:I was like the trolling is awesome. These are the leaders of the free world. Come on, man, I know it's hilarious.
Speaker 2:There's a time and a place for that. I don't think. When you're leading the government during a, you know, a period of unrest, you probably want to be trolling.
Speaker 1:I mean, from a comedy standpoint, it's gold, it is hilarious, like you're not wrong, but from a comedy standpoint it's. I don't think anyone knows about the hot dogs thing. I've never seen it reported. Do you know when the last high would have been?
Speaker 2:the last high would have been I think you just mentioned it earlier. It was think you just mentioned it earlier. It was post-World War II. Post-world War II. So you're talking about the GI generation that had just came home and the silent generation that was either part of that war or they were their kids. And then that's whenever the baby boomers come around, because they were the kids of those GIs that came home. So that was the whole reason why they got the nickname baby it's because they were part of that generation.
Speaker 2:This was also the same generation, by the way, the GI generation, and we'll get into this with some of the characteristics, but they were the ones who started Social Security to take care of their ailing parents, and that was their whole thought process is they were like no, we're going to start Social Security, we're doing well in life right now. We've got the money to spare, so let's take care of our old parents that don't have, you know, finances or resources or whatever the case might be. And then the mindset of social security has shifted throughout the years and I've heard older people say this I paid my money in, therefore I deserve it back out. It's a misconception on social security. You did not pay money in that you're getting back out because it's ran horribly inefficiently. You'd be better off by throwing it in like a high interest savings account or investments or something like that.
Speaker 1:That's what I did.
Speaker 2:But the concept of Social Security is, is that the current workforce pays to help the elderly. So boomers did not pay their money in and getting their money out. Boomers paid for their silent generation and gi generation parents and then likewise millennials and gen xers and gen zers. We are now paying for the boomer generation. That's the way it was always supposed to work.
Speaker 1:The, the high is followed by a period called the awakening. The awakening is the second turning Yep and, according to the theory, this era is when institutions are attacked in the name of personal and spiritual autonomy. Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and they want to recapture a sense of self-awareness or spirituality and personal authenticity. Young activists look back at the previous high as an era of cultural and spiritual poverty.
Speaker 2:So to put it in a more localized context, so we all understand it, you can take this back and you can rewind it. You know, almost 600 years is essentially what you're dealing with is you've got the first turning, which is the high, that's the gi's coming back, giving birth to the baby boomer generation. Then you have, as the baby boomers, become of age, so they're somewhere in their teens, 20s, somewhere around there. That's where you get the generation of woodstock anti-war uh, jenna from forest gump.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry I had to throw that in there jenna, jenna by the way, I just want to go ahead and throw this out there jenna was the largest villain of any movie ever she's the worst she's, and don't you dare say it's because she's a woman. No, it's because she ended up getting pregnant with that man's kid. She had nothing to do with him the entire time. Kid shows up at almost you know what, five, six years old and she's like by the way, I have aids and I'm going to die. Yeah, that man loved you. Just give him a chance. That's what I'm screaming.
Speaker 2:So she did not give him a chance she didn't, and there was enough room for both jack and rose to be on the door. If you know, you know, so I'll never let go. Oh, I have to let go now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, I gotta let go so either way, yeah, so think, uh think that time frame right. The second turning would have been the essentially kind of like a not necessarily a revolution or a renaissance, but similar to it to where there was this giant push for counterculture. So you have purity that was very popular in the time and then the boomer generation wanted to rebel against that. That's where you get the movies like dirty dancing. So, either way, that's kind of where that second turning comes into place. Is it's that shifting from a culture that the previous generation had set them up for success, and now you have this culture that and every single generation does it where they're like man. I have a problem with the way things are, just because they've always been this way and you see that reflected in every single generation.
Speaker 1:So you could look at, I guess, the 60s when you had the hippies and the anti-war people and sex, drugs and rock and roll, all that.
Speaker 2:You've got so many things that happened in the 60s. One of them was the Stonewall Riots. Are you familiar with that?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So the Stonewall Riots I think were in New York, if I'm not mistaken, so before the 60s. You know, the talk of a homosexual lifestyle was like really kind of frowned upon, like nobody really talked about it. If it was done, it was kind of done in secret.
Speaker 1:So the Stonewall riots were when else are you going to do the gay sex? I mean not in public. You got to do that in secret, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, not at a pride parade these days, but that's a different conversation, so anyway. So basically, what had happened is this bar in New York was under suspicion for allowing homosexuals into the bar, and it being a homosexual-exclusive bar. So the police go and raid it, because there were laws against that at the time.
Speaker 1:They go and what.
Speaker 2:What's that the? Police go and what they raid the bar. So, either way and this happened, by the way, the morning of June 28, 1969. So this wasn't that long ago so, basically, what happens is the police end up getting overtaken by the people who were there, and so they end up locking the police inside the bar, and then they set the building on fire.
Speaker 1:Did they not?
Speaker 2:So that's the Stonewall Riots, and a lot of people really hinge that moment as the, I guess, birth or explosion of the LGBTQ movement, because it went from Stonewall Riots to Harvey Milk, to the creation of the pride flag in 78.
Speaker 1:So it just all kind of escalated from there, but its linchpin was the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
Speaker 2:Which would have been part of the awakening, which makes sense. I guess it would have been part of the awakening. It is the note.
Speaker 1:We're just going to push the boundaries and we're going to recreate society the way that we see fit and then again, I guess in the 80s, we had the tax revolts, yep, which was a whole nother one. Um, so now, after the awakening happens, the third turning, according to House and Strauss, strauss and Howe, is called the unraveling. So the unraveling, the mood of this heiress, they say, is in many ways the opposite of a high. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. The authors say highs come after crisis, when society wants to coalesce and build and avoid the death and destruction of the previous crisis. Unravelings come after awakenings when society wants to atomize and enjoy, they say. The most recent unraveling in the US began in the 80s and includes the long boom in the culture war.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you had the unraveling and the way and my generation experienced the unraveling as children, by the way. So you had, you know, gas shortages. You had scandal in the White House with Bill Clinton. You had the Afghanistan war, you know, or the war in the Middle East that I should say that we should have never been in to begin with. So the interesting thing about this fourth turning book is it was written long before September 11th and these guys actually predicted in the fall of 2001 that there would be a huge financial crisis or there would be a physical attack on our land.
Speaker 2:So these guys flat out predicted that September 11th is going to happen, just from looking at statistics. And you know history repeating itself at statistics. And you know history repeating itself. So then you have September 11th happens 61 years after the um, after the last fourth turning right. So we're at the unraveling point in 2001,. September 11th happens. Uh, you have the Patriot Act, which I think is the greatest violation that you know that any of us had here in the United States. So you have bringing into the Patriot Act. You have the war started in the Middle East. We were in the Middle East for 20 some odd years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Patriot Act, I think goes hand in hand with the what was the name of the act where they allowed foreign corporations to donate as individuals. I think that, along with the Patriot Act, those were two things that basically started the unraveling in the United States.
Speaker 2:Horrible. And so you see this. Over the last 20 years, you've seen this growing distrust in institutions, and it doesn't necessarily have to be governmental institutions. You see that there's a departure from people from the church. You see there's a departure of people from the lodge. You see there's a departure of people from all these institutions that have been around for hundreds of years, because this next generation wants nothing to do with the corruption that is found within them. So it starts to unravel, as the name would suggest. It starts to unravel Now. Keep in mind September 11th happened 61 years after the end of World War II. That brings us to 2025 today, where now we are in that same timeframe of the fourth turning. So, chris, if you wouldn't mind read the description, of the fourth turning.
Speaker 1:I loathe to read it because we're in it. According to the authors, the fourth turning is called the crisis. This is an era of destruction, often involving war or revolution, in which institutional life is destroyed and rebuilt in response to a perceived threat to a nation's survival. After the crisis, civic authority revives, cultural expression redirects towards community purpose and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group. The author says the previous fourth turning in the US began with the Wall Street crash in 1929 and climaxed at the end of World War II with the GI generation, which they call a hero archetype, which we'll get into here in a minute. That's when the hero archetype came of age was during that period, in the 60s. They say. Their confidence, optimism and collective outlook epitomize the mood of the era. The author asserts that millennial generation your generation right which also described as a hero archetype born between 1982 and 2005, show many similar traits to those of the GI youth, which they describe as including rising civic engagement, improving behavior and collective confidence.
Speaker 2:So hero you're a hero archetype, so yeah, so when? And I want to be clear about this, I told Chris that I was going to do this before we started recording, because I feel like sometimes I have to prep Chris for the stupid stuff that I'm going to do. So, having said that, you you will see at least three generations represented, or three of these archetypes, I should say represented in the lodge Right. So let's rewind the clock and let's talk about the boomers for a second. And I want to be clear in whenever I say this. I want to be super clear. I am not speaking about everybody out of that generation when I talk about generations, right? Because that was the one thing that I noticed over and over again.
Speaker 1:But you can't right. We're talking about the majority of people, basically.
Speaker 2:Right. We're just talking about statistics. That's all we're talking about. So whenever I talk about okay, the boomers act like this, I'm not saying all boomers. When Gen Xers act like this, I'm not talking all Gen Xers. When I say millennials are like this, I am not talking all millennials.
Speaker 1:Basically everyone listening, excluded from everything we say okay, Just assume we're not talking about some of you fit beautifully into these categories.
Speaker 2:So so either way. So I tried, I tried to save us, but yeah, yeah, so so either way. And that's another thing is, within the boomer generation, especially given their position in the fourth, turning what the what you'll see in the boomer generation is you'll see the rise of a character, and typically it's an older male, and so this older male is what's known as the gray warden. So, for example, whenever you look at at here, just in our country, uh, here in the United States, and especially whenever you look at United States Masonry, the picture perfect gray warden that you're going to find that was a Mason is George Washington. It's that guy.
Speaker 2:And so what he did is he was an older man at that point. He took all these young men to war. He had a really hard time trying to get his troops to even fight because a whole bunch of them would retreat, so he had a really hard time with that then ends up becoming the president of the united states, and this is the real big key factor. Whenever george washington was president of the united states, they were encouraging him to run for additional terms. They wanted him to set up a monarchy yeah, and he was like we knew.
Speaker 2:You know that's the only government like yeah, people had ever seen, so they just assumed this is how it had to go so this is a completely new form of government that the world has never seen before, at least never seen represented well, I think the last time you saw something remotely close to it was was rome rome back whenever rome was a thing.
Speaker 2:So, either way, you have George Washington who said, who willingly stepped back, and he said no, this power and authority needs to be given off to the next generation, and so he gave up that for the collective good.
Speaker 1:Man. Imagine that.
Speaker 2:Imagine anyone in modern society that would have the fortitude, in the like you know, just be good enough person to do that and, honestly, we we've got a couple in the in the fraternity, but the problem is that they're not people of power and authority and they should be. Uh, and that's the thing that gets me is, it's like the people who do not want power and authority, like they want nothing to do with it, they're the ones that deserve it the most.
Speaker 1:They're the ones that need to have it the most right, right. I tell people that all the time I said, why haven't you run for this or that? And you're like I would never want to do that. I'm like that's a problem because the people seeking the power are the ones generally that probably should not under any circumstances have that power.
Speaker 2:Right I mean and look to be clear, I am. I am of this opinion not just in masonry. I am of this opinion in politics I'm of this opinion in the church. I'm of this opinion in society. Those who clamor for power typically should not have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I really think like the ultimate way to do this is the way um it done in. Was it Troy or Sparta, where it was a lottery? Citizens randomly had to serve every year for one year and you didn't have a choice. If you got pulled in the lottery, you served and you had to put your life on pause for a year. But that caused the citizens to all have to stay up to date with what's happening, because they might have to serve their country randomly, yeah, and so they had to be at least aware of the big picture stuff going on, in case they got tapped and then they're out.
Speaker 1:So you know, it's hard to pre-affect the person that's going to get picked in the lottery because you don't know who they're going to be. It's a random drawing, so you can't start schmoozing them two years in advance with money and gifts and stuff and they're in there for one year. So you know, I think generally that's a better way to do it than saying, hey, if you want it, just run for it. Yeah, that means you're going to get the worst yeah, I'm actually not opposed to that.
Speaker 2:I, I don't. I think if you had a society that was more up to date on laws, social issues, things like that, um, I think that could work really well. I don't know if it would work really well in our society today because and I'm blaming my generation for this we're the fricking Tik TOK generation. It drives me nuts and we all have the attention span of a goldfish. It makes no sense. So I think if you were to have a more educated society, then that would work really, really well.
Speaker 1:We just covered four termings, right, and I think we said that each one of those four is, on average, about 21 years, so we're talking about cycles of 85 years, roughly right yep 80 to 85 years and each of those um generations that live or participate in those cycles become our archetypes. So maybe we should cover the archetypes, because that's what's really going to relate to.
Speaker 2:I think freemasonry is the archetypes yeah, and and to be clear, um, you know that that whole gray warden thing and I apologize, I didn't finish my thought on that, that's my fault, but you also see it repeated so whenever you go from Revolutionary War George Washington's time and he was the gray warden of his time, there were a couple of others, but he was the gray warden of his time you fast forward 80 years and you find yourself at the Civil War and in the civil war.
Speaker 2:You have people like abraham lincoln, ulysses s grant. Uh, robert e lee. You have all these different not? Not ulysses, sorry, albert pike. Yeah, yeah, right, so either way, you see all these different people that are the older people, regardless of which side on the war they found themselves on. Uh, you see these older people that are trying to lead a younger generation into a major conflict. Fast forward another 80 years, you're at World War II. And so then you have, oh my gosh, churchill. And was it? Hoover? Was the president at the time.
Speaker 1:World War II.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so either way, and even still, the president of the United States at the time was a Freemason, and so was Winston Churchill. I always like to mess with people and I was like, hey, freemason, we beat the Nazis.
Speaker 1:Ooh.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. So you have these older people that are leading these younger people through times of calamity. Right. Fast forward another 80 years and you find yourself at about 2025. Or sorry, another 80 years and you find yourself at about 2025. So we're in the fourth turning. Right now we're in a period of calamity. Whenever you have a conflict outside of those timeframes, whenever you look at like the Vietnam War, the Korean War, they were not successful campaigns, so they weren't successful on the battlefield. Whenever they came home. So you had the wrong archetype leading the battle. You had the wrong archetype fighting the battle and then you had the wrong archetype welcoming those soldiers back home. Any sort of military campaign we've ever had outside of that 80-year mark has been a disaster and I'm sorry but it has.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting that you could tie it to these cycles. I never even heard of these cycles before you mentioned this book, so really fascinated to see how this is playing out and how it can predict the future.
Speaker 2:Well, not only predict the future and this is the angle I really wanted to cover on this was generational communication, and, I'm sorry, I'm a millennial, so I have a whole lot of interactions with boomers. I have less so interactions with Gen Xers, so just to kind of talk about the personality types between them and how they debate, how they converse, how they argue. So whenever, as a millennial, you got to understand millennials are very headstrong individuals, very, very headstrong individuals, and we will burn this mother to the ground and rebuild it in however way we want to. So I've had a joke that I've told some older people whenever it gets into heated debates, and I was like, hey, you can be mad at me all you want, but at the end of the day I have the clock on my side. Either get on board or get out, like whichever one you want, and by the way I had a past grandmaster tell me something similar.
Speaker 2:So it's not abnormal to have that mindset, because an 80-year-old man told me if you don't like it, get the F out. It's like, okay, say less.
Speaker 1:A past grandmaster said get the F out.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. If you don't like it, get the F out. I'm not going to say who it was.
Speaker 1:Was that an entire lodge meeting?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, that one was um. That was the one where he cussed at us.
Speaker 1:Uh, was a tiled lodge meeting uh said that our grandmaster cussed at you in a tile lodge meeting.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm not going to say who, I'm not going to say where, but we were told that our that would be controversial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we wouldn't want to do that.
Speaker 2:So, having said that, what you'll typically have in the millennial generation is the millennial generation are very headstrong. They do not like the institutions that are currently set up, because the institutions that are currently set up are either ran in a way that historical documents don't lean to hey, they should run this way. Or they're ran in such a way to where it benefits one generation only.
Speaker 2:They don't necessarily like it and it's like, okay, well, if you're going to sit here and gatekeep the authority, you're going to gatekeep the operation of whatever this institution is. It doesn't matter if it's government, if it's church, if it's lodge, it doesn't matter. If you're going to gatekeep this, then I'm just going to wait out the clock and I'm going to ruin your legacy and I'm going to rebuild it the way that it should be built Again, according to historical documents and what's made for the common good. Millennials, or the heroic archetype I should say, are very, very community based, right so? Or society based, so it's like they're taking into account other people's stuff, things, you know, all these items to where they're saying, no, this needs to be better for the collective good. You have Gen Xers, and I love Gen Xers, but you have Gen Xers that are nomadic and they act exactly as their archetype name would describe.
Speaker 1:So I'm a Gen Xer, right, I'm a nomad, apparently.
Speaker 2:I know a couple of them and, honestly, the Gen Xers that I know. They fit beautifully into their category where typically growing up, whenever they're in their late teens, early 20s, 30s, they're coming into adulthood, they're just going to kind of go along with it and they're going to side with their boomer parents until the millennial generation comes of age, starts taking a little more authority, and then they're going to side with the millennials and be like, yeah, actually we're with you guys, millennials, and be like, yeah, actually we're with you guys. Fun point about that the nomadic archetype is the only archetype that in the history of the United States we have not had a single president president out of that archetype it's never happened. That's why whenever Kamala Harris was running, she's a Gen Xer. That's why whenever Kamala Harris was running, I was like there's no, statistically there's no way she could win because we've never had a nomadic president.
Speaker 1:So um. So, essentially, there are dominant generations and there are recessive generations, right, and the dominant generations are the prophet and the heroes, correct the idealist and the civic-minded folks, and the recessive generations are the nomads and the artists, the reactive nomads and the adaptive artists, and so I think that's what you're referencing. You don't typically have a recessive generation leading successfully, however, apparently, from what I've read about this theory, I'm in the nomad generation, and as the nomads get older, because of the position they have to play as an advisor or a leader during a time of crisis, right, but they're not going to lead after the crisis successfully anyway, right. So we should talk about the archetypes. The first archetype is the prophet.
Speaker 2:Ah, my boomer brothers, let's talk now, these are the boomers.
Speaker 1:Okay, the prophets are idealist. Generations enter childhood during a high are the prophets? A time of rejuvenated community life and consensus around a new societal order? Prophets grow up as the increasingly indulged children of this post-crisis era. Spoiled brat. They come of age as self-absorbed young crusaders of an awakening. They focus on morals and principles in midlife and they emerge as elders guiding others during the crisis, or at least they should. Examples of those are the transcendental generation, the missionary generation and, say it, the boomers, our baby boomers.
Speaker 2:Yep, so we have a lot of baby boomers in our lodges yeah, um and so, and actually there's another, there's another interesting point to that. So and again, brothers, I want to be clear. I am not talking all baby boomers. Please do not come at me in the comments. So yeah, so, either way, you'll typically find and I've said this before on the podcast, but you'll typically find two different types of boomers that are found within the lodge. About 20% of them are the real contentious, troublesome ones, or at least in a local lodge, from what I've seen, there's not a very large percentage of them, because I am of the opinion and this is just my opinion if you are a boomer who has sought out masonry and you've dedicated 20, 30, 40, 50 years to this craft, you typically have worked on yourself so much that you're not going to exhibit the typical boomer mentality, and by typical boomer, mentality I like that philosophy, I like that concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and by typical boomer mentality I mean it is somebody I like that concept have in masonry.
Speaker 2:But whenever I talk to some of the other ones, I have to keep it. I have to really keep my temper calm and because here if I show any sort of emotion whatsoever it's just going to escalate because their mindset on a on a conversation or a debate is, if I am more offended than you, then I'm right, and it's like, well, you gave me this paper cut right here and this paper cut really hurt. It's like, yeah, but you shot me in the leg. Like it's a very different thing. And so you'll see that a heck of a lot, especially in uh, again, the less disciplined boomer generation and I'm going to say less disciplined because a lot of our brothers in the lodge again, it's only about 20% of them that don't have that same level of discipline Um, about 80% are very disciplined in that, and so they cover that role known as the Grey Warden, where they want to bring up that next generation and help that next generation succeed, based off of wisdom, successes and failures that they've had in the past.
Speaker 1:So that's what they're. As they get towards the latter years of their life, they become Grey Wardens.
Speaker 2:The boomers no, no no, it's not a later in lifetime. No, it is a mentality thing, a mentality thing A mentality. A Grey Warden is a mental state of a prophetic archetype, and that is. I know that this world does not belong to me. I need to make sure the next generation is ready to run it.
Speaker 1:Well, that kind of doesn't go with this generation of baby boomers. Because I read a book. It's called the Theft of a Decade Okay, and it's about how the baby boomers stole the millennials' economic future. So they weren't looking for making the next generation better, they're looking out for themselves.
Speaker 2:A gray warden is incredibly rare. It's very, very rare. So there's a reason why, whenever you look back historically, you can only name a handful of Grey Wardens. It's because they're not found very frequently. Makes sense, it's like I bought my house for a box of matches and a used napkin. It's like, okay, now it's worth $3.5 million, Okay.
Speaker 1:Can we name some examples of prophets? We know we had Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got Lincoln, you got Washington, you got Ulysses Grant, robert E Lee, all these great leaders Woodrow Wilson, winston Churchill All of those are examples of the prophetic archetype that were Grey Wardens. And again, especially whenever I talk about Robert E Lee, I understand, fully understand that argument on both sides of that war. It's not about the topic of the war, it's about the fact that it was an older man who led younger men. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:So the second archetype which I fall under called the nomad, which is a reactive one like we talked about. Yeah, my generation enters childhood during an awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when young adults are passionately attacking the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as underprotected children during this awakening right. We come of age as alienated post-awakening young adults. We become pragmatic midlife leaders during the crisis, um, and we age into resilient post-crisis elders. Uh, and examples of this generation are the gilded generation, the lost generation in mind, generation x, which you know what I think that's generally true. Like I grew up watching star trek, for example. Star trek gave me in my young mind the ideas about equality. You had every race represented on the bridge. It was about the hopefulness of the future and how technology can save us didn't star trek had the first interracial kiss on TV?
Speaker 2:They did, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right, William Shatner. There's a great documentary that kind of goes into that and it talks about how it wasn't supposed to happen. They didn't want that to happen.
Speaker 2:However he could not keep his passions within due. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Let's just do one real quick. Let's just do one real quick. Let's just do one real quick. And then he soaked up the whole day trying to do that. Yeah, so we had no option but to air it because it had no other content. It was great. But, yeah, that's what I grew up with and that's my generation. Right, we've got these idealistic views about everything, but we aren't. We're reactive, we're not like out there leading the charge and trying to revolutionize a society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is totally fine. And here's the thing, and I want to be very clear about this just because you don't fit into an archetype, but you think you should fit into an archetype, does not mean that it's a bad thing at all. I mean, different people have different personality types for a reason. So you do have those types of people that, hey, they're just really good at being a support role. But at the end of the day, again, statistically, if you take somebody of an artist or a nomadic archetype and then you have them lead an institution, especially really trying to drive that institution forward, statistically it's going to hurt that institution and not help that institution. I'm not saying in all cases, I'm saying statistically. So the fact that you have the nomad and the artist generation that are that are known as a recessive generation or a helper generation, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, because you need those strong personality types that are the boomers and the nomads in order to move institutions forward.
Speaker 2:And it's like my wife and I I am really good at pushing the envelope on a lot of things. This shouldn't surprise anybody, but I really am good at pushing things forward, coming up with new ideas. The execution of those ideas. My wife is phenomenal at admin work and the details and coming up with a specific plan. All right, at 2.32,. We're going to be at this exact point in the day.
Speaker 1:My wife is good at that too.
Speaker 2:She is so good at 2.32,. We're going to be at this exact point in the day and it's like she is so good at that. So, it's like all right, that meshes really well in my household because I can say, all right, big picture, here's exactly what I want done. Are you on board, yes or no? And she's like, all right, I'll work out the details. Or hey, maybe we should alter it to this. Okay, yeah, and then we work on the details. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:No, and the one thing I most identify with what I just talked about with the Nomad is that they grew up we grew up as underprotected children, like we weren't. We didn't have participation trophies. When I was a kid, you know, there was nobody cared about you getting kidnapped when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys went outside and you had to be home before the streetlights came on.
Speaker 1:Exactly that was my generation. We had to be home before the streetlights came on.
Speaker 2:I think they call it the turnkey generation, don't they it's like your parents were working it off doing other stuff.
Speaker 1:So they left the key under the mat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's exactly how it was, and you know there's pros and cons to that. We became independent people. We don't rely on anybody, we don't need to be given things, we don't like to get a participation trophy. We want to win something based on its merits. So definitely I can identify with those aspects of the nomad. Yeah, Now my generation is followed by the hero, which is your generation. Yeah, nice, let's go See why he likes this book so much. The heroes are civic, so they're in their childhood, during the unraveling. It's a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance and laissez-faire meaning French word for hands-off. Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-awakening children. They come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a crisis, emerging as energetic, overly confident midlifers and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another awakening. Examples of this are the Republican generation, the GI generation and now the millennials.
Speaker 2:Yep, the millennials. So I want to be clear whenever I say this Every single archetype that we're going to talk about has its positives and has its negatives. Sure, I will say, the millennial generation bugs me to no end, on just how dang lazy we are. It drives me nuts. It's like no, if the millennial generation were to get off of its rear end and, guys, we're in our thirties and forties now, it's okay, um, you know? So, for example, I'll give you a, for instance, um, for instance, uh, whenever it my wife and I were trying for our first child, it was one of those things where some people were happy for us.
Speaker 2:But there I am in my 30s, I'm 34, 35. At this point, I mean, you just don't know how much responsibility that is. That's going to change everything. It's just so much responsibility. It's like, yeah, I'm aware, and I'm still pulling the trigger on this, metaphorically speaking, it's like I'm a grown adult that pays taxes and everything. I understand what responsibility is. Get out of my face, actually steps up and they take charge and they do things. You see a lot of positive come from that and especially, you see it in the lodge right now A lot of these young guns that are stepping up in the lodge. You're going to get one of two different people that try to stop them, and I've experienced both. You're going to get okay. I'm trying to step up in the lodge. I'm creating a plan of action. I'm coming up with eight to 11 years of fresh leadership. I run two businesses.
Speaker 1:So it's like you can't tell me that I don't know how to organize something, because I do it for a living Like this is my job.
Speaker 2:Right. So either way, and it's needed in the lodge right now, like we're desperately in need of that no-transcript and it's like no, am I a master mason or not? Pick a lane, I don't care which one you pick, but pick a lane. And even still and this is the best part about that, chris, do you know the guy that told me that whenever he got raised, he immediately got appointed to senior deacon, really, and he thought that was okay, but it was not okay for it to happen to me.
Speaker 1:Right, well, it's a different time, right For him.
Speaker 2:No, Masonry's timeless Like seriously.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you rationalize that in your mind other than, hey, it was a different time and it was okay then, but now it's not okay.
Speaker 2:Well, essentially, what it boils down to, it's an argument of rules for thee but not for me. Do as I say, not as I do, those sorts of things, and so.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that I'm exempt from me possibly doing that one day. I'm going to really try to keep a star on that and make sure that I don't do that. My goal is, especially as a millennial or a younger man in the lodge I'm 38, is I want to encourage the next generation. I really want the next generation to be trained up and taught up properly.
Speaker 1:And that's a hallmark of the millennial generation is they're very team oriented, right. They don't need to do it all by themselves.
Speaker 2:They would rather do it with a community of people and pull in a coalition to work together well, and even still, our lodge phrased this year uh and ryan came up with this and I think he even put it on his coin that he had his uh, his works for master coin from his installation is light, or many hands make light work, that's his whole thing. So it's like that beautifully encapsulates what we're trying to achieve as a lodge locally. The more people we can get to help with these things, the easier it's going to be on all of us absolutely now.
Speaker 1:You're the hero generation and behind you is are going to be the artists, right? The artists are a generation that entered childhood during a crisis like the period we're in right now, um a time when great dangers cut down social and political complexity in favor of public consensus, aggressive institutions and ethic and an ethic of personal sacrifice. Artists grow up over, protected by adults pre-preoccupied with the crisis. They come of age as the socialized and conformist young adults of a post-crisis world and they break out as process oriented midlife leaders during an awakening and age into thoughtful, post-awakening elders. Examples of this generation are the progressive generation, the silent generation and the homeland generation. Homeland generation I haven't heard of that one.
Speaker 2:The homeland generation is gen z that they're calling them homeland zoomers gen z the homeland generation now you want to know what's funny about that is. Reading this book has actually made me kind of adjust how I'm raising my daughter really my daughter. You don't want her to be a traditional uh my daughter is yeah, is the next prophetic generation, so she's the next generation of the boomers.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's like, no, I've got to reposition how I, how I'm raising her, I am raising her to be independent, um, you know. So, for example, if she's like, oh, I can't get my bike started, and it's like, no, here's how you do it, I'm not doing it for you, you know, you've got to figure these things out, or no, I can't fit this toy into this thing and keep working on it, like, and that's that's kind of the thing that I say to her. A lot is I'm like hey, you know, what do you do if you can't figure something out?
Speaker 2:Because typically, what kids will do is they'll just sit down and work on it and figure it out. Don't cry, just slow down, look at it. And I had a great example of that yesterday. Yesterday I told you before we started recording I helped a buddy of mine change a starter in a 2021 GMC 1500. By the way, if we have any brothers who work for GMC in the engineering department who hurt you Honestly, who hurt you, because I remember back in the day, back in my day- yes, you are that old.
Speaker 2:I am that old. Back in the day if I needed to change a starter on a vehicle, I opened up the hood and it was on the passenger side, right by the battery. It was right there and then two bolts and I'm done and that was replacing a starting solenoid and an 86 Bronco with a fuel injected 302, because that's the first year they did the fuel injected 302. Thank you very much. It's the greatest motor ever so chevy 350.
Speaker 1:Guys don't come at me, but um anyway all like so compacted now right, like all kind of like so jammed in there because let me tell you what we had to do.
Speaker 2:So normally what the dealer would do is they'll remove the cab and they'll just work on it from the back, just standing right over the chassis, right, but no, what we had to do because we had none of those tools and we're in a garage sweating our rear ends off for five hours. Uh, we had to take the passenger wheel off, take out the fender flare that's on the inside, it's a cloth fender flare. Take that out, remove a. I don't even know what that went to. I think it might have been like something turbo related or something. So I had to remove a hose, the exhaust, um, and then like a couple of sensors or something like that, and then we and a heat shield and we were finally able to access the starter.
Speaker 2:Here's the reason why I say what I said to my daughter is I could tell my buddy was getting super frustrated underneath that truck and his hands messed up and he's trying to get this heat shield out. He's starting to yank and all this other stuff. And anybody knows, working on a newer vehicle, when you start yanking parts, you break parts and it costs you more money. So I said hey, bro, tag out like I got this. I kid you not, I get up in there and it's just like I'm playing with like a kid's little you know, like the red and blue ball with the shapes in it and everything. I'm like doing that underneath this truck, so I'm just like gently moving it. Finally I get the angle on it and just pull it right out. I'm not going to say all the cuss words that he said, but it was how on earth did you do that? And I was like oh, I have a toddler Like we. We play with shapes.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to say, but that's how long did it take of your day to try to do that one project?
Speaker 2:That one project. I got there at two o'clock and we ended up getting back to their house for dinner by seven. So it took five hours total for us to do that that's insane.
Speaker 1:I would not invest five hours of my day into that. I I can't do it. It was time well spent and that actually that's a great segue, that story into how these archetypes can be encountered in the lodge and how you can approach them, knowing the the kind of archetype they might fall into, how you can, uh, communicate with them to help you communicate better with those archetypes, since you kind of you know this is broad strokes we're talking about. We're not talking about every person that you're going to meet, but broadly is good because it gives you at least an approach that you can try on people and see if it works, and statistically it should more often than not.
Speaker 2:And honestly, once this is explained and here's I want to be clear on this please go read this book, please read the book, get the audio book, read the actual book, because it does a far better job than we do in the hour and some change that we have to talk to you guys about this. So what you're going to see, especially in the boomer generation, you're going to see two very different types of people. You're going to see those that are power-hungry and argumentative, and you're also going to see those that are power hungry and argumentative, and you're also going to see those that are more laid back. They typically are not in the elected. Chairs Might be like your secretary, your secretary might be one of these, like ours is, but they want to see the next generation advance and move forward. And what does the secretary do? The secretary does paperwork. That's not a position of power or authority, even though it is a very pivotal role in the law.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, power or authority, even though it is a very pivotal role in the lodge.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, it's supposed to be a very subservient role, right, most lodges, because the masters don't understand how Freemasonry works, how the digest works, how these chairs are supposed to operate, right, they let a lot of that authority fall into the secretary because they're not willing to do their jobs Right and honestly, the two lodges that I've been a part of, both secretaries at the two lodges that I've been a part of, are picture perfect Grey Warden people. I mean picture perfect. They're like you know, because they know the digest, they know the laws, they know what a worshipful master can and can't do. They know these things. Any good worshipful master, whenever he has a question on what he can and can't do, the first thing he's going to do is look to his left and say, brother, secretary, can I do this? Because the secretary should know all of these things.
Speaker 2:I mean, we talk about that in the ea degree, about circumscribing our passions and our, our desires and keeping our passions within due bounds. It's like that includes conversation, like and again, if you're that kind of, we had it recently. We were talking about somebody who's wanting to buy our building over at Lakeland and so the conversation switched from the technical data letter of intent you know dollars and cents, all of that and then it went into well, no, this is a foolish idea because of X reason, and at that point you could tell the brother who stood up and was talking about that. He was getting emotionally invested in the conversation. The second you get emotionally invested in a conversation, you need to take a step back.
Speaker 1:Pretty much time to disengage for a bit.
Speaker 2:Right, you've got to disengage, you've got to pull yourself back and you've got to sit there and think okay, I need to be able to speak logic and facts. And so the end result that we came up to, to your point of when you have a collective conversation, you'll typically come up with a better idea than the first one that was presented, because different people look at things different ways, and that's okay. But the conversation ended with we're not going to talk about the selling of the lodge anymore until there is a letter of intent or a contract and a survey of this potential new property that they're wanting to give us to kind of sweeten the deal.
Speaker 1:So you've read this book, you've absorbed the teachings of this book. I've read this book like four times. Four times. And now you're in Freemasonry as an appointed officer currently. So how can you help the brothers that are listening to this, or the people that aren't even Masons might be listening to this? Like, what have you been able to use that you've learned from this book in the lodge? Give me some examples of how you can use this knowledge.
Speaker 2:I'll give you an example out of the lodge and I'll give you an example in the lodge, out of the lodge, typically, the give you an example in the lodge, um, out of the lodge, typically, the prophetic generation is a very emotional generation and they are I mean, there's just no way around it the boomers, yeah, the. The prophetic archetype is a very emotional archetype and so again, I'm raising a prophetic, you know, young woman. Um, I'm going to have to teach her how to control her emotions and think logically. Um, so I weep for whoever tries to date her. I'm going to have to teach her how to control her emotions and think logically. So I weep for whoever tries to date her, because she is going to be a menace.
Speaker 2:So so, either way I mean that's that's the honest truth of it is, they are a some of them I should not all some some are a group of people that they believe, if they are more offended than they are Right. Here's the second part of that. The second part of that is they'll typically speak from a highly emotion state, right from a heightened emotion state, and so their whole thing is because whenever I get into conversations or debate with people, I typically stay very calm, and not only do I stay very calm, but I'll also crack jokes. You and I had one on Facebook the other day where I was like in the spirit of harmony, let's just do this.
Speaker 2:Right, and I meant it as a joke and it was taken as a joke, so I got it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was hilarious.
Speaker 2:I'm a little upset that Facebook hid my comment, though they hid it. They hid the comment, yeah, so you actually have to go in drop down and hit all comments in order to see what I put.
Speaker 2:So, either way, again they speak from this heightened emotional standpoint and again their methodology is well, if I'm more offended than I'm right, fast forward in those conversations. Why I stay so calm? And again, my eyebrows don't even change angle. I mean, you know it's the same voice, my heart rate doesn't elevate nothing, but it's one of those that if I were to speak to an emotional boomer as that emotional boomer were to speak to me, it'd probably come to blows.
Speaker 2:They cannot handle somebody speaking to them in the same way that they speak to others, and I don't know if it's a conscious decision or not, but they just can't handle it. And back to the communication aspect, because this is the thing that I learned the most is dealing with a whenever I just said okay, I stay very calm in a debate, especially with a boomer, and I've detailed it on this podcast before, where I offended a brother who is a boomer and he was so angry with me over a very low ball comment, like a low, real low handed comment Um, not low handed, I should say I call it a solid flying circus monkeys.
Speaker 2:Um, and he got very, very offended by that, to the point where he was shaking. And I'm like this guy is, I'm sitting here watching this going and it hit me as I in real time from like this guy's emotionally compromised for what I meant as a simple stupid joke, a very stupid joke. So I walked over, stayed calm and apologized and his response was well, I was highly offended and so then I had to take a step back and point out the logic of okay, I've now apologized to you. It's your decision if you accept that or not. That leads into another caveat about it.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, responses. I can clearly see that you are bothered by it and that's why I'm standing here apologizing to you, to try to help relieve some of that pressure.
Speaker 2:The other aspect of it is and this could be applied to boomers, gen Xers, millennials and again, this is not exclusive to one generation. This is applicable to all of these generations is that if I cause offense, say Chris and I are having a conversation, I cause offense to Chris or vice versa.
Speaker 2:Let's say Chris causes offense to me, which is not going to happen. I'll try. Give it your best shot, dude. So either way, I just don't get offended by stuff and, uh, you know the old expression of like water off a duck's back, um, but either way, if I now do the right thing and I apologize for that thing and they are still offended, even though I gave a very heartfelt apology, or vice versa I'm still offended, that sin is now me. It's now my problem that I'm still ticked off, right, this guy who has since apologized for his actions.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's not an apology. I want to be clear. It's not an apology of I'm sorry that you got offended or I'm sorry you feel that way. No, it is. I'm taking responsibility for my actions. I caused offense, I didn't mean to.
Speaker 1:So change the way you apologize to people. Sometimes it needs to come from an honest place, like and that's you know. I just had this incident happen this morning, um, in a game, so, but hey, they're still real people. And, uh, the person said I want apology from that person before I I come back to the team and I said, okay, let's talk about that. Like, what do you expect them to be apologizing for? And when we got into it, it was just ridiculous. This person was expecting someone to apologize for doing the right thing. No, it was your ego. You wanted an apology. That's why you wanted your ego wanted an apology. Yeah, if you look at it logically, that person has nothing to apologize for, neither do you. Right, it happened because of a misunderstanding and that's the facts. So I got that person to understand and come around and say hey, look, everybody wants you, you're wanted here, you're needed. The only apology is that you didn't take the time to communicate longer to sort this stuff out.
Speaker 2:It's amazing whenever you use calm words and a calm mind just what all you can convey in a good way.
Speaker 1:Changes it instantly. When you start talking from a supportive place, you know it's like hey, you're valued, People care about you. You're misunderstanding the situation. They listen sometimes, but when you apologize, you should know what you're apologizing for, right? Yeah, or why are you apologizing at all? Don't apologize if it's not going to be a legitimate apology. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I've seen that before as well. Again, you know, with family and other people of you know. Hey, by the way, you did something that offended me. I haven't even told you what the item is yet. Oh well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, and we always joke about the difference between my mom and dad, and so my dad passed away 15 years ago complications with cancer, and it was so entertaining to watch their different forms of anger in both people. Because my dad I would consider my dad a gray warden, not because he's my dad, but he's literally the strongest male I've ever met in my life, like just mentally, emotionally. The man had it. You know, we went from a trailer park with dirt roads uh, so represent tpt, um, trailer park trash for those scoring at home tpt, yeah, tpt, so uh, either way, we started in a trailer park and he built a multi-million dollar business. The man had it. So it was so funny, though, to watch their different types of anger. When my mom gets angry, we always said that it's it's like a nuclear bomb or it's an atom bomb, like if you're in a blast radius, you're gonna get it.
Speaker 2:Like it doesn't matter, you could be the mailman, it did not matter, everyone's gonna get it right. And that was my mom's version of anger. My father-in-law is the exact same way. It's a blast radius so. But my dad, on the other hand and I'm more this way as well my dad was a sniper, and so it wasn't just that he was mad at that one person, no, he was mad at that one thing that that one person did, and he would.
Speaker 2:He would dial it down that small to the point where there were multiple times after he passed away, I was talking to different people in the construction world and I'm like hey, what are your memories of dad? And I talked to an inspector at one point and he's like the most fond memory that I have of your dad, he goes and it's. It's not going to sound like it. I was like all right, what you got he goes is? He chewed me out over red tagging a job and he was in the house yelling, screaming in my face that I had red tagged this job over something that he had perceived he had done right and literally told me meet me out in the street so we can fight this out.
Speaker 2:He goes, we hammered it out, so we can fight this out. He goes. We hammered it out, we got it figured out, he got it corrected, everything is good. And then I kid you not, it wasn't five minutes after he was yelling and screaming at me. He's like hey, you want to go grab some lunch, I want to buy you lunch. So it's like dad was so careful with his anger and with addressing controversy. He was such a sniper with it where it was like no, I'm not mad at you as a person. I'm mad at this one thing you did and I honestly like I prefer that one better I think so too.
Speaker 1:Um, my wife and I are opposites in this. Like she can get mad quick and she will tell you what she thinks, and then she's fine afterwards, like she just has to get it out. Yeah, whereas I have a long fuse, like I take so much stuff, um, and that the people get used to that. And then when I snap it's a shock. It's like wow, he never got mad before. Like, and why is he mad over the socks? That's such a weird thing to get mad about. And it's like no, I'm an idiot. I let all that other stuff build up and now I'm using the socks as the reason to go out at you. Right, like, and I can't turn it off. Like, once the anger comes, it's not stopping, time's the only thing that makes it go away. So my wife will be, like the conversation's over, everybody's happy. And I'm like no, I need to go outside, I want to be happy right now but I'm still mad.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I need to go distance myself because we're just going to keep fighting. Honestly, my wife's like that too and I noticed it whenever I specifically noticed it with dealing with family. And then I've noticed it again in raising our daughter is my daughter, and anybody who has a toddler at home. You know exactly what I'm going to talk about. You love your kid. You will do anything for your kid. I will take a bullet for my child with a smile on my face, like it's just, there's no question of what I will do for the protection and safety of my daughter, no question. Having said that, there's. Sometimes she's annoying, like she's super annoying, like she talks too darn much and then she's telling me, like just going on and on and on about spider-man is doing this, and I'm like baby, if I hear one more time about this one episode of spider-man, that I've seen like five times with you, right like.
Speaker 2:But she wants to sit down and I have to be aware of this right. She wants to sit down and and if you look at it from a more broad picture, 30 000 foot view this is a daughter just wanting to talk to her dad.
Speaker 1:Right, that's all she wants to do, so it's like baby.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would love to hear on how the Green Goblin threw pumpkin bombs for like the fifth time. Like I want to hear all about it. But I still have to slow down and make time for that precious little three-year-old that just wants to connect with her dad.
Speaker 1:Right, it's really just your attention. They just want to feel your attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they don't know any other way than what they're interested in. Yeah, it's not like they can come up or ask you questions about your day. You're going to have to talk about things that interest them.
Speaker 2:So back to the communicational aspect. So that's one thing that I've noticed outside of the lodge is that they're going to be more offended Now. In some instances in the boomer generation, the only language they understand is a higher form of aggression. That's the only thing they understand and then they will respect that. So it's not necessarily that they've accepted it, but they will respect that. If you cross this boundary, there are now consequences that come with you crossing this boundary. So in some of them that's the case.
Speaker 2:But what I find in the lodge is if I have a highly emotional brother sit down, take the conversation very slowly and I cannot accentuate that enough. You've got to take it slow because the faster especially you know the difference in ages. Admit that any human it doesn't matter a younger brain is firing at a faster ability than your typical older brain is right, especially people who are retired and they haven't exactly had to exercise critical thinking skills in a while. So I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be ugly, but everybody knows that once you retire, unless you stay active, you start to lose some of that cognitive ability that you had when you were in your heyday. Like it sounds ugly, but I'm sorry, that's just what I've observed. So, having said that, what happened?
Speaker 1:There's a lifestyle thing. Like they grew up reading the newspaper. You know they were adults reading newspaper. Yeah, that's a time. Takes time to consume that information. Your generation is like I spent 10 minutes on the internet and I learned 85 things Like that's your generation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when in 10 minutes?
Speaker 1:they got through like five paragraphs about one story reading a newspaper. So it is a lifestyle thing?
Speaker 2:I think too. Yeah, and it's like the old joke of you know, whenever I was growing up, pre-internet days, one of the one of the expressions of you would say something random and an old person would go what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? And now I can find the price of tea in China in half a second. It takes longer for me to write it out than it does to get the result. So it's like we're living in an information age and there's there's no debating that we are. But again, take the conversation slow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the irony of that is we live in an information age and people are generally less educated and no less than Dumber, yeah, isn't that? Ironic we live in an information age, yet people have less information.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so when you are in those conversations and again I'm just speaking from a, speaking to the boomer generation, and we'll get to Gen X and millennials here shortly but when you're speaking to a boomer, the faster pace you keep that conversation, the higher the probability they're going to misunderstand something or not understand a concept that you're trying to convey and that will directly communicate to anger because they don't understand it. Because they don't understand it's just going to escalate because that's what they've known their entire lives. So it's just going to escalate and then it turns into I'm the more offended party. Therefore, I'm right If you keep the conversation very slow and I'm not saying that they are slow-minded people, that is not what I'm saying If you keep the conversation slow and you give that other party time to process what you just said.
Speaker 2:Obviously we know that I like to talk fast so I can convey an idea pretty quick. It doesn't translate very well whenever I'm talking to people in the lodge, or even my wife sometimes. Sometimes I have to say something and let her sit with it for all of that to really soak in and again, it's not an insult. So there are some tips Communicate a little slower.
Speaker 1:Keep it slow and keep your emotions out of it.
Speaker 2:If you you're gonna walk up to a boomer and you're gonna say the word yeet, bet swag, I don't care what you're gonna say. Change your language. Change your language to something that they can understand because you're using english language yeah, so you, because you're gonna say things that they don't understand. You're gonna be like, oh well, I was on tiktok the other day and they were like are you talking about the game where you do the little hatchings, do x's and o's?
Speaker 2:oh, I got tic tacs right here yeah, that's tic tac toe for those uh, for the rest of you, x's and o's yeah, so, especially like whenever we're like chris, like you did, the grand lodge reimbursement program. You know where it's like. You're talking about websites and you're talking about reimbursements, advertising on facebook, so you're talking about all these things.
Speaker 1:The older generation that had nothing to do with the internet whatsoever are not going to understand the nuances not only would they not understand, they would have a visceral emotional reaction of it scares me, I don't like it, right, and that would come immediately. So what I learned about communicating to that generation? Because I'm not a boomer, I'm gen x right, yeah, and I saw and I felt how they were receiving this information. So I would change it and make it. I would tie it only to the emotional things that they care about.
Speaker 1:Like, instead of talking about how it works and what you've got to do, I would talk about the fact that we can all agree masonry is dying, right? We can all agree that we need more people in our lodge, right? Like, do you know that you have the power to do that? You can do this yourself and you don't need Grand Lodge. You don't need anyone else to tell you you can or do it, like it's within your power to do it, don't? You want to do that? People would agree. Yeah, of course, so it's free. You have to change the way you talk about things based on who you're talking to, and that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:I did air conditioning sales for 20 some odd years. So whenever? Now, to be fair, I was a mediocre salesman, and I was a mediocre salesman because I'm not very pushy, so it's like I wouldn't push you to close the deal, like I would just inform you now, mind you, I had a couple of summers where I did over a million dollars, and I think it was 2006 or 2007. There was two years back to back. I was top five in the state of Florida for carrier air conditioners. Yeah, I was in the top five for the state of Florida Impressive. Well, the reason why I say all that is because to explain my sales tactic, my sales tactic and I even used this recently I had to run an estimate to a candidate, potentially a candidate that we're going to have here pretty soon, but his air conditioner is out in his house. And whenever I explain air conditioning, can I go off about reversing valves and Schrader valves and Freon and how long it takes for a coil to reach dew point? Yes, I can speak mechanical and technical air conditioning to the point where I can keep up with mechanical engineers. That is not bragging, it is something I spent my life studying Right, so I can keep up with every single bit of it, but I had to explain air conditioning to everybody, from soccer moms to mechanical engineers and everybody in between. So what did I do? Whenever I get to talking about okay, you got a problem going on with your air conditioner whenever you get a surge, for example, we sell surge protectors for air conditioners One of the things that I would say is the thing that it protects the most is your contactor and your capacitor.
Speaker 2:Right, your contactor is like the ignition to your car. What did I just do? I took a complex item that gets a call for it to send power to the rest of the unit and I compared it to the ignition of a car, because everybody knows what the ignition of a car is. Yes, I had to change my language, right? Yes, so essentially what you're doing the capacitor. The capacitor is basically just an extra jolt of electricity. If you want a hard start kit. That's like putting a second battery in your car.
Speaker 1:I know that you need a flux capacitor if you want to go back in time.
Speaker 2:Yes, you absolutely do so. Having said that and the reason why I point all that out is because you do have to change the way you word things sometime Whenever we're talking about a Grand Lodge reimbursement program, you could say hey, this could be equivalent to the Grand Lodge reimbursing you for a full-page ad in the Sunday paper or a board on the side of the road yeah, ad in the Sunday paper or a board on the side of the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need to use something that they can connect and understand.
Speaker 2:Right, and so that's changing your verbiage in order to be able to communicate with somebody. Likewise, when I'm talking to a millennial or a Gen Z-er because I taught young adult class for years at my church I have to change the way that I word things. I can't word them the same way that I would word it with a boomer. I have to speak their language, and that's part of being an effective communicator. I'm not saying that I'm good at it. I'm just saying it's something that I've learned throughout the years.
Speaker 1:It's true, people need to think about these things. It'll help you get along better with people in your lodge and it'll help you get more things done in your lodge. Anything else you want to talk about with this?
Speaker 2:as we're going here, I'm trying not to make our episodes more than an hour and a half, because I respect people, fine uh well, I mean, even still, like even in our fellow craft degree, um, part of some of the stuff that we study is grammar and rhetoric. Yeah, grammar, rhetoric and logic. If you just apply those three, communication becomes so much easier. Um, whenever you're speaking to a millennial and I'm speaking to our boomer brothers out there you got to understand a millennial, a good millennial and I say that because there are bad millennials out there. Trust me, I can rail on them all day long. Whenever you're speaking to a millennial, you're dealing with a very effective person, especially if they're a driven millennial. If they're a driven millennial, the only thing that you need to do as an older generation because that was one thing that we had in our church for the longest time is that the older generation didn't want to do anything because they were tired. Oh, that's just a lot of work and it's like well you?
Speaker 1:don't understand.
Speaker 2:there's like 20 of us here that can do all this work between millennials and Gen Zers. There's like 20 of us and we can handle a lot of stuff the transition of an older person, and this isn't exclusive to boomers, this is all generations. As time progresses, one day I'll have to cross this bridge as well. Your role needs to shift from leader to wise counsel.
Speaker 2:It has to, and it has to happen that way in the family unit. It has to happen that way in government, in church, in the lodge, in everywhere. It has to happen. At one point, as a man, I am no longer going to be the head of my kids. My kids are going to become adults and my job at that point is to be wise counsel. Yeah, so I'm not telling you what to do. As a 30 year old, you know 25, 30 year old, you know my daughter. My job is to advise, hey.
Speaker 2:I would do this, but whenever they go out on their own, I need to transition to wise counsel. Same thing can be said in church.
Speaker 2:is that at some point you have to transition to wise counsel to the elders of the organization, especially in the in your lodge, specifically in the lodge, because, like right now and you and I have talked about this we have a young line in our lodge and I see this playing out in real time. You have some of the brothers within the craft not specifically our lodge, but in the craft as a whole that they, they don't want to see certain things happen because we tried to do that 20 years ago. That was 20 years ago, like george was still in office every lodge everybody hears that you'll bring up an idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and somebody one of the older guard will say we tried that and it never worked, or it never made money or whatever.
Speaker 2:My my response to that has been um, that's great that it happened 20 years ago. I was not a mason at that time. Um, so, while we have, uh, youth currently, and while we have the energy, let's use it. Let's use it while we have it, you know, because eventually, have the energy, let's use it. Let's use it while we have it, because eventually, one day I'm going to need a walker to get in the lodge. I'm sorry, time comes for all of us, and that's another thing.
Speaker 2:to bring up, gosh, I can go on for hours about this, but that's another thing that gets brought up is whenever a younger person I'm speaking specifically to elderly people, and it doesn't matter if you're a boomer, a Gen Xer or a millennial, because we're all going to be there at one point. When a young person asks you a question, even if it sounds like it's in opposition to what you're saying, that doesn't automatically mean they're being disrespectful. I need data, especially in some of the scenarios I find myself in within the lodge. I don't care about the emotional aspect of this. I don't care what happened 20 years ago. I don't care what happened 42 years ago.
Speaker 2:I am focused on trying to build this lodge and move this lodge forward and hand this off to the next generation. That's my job, and so I want to hand this off to the next generation. But in order to do that, I need to know some of the fail safes you guys have had. I need to know where your failures were. Your successes were, the resources that you got things from. I need to know those things, and your job as that elderly person in the lodge is to transition from leader to wise counsel if you have that in your lodge. I realize all of our line right now are all younger people, gen X and below, so I realize that's abnormal in the lodge as a whole.
Speaker 1:But don't stop the younger brothers from stepping up.
Speaker 1:It should be more and more normal. I mean, we need to have younger generation in our lines now. Yeah, they're not even younger generations, they're modern generations of people. This is the age of people that should be in the line right now. Right Are the Gen X and the millennials, and there's nothing against being older and being in the line right now. Right are the gen x and the millennials, and there's nothing against being older and being in the line. I'm just saying, generally speaking, the leadership should be of people that are living, you know, their their midlife now, and we were talking about this before recording about politics, why are all of our politicians in their 80s? Um, and most lodges are not right now? They're having to recycle those past masters for the eighth time, to run their lodge again and again and again, because they don't have new people coming in. And guess what? We have ways to help you get those new people in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even, especially millennials. Like millennials, you got to understand whenever you're dealing with a boomer, they're going to come off Sorry, the prophetic archetype. Whenever that person speaks, it's going to sound like it's heavy handed offense. They don't always mean it like that. So in that aspect, a millennial is going to need a little bit of understanding. Circumscribing our passions. You're going to have to slow down a little bit, like I stated before. Okay, brother, I heard what you just said. How did you mean that? And I do that with my wife, I do that with family, I do that with absolutely everybody. Again, I'm not saying that I'm the picture perfect communicator here, but it has yielded positive results of you just said this why did you say that? And then they'll go into a further explanation. Even though it sounded like a heavy handed off offensive comment, they might not have meant it that way. So it's going to take a little bit of grace and understanding from the younger generation. I'm speaking to our millennial brothers. You're going to have to mature a little bit in your conversation, right, and this could be with your spouse, this could be with people in the lodge, people in different institutions you find yourselves in. You know work, it doesn't matter of. Okay, well, I said, I said blah, right, and they're coming off of this highly animated, heightened emotional state. Just that's what they look like whenever they're saying this.
Speaker 2:I hear what you just said. It sounds like you just said this. All right, can you expand on that a little bit more? You have to slow the conversation down. Yeah, some of them and this is a very small number of people, and this is not exclusive to prophetic archetype, because I know a millennial who's this way Some people are just looking for a fight, and that's universal across all generations. They are just looking for a fight, man. So if they don't get that fight, it spirals them even more. They just get more pissed off, right? So you've got to be the one to slow that person down. I hear what you're saying. Okay, it sounds like you're saying this. Is that what you meant by that? Or can you expand on that comment you just made? Right, all of them will do it. All of them. There may be an insult that comes your way, and if it typically is, you can't understand plain English. Okay, but again, there has to be that little bit of understanding.
Speaker 1:So conversation on both sides right. Both sides need to try to understand the other better well, and it's all about having emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2:That's all it is.
Speaker 1:That's the whole point of this podcast is hopefully going to encourage you to try to understand other generations better, yeah, and learn what they need and what you can give them to communicate better. I think this was an awesome podcast. I'm really happy that we got to talk finally about this fourth turning um that's it. You don't want to keep dogging on different generational archetypes I mean we can, we should do another, maybe we do another episode.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I would love to do another episode, but I would love to have a representation, so all we need is a boom yeah, I want to love a boomer archetype to be on here and let's just have a debate, right, let's just debate something stupid.
Speaker 1:It would be easy for us to get a boomer on here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because then you can actually see the archetypes in action. You've got Chris, who is the picture-perfect example of a Gen Xer he is. You've got me that I kind of fit into that millennial category pretty well. We know about being headstrong If I will burn all this to the ground and recreate it and the way I see fit. And then of course let's just get a boomer on here. That's a little more emotional. Maybe some fireworks will fly and we should.
Speaker 1:We should do more of that. We should have opposing views, debate it so people can see how this can happen without devolving into name calling and fighting each other.
Speaker 2:I think masonic debate is a beautiful thing if it's handled properly. So long as it's handled properly, you'll achieve so much. If if it's trying to work together to achieve a common good. It is such a beautiful thing because it's like, look, I'm not trying to offend you or hurt you in my words and I hope and I think that you're not trying to offend me or hurt me with your words. So, okay, again, the guard should be fully lowered, your offense should be on zero. You know, and so long as you can keep that mindset, if you start to get emotional in a conversation, disengage, totally disengage and say, okay, can we table this for the next meeting or can we table this for an outside conversation? Honestly, like I said, it's an absolutely beautiful thing. I love debate, I love doing it.
Speaker 1:I think anytime you can get in a conversation with somebody that isn't going to take it personally, it's going to be a good conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever, brothers, that is a 30,000 foot view of the fourth turning. Please read the book. It is a great book to have, so it's going to be part of, if I ever become a Lodge mentor, lodge instructor, catechism instructor again, any EA that we bring in. I'm going to have them read two books in that timeframe One is going to be Born in Blood, which is another one that we're going to cover here shortly, and the other one is going to be the Fourth Turning because it'll help your generational communication so much.
Speaker 2:But we do have some others on the horizon and I would love to hear from all of you. Of what topics do you think we should cover next? We talked a little bit before we started recording of possibly going through the digest and explaining the different types of trials, what types of trials you can have, what can bring you up on charges, what a Worshipful Master can and cannot do according to the Digest.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of misunderstanding about the Digest in general.
Speaker 2:There are so many misunderstandings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll hear from one person that you respect. This is the truth. And then you go look it up and you go back and say, where did you hear this? Well, I heard it from somebody of authority.
Speaker 2:It's like okay and and that's the issue is, as I just this past week, I spoke to two people from our grand line this week and they both had two different opinions on what the digest said, and this is part of our grand line. Um so, uh, we ended up finding out what the right answer was, but you also have that one rumor that's out there of the grandmaster can unmake someone a mason on the spot that that is not something that is afforded to the Grandmaster, and I heard that from a past Grandmaster.
Speaker 1:No, he has to automatically unmake someone a mason. Yes, so not on the spot, but he can do it. It just takes a minute.
Speaker 2:There are some loopholes, but either way, there's a lot of misconceptions about what all can and cannot happen within the craft. So if you guys want us to see to do a dive into the digest the Florida digest of Masonic law, uh and say, come up with a top 10 list of misconceptions, we want to hear from you. So leave a comment on our Facebook page, on our YouTube page. We want to hear from you guys. As far as what, what direction would you like the show to take and maybe provide a little bit more Masonic education, so all of us can be on the same page.
Speaker 1:We'll put a feeler out there to try to get some feedback from you guys. Please help us out. Take a minute. Just say something that you want to learn more about, or you had an experience. Maybe someone told you something was true and you found out later it wasn't. Those are the kind of things that we want to bring up so that other people don't have to deal with the same thing you did. Matt. Chris, this is a great episode. Thank you for bringing the fourth turning into the zeitgeist of my life. I'm really interested to read the book. I'll put it in my rotation. Anything else you want to add to the for the brothers before?
Speaker 2:we head out.
Speaker 1:No may peace and brotherly love prevail may peace and brotherly love prevail until next time. Brothers on the level podcast is the love for bill. Until next time brothers on the level podcast is out, out.
