MASONIC TIME:

Being first matters!  In the big picture, it really doesn't but we like to act like it does- being competitive is the only way to live because being last is humiliating- unless you have are overcoming some disabilty last is bad. Only thing is, we could tolerate over achievers if they came equipped with enough insight to know how insufferable they sound.  Most of them don't understand that when they talk, they sound like they are bragging.  Of course that's acceptable because they came first- isn't it? Acceptable but painfully uncomfortable for the fellow who believes this stuff.  Have you  never spoken to the middle aged guy who ran for the winning touchdown when he was 17- and that's his claim to fame?  Pubs are full of drunk old men clinging to a moment that passed them bye.   What of the men who don't brag?  The world is full of them. Freemasons call them -a bigger man! How sad to pretend to live in the past. Where is the affirmation in that?  Freemasonry only exists as applied philosophy in the moment. The history is  time graffiti; some concrete points in a time/space continuum that validate that we were there, or here or somewhere else.  That's the same as graffiti on an alley wall or a passing box car.  Graffiti never quite captures purpose until the artist is using symbols to make statements.

It's fascinating, the preoccupation we have for 'masonic' graffiti, investing time considering the evidence of early members of our Craft. Even if only loosely based on facts we have learned to tolerate that- as long as it's 'masonic graffiti it's valid.  But the graffiti rests on a deep base of undiscovered fact.