THE ANGST

We wear watches but we don't have time.  Many of us were raised to accept a paradigm of superiority.  Mankind is not part of nature but created to dominate; above and detached.  Mastery of nature; technology out of control- the results of all these things are now being visited on us.  Scientists revealed in the 80's that we are in the midst of a mass extinction.  Who cared?  Business went on as usual- delusionally aiming toward a future of continued economic growth.  Today there are more depressed people. Development has created mass loneliness.  Though our existence is a product of our part in the universe, an evolutionary process 200,000 years along on this slim planet- we have lost the understanding.   

I don't know anymore that the ethos of masonry was intended to be achievable.  Over 500 years- we have been housekeepers of the relics left by the builders. Our greatest struggle is knowing we do not have a narrative that helps us address this reality.  We are coterminous. A we-they dichotomy never existed except in our minds. If we are a cohort striving to achieve greater awareness, and if it is difficult for us as a group to create the new narrative that addresses the existential threat, then is this not an indictment of the entire human race?   Business as usual is driving us toward extinction. Our sense of permanence, essential to our sense of self, is unravelling.   As a mason, I worry for mankind- because my brethren, the enlightened are accepting darkness.  Do masonic values die if there is no one around to contemplate them? Our permanence is an illusion. Should I learn the happy songs and passively accept the destruction of mother earth?  Does it matter that we dream?