Vignettes On The Brain

Crowding out Freemasonry

I make no claim to a fancy formal education. I’m just a guy who grew up on a farm and wanted to be there, outside, not sitting in a room doing largely meaningless busywork.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t value education, because I do.

Ultimately, I write here. And since I write here, I want to write as well as possible. I want the meaning of the words I string together to be clear, and I want to hold your interest. It all comes down to value. I want to write well enough that you find value here.

And, of course, I hope to have a positive impact on our Ancient Craft, both today, and after I’m gone.

To accomplish those things requires education.

Photo by LI WEIBIN on Unsplash

I’m pretty sure that I learned just about, almost, exactly, nothing about writing throughout my time with our educational system.

But, I’m a voracious reader, and I’ve been a voracious reader from a very young age. I’ve got to figure that I picked up a lot knowledge about how to write, through the act of reading.

As a young adult I started working on political campaigns. There’s a lot of writing to be done in a political campaign, and trust me, candidates generally don’t want to be doing that writing. So I learned a lot more by doing. It is a particular kind of writing, generally quite short, with the intent to persuade. It has a great feedback loop too. If you win, you can assume your words were good enough. If you lose, well, maybe not.

Then I went to work for the Legislature. For many years. Constant writing, and different forms of writing. It was a superb learning experience. And a good feedback loop too, never a lost election, so that writing must have been good enough.

Another benefit of that employment were courses. Courses offered as part of the employment package. Not theory or nonsense, just the nitty gritty, how to write effectively in order to make an impact. Good stuff. My mommy didn’t raise a complete dummy, higher education provided without cost? You bet I jumped on those opportunities.

Eventually, Covid hit, and as my response to it, I started writing about Freemasonry. Seemingly constantly. That’s why you and I are here now, sharing these words.

Given that this entire effort is made through the written word, I’ve worked since it began to try and up my writing game. I’ve tried to continue my learning and hone my craft on a continual basis.

At the moment, that effort is manifesting through a course of sorts offered by a fairly famous writer of essays, a woman with books out and more on the way who has had her essays published in all those prestigious publications everyone has heard of.

This is all a good thing.

It is good for me, because it is important that we all learn and grow throughout our lives. It is good for you, because you read my stuff, and it’s much more fun to read well written stuff than poorly written stuff.

And it is undeniably Masonic. Our Second Degree talks in so much detail about the importance of education.

But tonight, it is causing me a bit of a problem.

You see, my current ‘teacher,’ right at this moment, has my mind stuck on an essay form, the vignette. I think that form could make for a superb Masonic essay, one that you would truly enjoy.

But I can’t think of a single Masonic instance that would work as a vignette for me.

Or, at least I can’t think of one right now. Nor have I been able to think of one all day today.

I’d like to try my hand at it, but I’m dying for want of an instance.

The thing is, I’ve got a wonderful idea for a vignette. In fact, I’ve got it all plotted out in my mind. I’m pretty darn sure that it would be great. But, it has nothing to do with Masonry, and I don’t think that you, my reader, would find interest in it at all. Indeed, it would be, well, not pornographic, but certainly a wee bit dirty.

So, that is my problem for today. A vignette in mind, but a vignette unable to be written due to a lack of an instance or a topic. Yet it must be done, because our Fellowcraft Degree reminds us that we must continue to educate ourselves, in order to better ourselves.

Luckily we have sleep, and tonight while I sleep, my mind will keep rolling this trouble around. And I’ve no doubt that as I sleep that instance I need will come, for truly in a vignette that is what I need, not a topic, an instance.