Mr. Clifford Geertz was a cultural anthropologist, whose work shed light on interpreting symbols and society, who passed away in 2006. He drew a careful distinction between culture and social structure, and said that a culture is a “system of meanings embodied by symbols” that provide people with a frame of reference to understand reality. … Continue reading Clifford Geertz
Most businesses (and even private lives) are now driven by knowledge, instead of production of tangible goods. How we manage knowledge determines our outcomes. And we’re very bad at it. Continue reading Companies Know Things
How can we make big change decisions in life keeping our values in mind? Continue reading A Mason’s Tool Chest for Career Change
When we try to change ourselves, most people think it requires will power. We are supposed to cultivate will power, because change is hard, and to overcome that difficulty we need will power. People who do great things have lots of will power. Or so we think. This is an extremely unhelpful way of thinking … Continue reading Will Power Isn’t the Way
Many are aware that discussion of politics and religion is frowned upon in Masonic lodges, but why? And when did this start? Continue reading No Religion and Politics in Lodge – An Early Look
In past years, I learned a lot about diet & fitness. There are many personal & psychological aspects to this, but there is also some hard science. Changing the physical form of your body is a very powerful tool for self-improvement, but there is also a lot of harmful information out there. I want to … Continue reading Gaining and Losing Any Amount of Weight
In how we think about our lives, we should always be careful to distinguish between the climate and the weather. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in what happens from day to day and our passing emotional states. As a result I thought it’d be helpful to look at both the short term … Continue reading The Climate and the Weather
Much has been said about Masonry’s decline in membership. Before getting into it, let’s stare down this decline so we know what we are talking about. First, we have to look at the facts without any value judgments. There is general agreement that this decline is caused by a range of different factors, but the … Continue reading The Right Size and Future for Masonry
There’s too much reality happening for a person to take it all in. Human brains have this marvelous facility we call attention, that allows us to filter the firehose of information that’s coming in, and winnow it down to a useful set of things we can use to get stuff done. For something to be … Continue reading The Radio Station Game
A life script is a common set of patterns that people use to structure their movement through life. People don’t usually think about them, but they’re very real. In the United States circa 2020, the middle class has a default life script that goes something like this: Grow up, get decent enough grades In high … Continue reading Life Scripts
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