The Craftsman’s Spiral: Growing in Freedom and Fullness

The work of becoming an enlightened craftsman isn’t a straight line—it’s a spiral. In this episode, we explore two vital and mutually reinforcing domains of growth: freedom, or our ability to act in the world, and fullness, the richness and resonance of our inner experience.

As Masons and as people, we often fixate on one or the other. But it’s the tension between agency and depth that creates true transformation. The spiral turns upward only when both grow together.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Personal development moves in a spiral, not a straight line
• Freedom (agency) and fullness (depth of experience) fuel each other
• Growth happens fastest when action and awareness evolve together

💬 Featured Quotes

“We talk about the work we're doing to become enlightened craftsmen.”  [00:00:00]“Freedom or agency in a psychological context… and fullness or depth of experience—these are the two domains.”  [00:00:36]
“Subtle increases in agency open the door to more diverse experiences.”  [00:01:24]
“It creates a more effective scaffold to work against in terms of self development.”  [00:01:32]

🔗 Explore Related Episodes

• “The Ashlar and the Question of Growth”
  https://podcast.amasonswork.com/episodes/the-ashlar-and-the-question-of-growth
  → A direct meditation on the nature of inner refinement and external resistance in self-development.
• “The Cornerstone of Awareness”
  https://podcast.amasonswork.com/episodes/the-cornerstone-of-awareness
  → Explores awareness as the first stone laid in any genuine transformation.
• “Freedom and Fullness: Mapping the Inner Lodge”
  https://podcast.amasonswork.com/episodes/freedom-and-fullness-mapping-the-inner-lodge
  → Lays the foundation for this episode’s deeper exploration of developmental dualities.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

We talk about the work we're doing to become enlightened craftsmen.

We want to talk about how that plays out in two kind of distinct domains.

Those domains are just like we discussed in the former episode, largely artificial, but

they're useful as sort of ways for us to calibrate the things we're driving towards as we

grow.

And those two perspectives are roughly described as freedom or agency in a psychological context

and fullness or depth of sort of quality of experience.

And as we grow in those directions and domains, we expect to get both a more capacity to create

change in the world or respond to the world as it is and act appropriately.

And for that experience to increase in significance and capacities and all sorts of good stuff

that comes with a richer, more powerful experience.

When we grow in these ways, when we drive towards agency or we drive towards the quality

of experience, what's going to happen is it fuels our ability to grow even

faster and stronger and better.

So subtle increases in agency open the door to more diverse experiences, which in turn create

essentially a more effective scaffold to work against in terms of self development.

The same thing is true in the fullness side of the conversation as you work towards from

a kind of a fairly shallow interpretation of experience or a shallow awareness of what's

going on to a deeper awareness of what's going on and a deeper appreciation for the way

things work.

That will also allow you to essentially grow more strongly, more, more capable towards

a richer and better experience.

What's going to happen as these capacities grow in general in broad sweeping terms is that

you will also increase in scope your ability to change and adapt and work will allow you

to work in bigger and bigger frames of reference towards a future objective, whatever that might

be.

So in the beginning, when you have limited agency, the only thing you can really work towards

is perhaps some level of self control.

When you have a broader level of agency where you're able to be more actively responsive

and capable, you can now start working on your family and your community and your municipalities

what have you and on and on and higher in scope and higher in capacity as well.

So these kind of two perspectives or two objectives of our personal development are great ways

to evaluate where you might start developing had you been stuck.

That's not uncommon to wake up and say, you know, my life's going fine, but I really wish

it felt better to do X, Y, or Z or that subjective experience was more full or more rich.

The thing that's important about understanding both of these things is they're not necessarily

even though you can be framed as opposites.

They're not necessarily opposite.

As you increase in your level of kind of craftsmen like enlightenment for lack of better way

to say it, you will find that they start to overlap that the the freedom and the fullness

are essentially both the same textures of the same awareness.

As that sort of synthesis starts to occur, you really become a powerful change agent in

your world and you really can start to make a meaningful difference.

For each of these developmentally and how does that work?

What does it mean?

What do we do?

It's a great thing to do to start thinking about using those as perspectives, right?

So sit down and say, hey, listen, I feel more of a victim in my own life than I should.

How can I increase my agency and what does that look like?

What is it?

Where do I feel stuck and constrained right now?

And what can I do to sort of improve that?

The same thing is true on the fullness side.

You know, my life is not lack.

It doesn't have the depth that I'd like or not having the sort of emotional resonance

with the people in my neighborhood or with my community or with my partner.

I'm not getting that kind of depth of experience that I'd really like to have.

What can I do to improve it?

Using these perspectives, you can again, start to build a better quality of life,

increase your scope, and increase your capacity.

And we'll talk a little bit more about how that works in future episodes.