A Mason's Work

This episode explores a symbol never named directly in the degrees, yet present everywhere in the Masonic experience: curiosity. It’s the force beneath every inquiry, every tool, every ritual. And while it may never be etched in stone or inscribed on a tracing board, it animates the Craft from within.

We reflect on how curiosity fuels the pursuit of symbolic knowledge, transforms discomfort into growth, and keeps Masons aligned with their deepest purpose—even when the work is hard to explain.
🔑 Key Takeaways
  • Some of Freemasonry’s most powerful symbols are never named—they are felt.
  • Curiosity is the engine of symbolic work—it drives exploration, insight, and transformation.
  • Becoming an agent of change starts with a willingness to uncover what lies beneath the surface.
💬 Featured Quotes
“It’s swimming under the water of the entire craft… that concept that is implied by Freemasonry is curiosity.”  — [00:00:35]
“Covers off of things and finding out how they work… that kind of approach to the Craft is implicit.” — [00:00:57]
“The tools are designed to help you become an agent of change in the world—and curiosity is a fundamental component of that.” — [00:04:40]
🔗 Explore Related Episodes
🎧 Ep. 60 – Thinking in Symbols 
Explores how symbolic insight emerges not from answers, but from asking better questions.
🎧 Ep. 73 – Geometry as truth between things 
Discusses curiosity as a tool for exploring structure, space, and relationship.
🎧 Ep. 69 – The Grammar of the Lodge: Structure, Symbol, and the Spoken Word
Examines how linguistic structure reflects the search for meaning and intentional communication.

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.

Inplicit in every single one of the degrees that you take up to and including the third

and all the time before that is a symbol or a concept we're not talking about in Freemasonry

very much, but it is fundamental to the Masonic experience so much so that its absence is

probably a surprise even to the folks that are ritualists because it's so implied

it's swimming under the water of the entire craft and that symbol, that concept that is

implied by Freemasonry is curiosity.

One of the things that curiosity does pursues novelty and new experiences and pop in the

covers off of things and finding out how they work and that kind of approach to the craft

is implicit and in some ways it's explicit, right?

You were curious to learn how Freemasonry worked, you expressed that desire to a brother,

they helped you get a petition, you had no idea what you were going through.

And so with all of that in mind, the curiosity sort of approach or I guess the drive to

understand and seek more and I guess by proxy grow I think is a fair logical assessment.

Underpinning of the craft makes certain implications. It implies that that curiosity will be

rewarded. It implies that the results of that curiosity in some way have value that there is

some return on that sort of philosophical investment or that behavioral investment or that exploration.

And so when you start to look between the lines of the craft and understand what that means,

you really get to then sort of develop a Masonic approach to the work of life.

And so with that said, one of the things that's happening sort of socially right now and you can

argue politically left or right, one of the things that is sort of required of us as

Mason's is to approach any situation with a sense of curiosity.

And now inevitably when you say things like any and all people are going to come out of the

woodwork and say, well, should I approach a burning inferno with curiosity? Yes, you know,

throw scruples to the wind. You don't stop being cautious. But understanding the

house and wise and wherefores of even burning infernos has a ton of sort of value. Same things true

with the things that are going on in the world, be them in your lodge, be them with the individuals.

That implicit curiosity made explicit here in this conversation, but also made explicit in your

progressing through the degrees is required and it is fundamental to growth and development.

So be curious in the world. Be the the Masonic curiosity is one that again uses all the tools of

Freemasonry in particular and I'm going to be harping on this for a while the the trial with love

and care and kindness approach your brothers approach the cowans out on the street with that same

sense of curiosity, but in a way that is respectful. And I think you'll find that we have more

in common than we have that are than we do sort of differences. And in fact, the more you explore

curiosity as a concept, the more you learn how things work again be the machines, people,

societies, organizations, you know, what have you. The more you learn how they work and the

wise of how they work, the better and able you're going to be to create positive change in the world.

In whatever way you see fit and we've talked about that a little bit earlier in some of our earlier

episodes, you know, I'm not here to tell you what change is best. I'm here to show you that these

tools are designed to help you become an agent of change in the world and that curiosity is a

fundamental component of that. So go out and know a lot of you are curious already, but go out and be

curious.