If you scoured my virtual social media accounts, you would find next to no information concerning my involvement with Freemasonry. This is not due to any aversion I have toward sharing my feelings on the Order; I have no such aversive feelings. But I am possessed of a kind of resistance to sharing such things on digital social media.

For my part, I prefer to think of things like Facebook and Twitter as outlets for meditative practices, and my virtual social circle is populated by a wide diversity of personalities. This being the case, I tend to think that they couldn't be interested in my "geekdom" and I feel sheepish for presuming upon their time. Secondly, I don't like to answer questions I wasn't asked. Your mileage may vary, but I seem to procure better results from interlocuters whom asked to be graced with my wisdom (Hardeehar). So, I never really know whether or not someone will be truly happy that I said anything at all. It reminds me of that passage from Micromegas, written by the mighty Voltaire:

"I must give answers, yet have nothing worth saying, so I talk a great deal, and am confused and ashamed of myself afterwards for having spoken."

Such is the internal monologue of an impostor.

I say all this because I have been ruminating upon the subject of goal setting and visualization. I have recently mailed the last of the Master Craftsman courses which I have been working on for a little over a year, and I realized how often I had visualized the completion in my mind over the many months. (I haven't officially completed the program until the grades come back.) I know it is unbecoming of a Mason to wish to acquire medals for decoration's sake, and I don't think that's what I was doing. I have been enriched by the experience, but, that internal impostor continued its diatribe against my better sentiments every time I searched for pictures of the jewel one receives upon completion of the course. For myself, I need something to help keep me in the game, especially if the game is long, and not always are the immaterial trappings sufficient.

And so I would, from time to time, perform an internet search for pictures of the certificate and medal, to help me visualize my goal. Granted, it's not even that "completion" per-se, was my goal. I set out to challenge myself and to grow and evolve as a Freemason, and to hopefully acquire tools with which I could help my brethren do the same. But I truly don't think I would have completed the undertaking if I hadn't had the carrot at the end of the stick to remind my baser self that treats were at the end of the toilsome journey. Sometimes, toil and faith are rewarded with toil and faith, but faith occasionally needs to be supplemented with shiny things. Albert Pike himself once wrote:

"The sensible traveler often prefers a narrow path, bordered with violets, to an immense avenue, which by its excessive extent fatigues our eyes."

Perhaps the greater context surrounding this quote disperses my intentions for it, but I think it still applies. In any case, only one other person in my Valley has completed the Master Craftsman Program, and I wasn't about to ask him, voyeuristically, for a picture of his medal to keep me going like some strung out art-dealer. But I find that the mind does need reinforcements on occasion, and I'm happy the Supreme Council considers the work of the Master Craftsman to be worthy of some small token of recognition, vain though I sometimes feel.