THE FREEMASONRY OF THE YOUNG

The young belong to a secret society all of their own. It is a freemasonry of the young, enlivened by the generosity of spirit which marks the young; a secret society in which there are no membership rituals. All youngsters are members as of right. It is a joyful society to belong to, one which recognises a global fraternity of the young; one in which its established members welcome their fellows, no matter that they may be foreign, or new in town, or somewhat eccentric. I suspect it is much more of a young man’s society than a young woman’s: one in which young men are far readier to accept other young men as fellows, than young women are ready to accept other young women. But I may be wrong in this: my recollections of membership of this wonderful secret society are necessarily those of a young man, and I am old now.

As a member of this freemasonry, you need never know loneliness. Deep and lasting friendships with other youngsters will be quickly formed. Though far from home, you will be made to feel at home wherever you land up. If you find yourself in trouble, your fellows – other youngsters – will come to your aid. You need fear no judgemental condemnation; you need not fear rejection. As a youngster yourself, other youngsters will always support you, for it is a freemasonry whose unspoken motto is, “We band of brothers against the world.”

This freemasonry of the young does not operate or come into existence until after you have left school. School life is riddled by cliques, gangs, and rivalries. Their membership is narrow and exclusive. But once you have left school, once you have escaped that utterly artificial construction devised by adults in order to subjugate the young, and to socialize them to grow up to become just as narrow minded, just as intolerant, just as greedy, just as treacherous as themselves, you become, for a few short years only, a member of the freemasonry of the young.

By your late twenties at the outside, society will have begun to work its darkness upon you, and it will draw you almost unavoidably into the harsh world of adults. It is an ugly, mendacious, greedy, self-centred world, and it almost always, over time, crushes the generosity of spirit and the openness of mind that are the natural traits of the young. When that happens, you lose the last of your innocence. The gates of the Garden are finally slammed shut behind you.  And for the next forty years at least, you will practice all the hurts to yourself and to others that the freemasonry of the young rejects.

Indeed, for many people, that First Garden will never be rediscovered, and they will go to their deathbeds with minds utterly atrophied, and spirits utterly broken. But for some few, when they grow old, they will begin again to practice the spirit of the freemasonry of the young that once welcomed them in. They will reject greed, and renounce the lies that society has sought to imprint upon them. They will become young in spirit again, even if their bodies – brief, mortal vehicles that they are – are aging and hurting, and growing tired and slow.

For such blessed oldies, however, old age is a new adventure in freedom. The freedom to turn your face against a corrupt and rotten society; the freedom to rediscover what it feels like to possess an innocent soul. Old age need hold no fears for these few, who have become young in spirit again, and in whom the urge to welcome in the stranger and help those in need becomes as alive and vital as ever it was when they were youngsters.