I was (mostly) kidding with the vampire/werewolf thing, of course :24:
My real take on the whole thing - well. First of all, a small number of men get rode hard and put up wet. Just is what it is. Those fellas are the ones who are capable and willing to not just do work, but to take ownership of issues. In my experience, just like everywhere else, those men get put into positions of responsibility, a lot - because they are doers. If they join an appendant body or two, they get put to work there too. If they join a masonic discussion group or some kind of masonic thing, they get looked to for answers.
Its just gravity at work and has a lot less to do with being smart, or a "natural leader" or any of that kind of stuff. Its just that this is a very large volunteer organization with many branches and arms, and doers are in high demand in every part of it. And since it takes one to know one, when you are yourself looking to staff a project, you spot other doers and put them to work the same way. So it is a cycle - and those doers get burned out. Masonry becomes like a second job.
And for fellas who understand what I'm saying, thats not so much a Masonry thing - its a life thing. You get that no matter what you turn your hand to until you learn to say no to things and to let some stuff be ran slipshod so you can focus your time, you just can't do it all.
Personally, the education bit - sure, I think that minutes spent not wrangling over what brand of stapler to buy or what kind of seasoning to put on the fish for the fundraiser is good stuff. But the truth is that I've seen men who clamored over having education nod off within five minutes of a good program. So I think it is in theory good, but it isn't a panacea, not really. Its just a necessary component.
And back to my original tongue in cheek bit, I do think that a lot of younger folks are coming in and looking for - if not the Illuminati, magic, and so forth - then at least a certain level of mystery and adventure. What they find is work, and work that seems a lot more like maintenance than shared self improvement if you catch my drift.
Thats a lot to do with the fact that what they envision, in my opinion, is European style Masonry, and what they get is American style Masonry. The sort of Masonry that exploded in popularity after WWII, and has since lost so many members over the last several decades that it is rare to find a truly healthy lodge anymore. So what you have, instead of one healthy lodge with 40 men at a stated meeting, you have four little lodges each with 10 men at their stated meetings - all within a short drive from one another. Because we had lots of men, practicing a far more informal Freemasonry than in the past, with full lodge buildings on every other street corner.
What we as men in our 20s, 30s, and 40s have is a few men, practicing far more informal Freemasonry than in centuries past, with mostly empty lodge buildings on every other street corner - each struggling to hold on to said lodge building.
In my opinion 3 out of 4 lodges could combine with other lodges, harken back to the formal days of centuries past, and retention rates would improve in a big way. Why? Because you wouldn't have to feel as if you had to spend your Masonic time pulling your hair out to fill the chairs in a degree, or to pay the bills so that you weren't the SOB that lost your lodge's building.