Well as I continue reading David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man (that I discussed in a recent blog entry) I keep finding myself having aha! moments. While sometimes he can seem to push the "Me Tarzan, You Jane" envelope a bit, it seems to me that he is actually quite clear and insightful about expected roles, default roles, and what happens if partners play different roles than the 'classic' roles of Tarzan and Jane. He is not against straying from traditional roles per se, but warns us about the consequences if we stray without understanding what that implies long-term for the relationship's dynamics.
I found myself revisiting various relationships I have had in the past and seeing how what he describes "could happen if" did come to pass in those relationships. I found myself shaking my head and thinking to myself 'yup, I did that' and 'yup that happened to us' and 'yeah, I guess that's what we did', etc.
While this is not the essential issues I am refering to, here is one example that I know I have been guilty of on numerous occasions... David Deida writes, "The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point." He gives a few examples, which not everyone will find pertinent to them but which illustrate his message quite well, namely that a complaint coming from a partner is an alert to something, the content of which is usually only somewhat-related to the true problem that is being signaled.
In that context Deida goes on to write, "you must listen to your woman more as an oracle than as an advisor. She usually is speaking in a very tangential, but revelatory, style. [...] Hear her complaint as the universe giving you signs about your life." Here Deida builds a pretty good case for realizing that women are good at realizing that there may be a problem in their man's life but not always adept at verbalizing it. If you get stuck on the details of the complaint and you don't hear the true message that is behind it, both partners end up frustrated, feeling misunderstood and often angry...
This is a bit similar to another idea Deida talks about which is the "feminine trait of wanting one thing and asking for another." He points out that many men get pissed off and wonder "Why don't you just tell me what you really want, instead of saying one thing and meaning another, expecting me to figure it out?" I have, and probably all of my guy friends have definitely felt this (and complained about this) in the past. However Deida does a pretty good job at explaining how easy it is to 'miss the point'. He suggests that the "superior man" should understand the underlying dynamic (which is basically a test of your manhood) and react to it intelligently and in a way that builds the relationship rather than whittling away at it. In psychological terms, this is similar to a double bind. According to Deida the woman verbalizes a desire for one thing that if satisfied would keep her man from satisfying a personal desire or doing what he needs to do. His idea is that if you give in to her and satisfy her need she may be happy in the short-term but the man will have undermined some of the respect she has for him. As you can see, this makes for interesting reading and there is a lot of material that could potentially turn off more than just the hard-core feminists...
The chapters of the book are short and you can get most of the message from the title of the chapter and the lengthy sub-headings that follow them. However, to me the overall message is kind of like a guide to optimal relationship building - both in a polarized (Tarzan-Jane) world and a non-polarized (we are all equal) world - and a guide to mutual understanding among men and women. A guide that, for me, appears more intelligent, more on target, and less comic-bookish than the Venus and Mars series.
I would be curious to see how many who have read this book see things, or if it suffers from an overly masculine perspective that I naturally felt comfortable with but which others may not appreciate as much.
Let me know?!
Showing posts with label David Deida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Deida. Show all posts
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
[Thoughts on] The Way of the Superior Man
I have been hearing and reading about Davide Deida, the author of The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire for some time. And I must admit to a good portion of skepticism before ordering and then reading this book. I first read something substantial about him in a spiritual magazine article, in EnlightenNext (previously What is Enlightenment?). The description did not really make me want to read the book but he just kept popping up time and again in different places - with some strongly for and others passionately against - and I decided that I needed to make up my own mind on the subject.
One of the ways I personally decide the value of a book is how much I underline (or not) the chapters I have read. Looking back through the book now I see that many passages are underlined and many others have achieved 'star status' (which means that I put an exclamation point or an asterisk next to a passage to symbolize that it is worth re-reading).
I could see how a book like this could piss of many women, feminists or egalitarians of either sex and just about everyone. But, he actually has a lot of very interesting things to say. And one of the most important things he says actually deflects most of the flak he receives as a macho pig - which is that while he talks about him and her he means whoever is playing a typically masculine or feminine role in a relationship (the masculine role can be played by the woman and vice versa).
His opinions are very clear and very 'piss or get off the pot' but many of them hit home with me. Much deeper and concentrated in terms of insights than what I considered the fluff of the Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars series. I found myself rethinking many situations with past girlfriends and understanding where I and we screwed up (mostly me though), what the source of many past frustrations actually were and how to, quite easily actually, change my behavior in the future.
His book delves into a lot more than the him-her relationship decoding/coaching and includes chapters on parenting, on the value of friends and friendships, on being true to your journey, on how not to compromise for the wrong reasons, and many other subjects which, at the end of the day I could summarize as treating the much larger subject of how to live life without regretting the life lived. A subject that is truly one that we can all relate too and that resonated with me quite a bit. Like someone tapping you on the shoulder and - sometimes gently, sometimes more aggressively - saying, "hey you, be careful, make sure you are on course, otherwise the list of regrets may be long and painful to look at..."
An example, well if you ask so kindly here it is:
The above is excerpted from a chapter entitled "Don't Get Lost in Tasks and Duties" which like many of the chapter titles are a quite clear summary of what is within the chapter. Other chapters are entitled, "Praise Her" (with a byline, I like, that begins 'The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise), "Don't Use your Family and your Life as an Excuse", "Live with an Open Heart Even if it Hurts", ...
I still haven't finished reading the book, and some of the later chapters are the more controversial, but I will probably relate my impressions on the rest of the book when I dig into the rest. Good stuff, but to be digested bit by small bit, like many the spiritual book.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Alon
One of the ways I personally decide the value of a book is how much I underline (or not) the chapters I have read. Looking back through the book now I see that many passages are underlined and many others have achieved 'star status' (which means that I put an exclamation point or an asterisk next to a passage to symbolize that it is worth re-reading).
I could see how a book like this could piss of many women, feminists or egalitarians of either sex and just about everyone. But, he actually has a lot of very interesting things to say. And one of the most important things he says actually deflects most of the flak he receives as a macho pig - which is that while he talks about him and her he means whoever is playing a typically masculine or feminine role in a relationship (the masculine role can be played by the woman and vice versa).
His opinions are very clear and very 'piss or get off the pot' but many of them hit home with me. Much deeper and concentrated in terms of insights than what I considered the fluff of the Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars series. I found myself rethinking many situations with past girlfriends and understanding where I and we screwed up (mostly me though), what the source of many past frustrations actually were and how to, quite easily actually, change my behavior in the future.
His book delves into a lot more than the him-her relationship decoding/coaching and includes chapters on parenting, on the value of friends and friendships, on being true to your journey, on how not to compromise for the wrong reasons, and many other subjects which, at the end of the day I could summarize as treating the much larger subject of how to live life without regretting the life lived. A subject that is truly one that we can all relate too and that resonated with me quite a bit. Like someone tapping you on the shoulder and - sometimes gently, sometimes more aggressively - saying, "hey you, be careful, make sure you are on course, otherwise the list of regrets may be long and painful to look at..."
An example, well if you ask so kindly here it is:
When you do your tasks the right way, they liberate your life energy so that you can attend to what really matters - the investigation, realization, and embodiment of true freedom. Do you even know what that means? Have you devoted yourself to finding out the deepest truth of your own existence? If, in this very moment, your tasks are not supporting your life in this way, you must drop them or change them so that they do. Otherwise, you are wasting your life.
The above is excerpted from a chapter entitled "Don't Get Lost in Tasks and Duties" which like many of the chapter titles are a quite clear summary of what is within the chapter. Other chapters are entitled, "Praise Her" (with a byline, I like, that begins 'The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise), "Don't Use your Family and your Life as an Excuse", "Live with an Open Heart Even if it Hurts", ...
I still haven't finished reading the book, and some of the later chapters are the more controversial, but I will probably relate my impressions on the rest of the book when I dig into the rest. Good stuff, but to be digested bit by small bit, like many the spiritual book.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Alon
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