MASCULINITY (Bringing Order To Chaos) - Traver Boehm

Part of the masculine core is bringing structure and order to chaos. In order to do that, you have to be structure and order inside your body because there is so much chaos that we're surrounded by. But the two pieces of advice I've been given, guys is every fucking gym in this country should be packed. When your fitness is where it should be, everything else will take care of itself. Second piece is not. National parks should be packed. And I don't know any guy on the planet who wakes up and has a solid workout and spends 30 minutes in the woods and comes out and is like, man, that just me up. Like, I. I just.

I mean, unless he, like, dropped some.

Acid before or something.

All right, welcome to both podcasts. Welcome to the Uncivilized podcast and the Man Talks podcast. Connor and I decided to sit down together and j pretty loosely and just have a great conversation about some things that are happening with men. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Trevor Bohm. I'm the founder of the Uncivilized Movement, author of the books Today I Rise and Man Uncivilized, Founder of the Uncivilized Nation, and a good buddy of Connor's and here doing the work I do because of Connor. So this is a pleasure. Great to see you, brother. Want to tell people, like, the one listener who doesn't know who you are, who you are.

That one person. People on my show are like, wait, this is.

Yeah, I mean, founder of Mantox, author of the book Men's Work. Yes, dad to code Dragon.

That's my nickname for my son is the. The Dragon. I said when he was six months old, I was like, co dragon.

Yeah. My wife and I do work together, and.

You know, founder of the alliance got the Man Talks alliance going on. Yeah, Some good stuff, man. Live weekends, slow groups. Got my podcast, which is kicking these days, and my YouTube channel is starting to kick, which is a lot of. A lot of fun, actually. I've been really digging that fun fact. Did you know that, like, 70% of YouTube viewers are men?

No, did not know that. Yeah, it's probably pretty similar with podcast, huh?

I don't know. I actually don't know that one, but I was. I was surprised to hear the. The data around the YouTube channels. And then what I've been noticing recently as I've been putting videos out is like. Yeah, it's like the video I put out the other day was like, 99% men viewed it.

No.

Holy crap. Huh? Yeah.

Why do you think that is? Before we dive in. I mean, it's probably pertinent information even for what we're going to talk about.

You know, I think even with myself, I've found that.

While I have, you know, I've got like 170,000 people on Instagram that follow me, I actually don't use it as much for content consumption.

I'll, you know, I follow some people and I'll check out their stuff and you know, I'm active on their responding to people. But where I consume my content is mostly on YouTube because I, I love video content and I, and what I've noticed is that I actually like longer form video content. Like I don't have time in my day to just, you know, sort of scroll through and kind of like, you know, look at smaller content. I want to sit down and consume something where I can hear more discourse, more nuanced conversation, or I want to veg out and just, you know, watch some cars.

You know, it's like dream about my Porsche and you know, and like watch Top Gear and watch guys just like bag a Ferrari around the track and stuff like that. Watch my Oilers highlights, you know. And so, so I think that's the case for a lot of young men, is that I think for a lot, and not even just young men, but just men in general. I think that a lot of guys use different platforms for different reasons. Yeah. And, and I think that the majority of them are maybe on, on YouTube because they're, they're wanting to sort of like watch video content.

Versus, I don't know, a Twitter. I've never gotten into Twitter, but that's, that's my guess.

Yeah, I'd be really curious given that.

Do you, you remember like, Instagram five years ago was beautiful. It was like only the people you follow, only the content they put up that day. Like, it made sense. It was linear. It was, it was like, oh, it was like I'd get off and be like, I feel relaxed now. I get off and I'm like, I need a shower. I need like my brain is going 10,000 miles an hour. I don't know any of the people I just looked at. I don't know any of the content. It's, it's, it's like flash. It's, you know, it's, it's super intense to, to, to have on. And I'm the same way. Like, I'll throw YouTube on and like. But it's also, I think more intentional, like, hey, I want to know X. So I go to YouTube and then don't have to like hunt and fish for, for the particular content, but I think this is a great kind of segue into what we want to talk about of the complexities that guys are dealing with today. And both of our work for people who don't know, like we talk to men all day long and talk to men of your of all different stations, all different ages, all different demographics, all different socioeconomic backgrounds. And I don't know about you, man, but in the last two years I have found that the conversations have gotten more intense because what it feels like guys are dealing with has gotten so much more complex that they still have all the, that maybe men weren't dealing with two or three years ago. Childhood trauma, relationship issues, sexual challenges, vision, purpose, etc. But now it's got like even more layers put on it. Are you finding the same thing?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think, you know, the social distress, the post pandemic economy.

Just the, the layering in of things that are fear inducing, complex, nuanced, polarizing, you know, the, the rise of like political unrest, the fact that, you know, social media has, I think in, in many ways.

Created an environment where we're just immersed in, in fear, in polarization, in black and white thinking a lot of the times. And so I think what a lot of guys, what I've noticed a lot of men sort of really struggling with is just how much they actually have going on in their life. You know, it's like not only is it the, the kids going to school, but it's the kids going to school and there's, you know, all of this confrontational stuff.

I don't know if you can hear.

Me on top of the business, on top of the, you know, relationship. So I, I think there's just, there's more breakdown happening within our society and there's more tension and polarization happening in our society than, than maybe ever before.

And you know, this is something that I hear. It's not just like my perspective either as like a, you know, a guy that's almost 40, but it's a perspective that I think even I'm hearing people in their 60s and 70s and 80s talk about that there's more.

There'S more sort of fear and challenge that seems to be spinning out within the, within the sort of mainstream consciousness.

Yeah. Would you feel like the foundation under people? I mean, the pandemic, everything, it just like control, alt, deleted everybody's sense of safety, of security, of, of, of, of consistency, like everything changed and the speed at which things change, it seems, since or even during it feels like no one's caught back up. And I also feel like everyone's been, or a lot of people have been left with this deep sense of, to quote our mentor Dewey, Dewey Freeman, like, the world's not okay. A couple years ago, like walking around like, yeah, the world's pretty okay. Sure, there's, there's political unrest, there's, there's shit. And maybe we just didn't know about it, but now it feels like the foundation underneath most people has been removed. And then all of the pieces that you added in of. I tend to think too, Connor, that guys are more intuitive than we give ourselves credit for. And so guys feel this and they don't know why. Like, I don't know why I'm just more anxious these days. I don't know why I'm more depressed these days. I don't know why. I don't want to do the things that I wanted to do three, four years ago. Like, I want to stay home. I want to look at social media. Even though it's, it's like I feel bad when I get off. Like I want to numb out more. It's like.

I know personally that whenever I have grief in the background, like if something happens in my life and I'm like, oh, I haven't fully processed the grief of that, that it, I, I end up not doing the things that I want to do to keep myself healthy. I eat shittier food, I don't want to go to the gym. I just want to like veg out and numb out. And it feels like that's a big piece of just what so many guys are dealing with, but they can't put their fingers onto what. And then you add in the normal things of like, oh, now you're getting divorced, because that's relatively a normal part of life. Oh, you've gotten, you've lost your job or you may get downsized. It's a normal part of life. Oh, your kid got sick. That these things may happen. And so it feels like the foundation under which people used to almost be okay is not okay. And like you said, the complexities, even if you open your eyes and take a look around, things aren't that great.

No. Yeah. I mean, I was just gonna say, like, I think we, we also have become, I think our culture has started to shift. I've noticed even a shift within, like the personal development and self help space within the therapeutic industry that like, there's this shift towards more data, heavy forward Conversations. And so I, you know, I think that in itself can be taxing. You know, where we're constantly Hearing like, oh, 66% of the men are this and 27% of men of that. And, you know, 50, 50% of marriage is this. And, and, and so we can hear all of this data. Like, I was thinking about this the other day and I was talking to my wife about this, where it seems like it's very easy to, to sort of feel like everything's going to hell in a handbasket, you know, because you can hear within the span of a minute or two, a whole bunch of data that paints a picture of how things are fucked. You know, it's like 60% less people are getting married, and, you know, divorce rates are holding strong. And 27%, you know, a third of men aren't having sex under the age of 29, and 66% of young men are single. And, you know, less men are graduating college than ever before and less men are, you know, entering into the workforce than ever before. And so, like, I think we can hear the data that's being kicked out at us. And then you layer in, you know, things like the environment and the economy and inflation and all these other things, and you're just sort of immersed in this notion that, that there's something wrong. But you, because of the volume of what you're hearing, that is wrong in the world for us as men, when we hear something's wrong, we think, okay, how do I think about that? How do I feel about it, and can I contribute to it in some capacity? And I think what's challenging right now, because as you were talking, something that came up for me is that, and I don't know, I don't have a name for this yet, but my theory is that men and women have somewhat different intuitions. Like, women are very intuitional on a individual basis of, like, self protection and what's, you know, what's sort of right for me in an individual way. Sure. And maybe the sort of like, close family. But men are oftentimes more intuitional on a communal sense because we've had to be protectors of the tribe, of the community, historically, you know, for thousands of years. Right. And so I think a lot of men that I talk to are sort of dialed into what you were talking about, which is.

There'S some stuff that's not right in the world. Right. And I think it can be not only taxing, but I think that a lot of. I see a lot of guys getting lost in all the things that are wrong without really knowing what to do about any of it or how to contribute to any of it or where to even begin. So I don't know if that sort of all makes sense, but I'd be curious to get your thoughts on if you've seen something similar.

Yeah, it makes total sense. It reminds me of the. The standard question I asked Katie before we sit down and have a sit down, which is, is this a listening conversation or a solutions conversation? And so I feel a lot of men want to have the solutions conversation when they hear all of the statistics, because I agree with you intuitively. We get it intuitively. We like. And I've probably shared this story with you, Connor, before, but this is like, strictly around porn. But I think it's. It highlights a different or highlights a bigger picture. This was four or five years ago. I was on an MMA forum and a guy said, hey, just saw VR porn. And I'm now walking away from it forever because it was too good. Like, I know this will fuck my life up. It's like, I. I don't. I know I'm rambling, but, like, I never tried heroin because of the movie Trainspotting, you know, I was like, nope, not doing it. Nope. I don't want to have, you know, don't want to be on the streets doing that. Don't want the dead baby thing. Like, nope, not doing it. And I think a lot of guys go, wow, I recognize how powerful the forces are and how much bigger they are than me, and I don't know what to do about that. I'm watching my friends struggle. I'm watching guys stay home. I'm watching guys check out, watch. Watching guys unplug. I'm watching guys not go to school. I'm watching guys kill themselves. Right? I'm. I'm. This is real. It's happening. It's now in my circle, and I feel helpless. I feel powerless. And it's almost like the salve to that, unfortunately, is taking in more information. It's like, hey, if I know the stats temporarily, I'm going to feel okay, because that's giving me some level. Level or some feeling of agency, even though it's actually doing the opposite.

Yeah, right. It'll. It'll reinforce your inter. Your perceived beliefs or your frameworks of what you think is happening or how women operate or what happens in relationships, you know, And I think it's. We're. We're living in a very strange time in the sense of, like, you can literally sit in Your bathroom on the toilet, taking a. And watch people murder each other online across the world, you know, shooting each other and dropping bombs on them. Or you can sit there and watch naked people fucking. Like there's such a strange thing, you know, Truly. And so, you know, I think it's just, it's just a sort of snippet or representation of how we have, we as a human species have entered into this uncharted territory where we don't, you know, our bodies, our minds, our brains haven't really caught up and haven't really been developed to take in the amount of data, information, sensory experiences that, that most of us are constantly immersed in on a day to day basis.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, just think about what you just said and how wild that is. And you could actually watch hundreds of clips of videos of murder, of sex, of violence, of all the things, and then get, you know, business advice and okay, I should be doing this, and then comparison pictures. So if we get that the problem is complex and the complexity is growing and the complexity is expanding and I don't think we're going to stop it right when I, when guys like, well, what do we do with our phones? Do we just get rid of them? Like, no, it's too late, they're here. You mentioned before we even got on like the, the rise of AI and tech.

I had five guys over to dinner two weeks ago and just people who I did know, people I didn't know, people didn't know each other and said, hey, here's, here's how tonight's going to work. I made a fuckload of chili and we have some chocolate chip cookies and we're going to eat chili and eat chocolate chip cookies. And answer this one question. How do we as leaders of men start to propose? Or what do we need to do to keep men emotionally and spiritually healthy given the speed of technology? And that's the only thing we're allowed to talk about tonight for the next two, three hours. And yeah, there were some little offshoots, but man, it was a fascinating conversation. So I'd love to dive in with you on the. We've kind of framed. Everybody gets the problem. We get why it's important. What is the, like, now what section? So a guy watching this or listening to this is like, cool. I get it. There's, there's a war for my attention. I can watch Toxic on my toilet. I'm kind of, generally, a lot of my friends aren't doing well. Men and large aren't doing well. My kid's not doing well. What the do I do? Can we dive into that?

Yeah, man, yeah. I mean, you know, first off, I don't know.

If I have the best answer. I think I have an answer, but I think, you know, I just would use, I'll deploy some humility here in. I have a saying in my life which is like, that's above my pay grade. And you know, I think some of this is entering into that territory where it, you know, it's like you, we can choose the areas that we want to tackle and contribute to. And I think, I think it's just coming back to sort of basic masculine principles, which is we as men like to contribute to things, building things, creating things, you know, sometimes even destroying things. But we like to be of contribution and we like to hone a sense of skill and develop a sense of mastery in something. And that, that's very, very meaningful to us. And so I think one of the things that I've been talking about within the context of relationships, within the context of parenting, within the context of leadership, is this just the art of being able to regulate of self regulation. Because we're entering into, I think, a time where.

We'Re already there, I think in many ways where the average person is just disregulated, like morning until night. You know, they get up, they get on their phone, they get on their emails, they're stressed out, they're anxious about work, they go and eat breakfast, the kids are yelling, they drive them to school, they're more stressed out, they get to work, their bosses, you know, whatever, they open up their news while they're taking a dump on their break and, and see all of this crap that's terrifying about AI and you know, the war in Ukraine and all this kind of stuff, and the economy collapsed, you know, in the United States and $D transition, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so I, I really do think that what, like what I've been telling a lot of men is learn how to regulate your system. Because in this time that we're in right now, you're going to be interacting with a majority of people who are just overstressed over, anxious, freaking out about absolutely everything that they hear in the news. And that's hard on your system. And if you can be a man who can prioritize regulation and staying grounded and staying present when everyone else around you is panicking, it's like, well then you, then you can do something meaningful. You know, if you're on a plane, the plane starts to go down and everyone else panics and they forget to put the life mask on. But you're the, the one dude that's like, okay, I know what to do here. I'm going to put my life mask on and I'm going to help other people do the same thing. It's like, well, you're, you're helping to course correct the chaos that is ensuing in that experience. And I think that's a very apt analogy for what is happening within our culture and our society in the west right now. But I'm curious to hear your, your take on what some of the possible directions or solutions that we could, we can move towards. Because that's just one that I think is very individual. And then there's others that are social and cultural. But I think that's probably where we need to start.

Yeah, I would, I agree with you completely. First, just to, to say, yeah, start where you are, right? Like, you just nailed it. You have to learn to regulate, like, and part of the masculine core is bringing structure and order to chaos. In order to do that, you have have to be structure and order inside your body because there is so much chaos that we're surrounded by. And I'll go back and it may sound so simplistic, but the two pieces of advice I've been given, guys, is every gym in this country should be packed.

Every gym should be packed. Because when I, when my life is on full expression explosion mode, I'm like, hey, I. A barbell weighs with exactly what it weighs, right? I. I have to show up, I have to push it, I have to pull it.

I have to.

And I know it may sound like a jock thing to say, but guys, that will not change. Like your fitness. When your fitness is where it should be, everything else will take care of itself or a lot of stuff will take care of itself. Second piece is national parks should be packed. Trails should be packed. The outside should be packed. We are now, we are not that far removed from barefoot in nature. And I don't know any guy on the planet who wakes up and has a solid workout and spends 30 minutes in the woods and comes out and is like, man, that just me up. Like, I, I just.

You know, I mean, unless he like drops some acid.

Before or something, you know, don't do that, don't do that. But it's the basics, right? It's like it's almost on a. The way my brain looks at it as the bigger, the higher up cloud gets and the more intense that gets, the more important the lower base level like simple stuff becomes, because we have to counteract the fact that there's millions of views and images and videos and hours of being pumped into my brain, that my biological system, which has not changed over tens of thousands of years, still has the same requirements. But what it's going to take is actually almost like a revolutionary mindset that says, okay, if I'm in front of an army of 10,000 forces, a force of 10,000, and I'm just. Just won, I'm not going to win. It's too big. Marketing's too big. Capitalism's too big. The news is too big. There's, like, kids from MIT right now figuring out how to get me to watch five more seconds of Instagram every time that I log on. And they had perfect sats and parents who, like, yelled at them for not studying enough. And they are smarter than I am, and they will win this battle unless I put my phone down. Like, they cannot beat me while I'm bench pressing. They cannot beat me while I'm squatting. They cannot beat me while I'm two miles deep on a trail or walking down the beach or, you know, surfing or doing something that. Like, that practice, which we were all kind of preaching and talking about years ago as a this is how you get ahead in the world method is now turned into this is how you survive the current, current iteration of the world method. I think we need to take the focus off of. I mean, God bless him, but Gary Vee and grind and build and. And, you know, build your empire. It's like, whoa, bro, you got to be okay making it to 9am Worry about your empire later. Like, your health has to be all right.

I remember when my. When my son was born and, you know, it was kind of like the pandemic. He was born in March of 2021. And, you know, pandemic's sort of in full swing, and there's still lockdowns and there's all this nonsense happening. And I started a very basic practice, which was in the morning, within the first 30 to 60 minutes of being awake, of just going outside with him. And when he was little, when he was like, you know, a couple months old, I'd just lay him in the grass, you know, and I would just drink my coffee, and he'd just be laying in the grass because he couldn't move, right? He can't crawl away. He can't walk away now. I mean, the little dude just rips all over the place. But we still do that, right? And so every morning I do my workout, you know, I do my breath work. I'll do some form of a meditation or some tai chi and. But it's a priority that we just go outside, right? We just go outside and we listen to the birds and we put our feet in the grass if it's warm enough, and we look at the clouds and just, like, have some time out there. And, you know, I think when. Not to be like, a naturist or anything like that, but I think when we disconnect from nature in that way, it's very easy for us to become hijacked by the narratives online, and it's very easy for us to be disconnected from ourselves and what matters. So I think a big part of it is about getting back out into nature. I think a big part of it is getting. Going to the gym and prioritizing that. I think a big part of it is also maintaining our relationships. You know, I think one of the most damaging parts of the pandemic was how.

How brutal it was on relationships. I mean, I think it just, like, it really took a toll, you know, because everybody's sort of locked down in the world for, however, you know, God only knows how long, depending on the country that you're in. And suddenly people became.

Acclimatized to that kind of isolation, to that kind of loneliness. And I think for a lot of people, if you could. If you could interview them post pandemic and pre pandemic, what you would find is that a lot of people, probably a shockingly high amount of people, acclimatized to a more. Much higher kind of loneliness and isolation than they were experiencing before. I know I went through it, or it's just like, oh, yeah, there's just. It was like, oh, I haven't seen a lot of people in, like, the last five days. Huh. Okay. I should probably go and. And chat with people and spend time with people. So I think, you know, we. We know unequivocally, statistically, research is in that, you know, your close friends, the. The amount and the quality of close friends that you have in your life at 50 will predict your health and your happiness at 80. Right. Like, this is. It's the biggest study that's ever been done. We know it. We know how important having close friends is. And yet, you know, 15% of men can't identify a close friend. Yeah. In. In. In America. Right. And it's higher in other countries.

Right.

And I think that's only getting worse, you know, and so I think that is a huge part. Priority because that pushes us to get out of our head, you know, get out of like the ruminating about all the that's happening online and go and just hang out with some people for a little while, you know, and let like release the stress valve for a little bit.

Agree. It sounds like we're talking basics again. And I agree with you relationship wise.

Like just the necessity of feels like what the pandemic may have done is taken things that were not just luxuries but philosophical ideas. Oh, you need to have a morning practice. Oh, you want to have a morning routine. Oh, it's good to get together with friends sometimes. And now in this post pandemic dip, we're looking at these things and saying this is how you survive.

This is how you be okay in the world. It's not just great to have a buddy that you go have coffee with because it feels good. You go have coffee with a buddy because it's going to keep you alive. And when men perhaps take that level of gravity of it or seriousness of it, then they'll take the action, right? I had a bunch of people reach out after I talked about that dinner. Like, wow, I can't believe you invited four or five people over for dinner. And I was like, yeah, it was really easy. It was four or five texts. Would you like to come to to dinner on Friday night at 6pm? Don't bring anything. By the way, we're going to answer one question. Yes. This is the beauty of dudes, right? You know, I have heard from some female, from women, like it's really hard to get women together. We're so jealous of the fact that you guys did. We did a snowboarding trip for the nation and it was like one email went out and then a month later 10 dudes showed up at a house and that was it. And my partner, partners, like that is mind boggling to me. We would have 700 emails and no one would ever get together. So guys like embrace this. That if you're the one sitting there saying like, well, I don't get invited to. I don't know what to do, I'm not sure who to hang out with. Start asking like, be the guy that reaches out and is like, hey man, having a couple guys over for dinner Tuesday, you want to join? Hey, we're gonna get. A bunch of us are gonna go hiking on Wednesday. Wanna join? Hey, a couple of us are gonna go surfing on Friday. Wanna join? Like, be that guy. If you're listening to this, like be that guy. Because you're gonna Start the ball rolling and you're gonna give other guys permission to do the same. Which taps back in again to what we really love, which is to be leaders or to be in a leadership position. To feel, to feel like we're making a difference in the world, I was gonna say.

And to not be ashamed of that. Like, I think what I've been somewhat surprised by is the amount of, like, pushback that I, that I get online sometimes from individuals from both men and women about, like us as men stepping into a more self leadership oriented position. It is shocking to me how, like.

How quickly we have discarded the masculine and male orientation within our culture. Like, it really is surprising to me in some ways that, you know, men have done some incredible things. We've done some terrible things. You know, we've done some stupid things, you know, like, individually and collectively, but men have done some absolutely tremendous things.

Yeah.

And what I find fascinating is the amount of people that are like, oh, that's. Yeah, that's misogynistic for wanting a man to, like, be a leader. And it's like, no, it's not the majority of when men want to be leaders. And so I think one of the other things is, one of the things I've been talking with guys about is like, just don't engage in the gender wars. Just don't engage with it. Like, remember, like, you texted me last night, I put a, a post up about how 42% of women are now the breadwinners. And that there's unexpected consequences of that on many different levels in the sense that our relational roles within our societies have fundamentally changed. You know, in 1960, it was 11% of households had women earning more than men, and now it's 42%. Right. And maybe it's even higher now, who knows? Because the point is in like 2019. But so we have these massive shifts happening in our culture. We have, you know, 66% of men between, you know, 19 and 29, or 18 and 29 that are single and, and 30% of them are sexless. And so we have this big tension that's starting to emerge between men and women in our culture, for sure. And I think part of that tension is, is that it is very easy to turn on the news, to go through social media, and to get conscripted into this stupid fucking gender war that is happening that is just destroying dating, that's destroying the, you know, the fun of flirting with people out in real life. That's destroying marriages and relationships because people are entering into these relationships. With this really deep mistrust, dislike of men or women or the masculine or the patriarchy or whatever it is. Right. Fill in the blank. And so I think one of the things that we have to start to move away from is one, that we just all opt out from the gender war. And we said, actually, I'm not going to participate in that anymore. I'm just not going to partake in it because it's just nonsense and it's not helping anybody. And two, I think that we have to be able to hold two ideas simultaneously, meaning we have to be able to talk about the very real, the very real challenges that young men are facing right now in our society and our culture without that meaning that you are somehow misogynistic, patriarchal or anti women. Right. We have to be able to say, listen, young men are struggling and they're starting to struggle really bad. And we need to talk about this because this is a problem rather than saying, oh, they're all lost and they're all narcissists and they're all incels and it's like, well, you're going to create more of them.

Yeah.

And so I think, I think that those. I'm curious to get. Get your two cents on that. No, it's a little bit of like a soapbox. Like, thank you for coming to my TED Talk moment.

Yeah. I've said for years we threw the masculine baby out with the toxic bath water. Like, that's like all men bad. And now what do you know, we have a tail on that. Or there's an after effect to that. And that is that men are struggling. That is that boys are struggling. And, and there's two sides to this.

Right.

We talk directly to men and two boys and say, hey, do better. Here are some options. We feel for you, we get you, we understand you. And there's backlash on one end of, like them. It's the patriarchy. You guys created the system, you should suffer in it. And then on behind the scenes, though, I get mothers, I get sisters, I get wives, I get all of these women saying, well, this is my husband, this is my son, this is my brother. I don't know what to do with him. I genuinely care. I'm so tired of the. The cultural war on boys or the cultural war between the sexes. I just threw something up. Yes. Last night saying, here's what I see when I open my social media feed. Female influencers making fun of men, women celebrating them in the comments. Male influence influencers bashing women, men celebrating them in the comments, no one really recognizing that this has an effect. This. Everybody who reads this, sees this, comments on it, likes it. Put a heart, put a fight, whatever, walks away, like with a little bit of contamination on them. And they take that contamination into their relationships. They take that contamination into the next conversation they have with their wife, into the next conversation they have with their boyfriend or the guy that they're dating. And it creates real discord, it creates real disconnection. And the easiest way to not be contaminated is just to, to let it go. Don't, don't comment on it, don't watch it, don't feed it, don't give them the attention. Right. If no one watched that.

People would stop producing it.

It.

People would then stop the, the argument, which is not going anywhere, that it's your fault that we're not having sex, it's our fault that this is happening, it's your fault, it's men's fault, it's women's faults, blah, blah, blah. It's so stupid.

Yeah.

And it's so tiresome. If it had any solution, I'd be like, do it. You know what? Keep it up. This is actually making change. It's not. It is actually. We. Now is the time more than ever for connection, for us to, to say, hey, I see you, you're a human. There's a lot of things on your life that I don't understand. There's a lot of things about my life you may not understand yet. This is a basic building block of good mental health, of emotional health, of society, of peace, of the planet, continuing, of the species continuing, of people having joy, of people having fun, of people celebrating their lives. Like the best things come from connection. So let's stop feeding this machine that we, I, I'm going to even say are self perpetuating or a lot of people are self perpetuating because they are wounded, because they have been hurt by the opposite sex. And so it's easy to jump on that bandwagon. It's. But you know what? It's lazy. Right. I remember dating. I'm going to talk about this in the next day or two. I was dating a female influencer years ago and she said like, I don't feel comfortable putting a lot of the stuff out that I used to because. Because of you. I was like, well, why is it because of me? Because I, I now see like the other side of the coin. I see that men are actually dealing with real. And so it doesn't make me feel as comfortable to make fun of them. I was like, good, you know, don't do that. And by the way, it's lazy. It would be so easy for us with our platforms to be like, we're just now going to make fun of, of women.

And we, and we would probably get a ton of traction. A ton of traction. I think that's the, that's the sad part is that like there's this. I've been trying to grow my YouTube channel in the last couple weeks and, and, and so I've been doing a lot of research and looking at some of these channels online. You know, looking at the red pill dudes and the black pill and the, you know, and, and just looking at some of the channels that are getting tracked. And what's fascinating is that some of them are literally. There's this channel called whatever. I don't know if you've seen this, but it's literally the guy is like this interviewer. I was going to reach out to him and be like, would you have me on your show? Because I think it'd be interesting.

Yeah.

But the guy has generally a couple more sort of right leaning, conservative, traditional oriented men on the show. Show. And then like six to eight young, very progressive.

Oh, I have seen this.

I have seen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's fascinating because it's, I mean some of sometimes it's just a show, it's like so aggravating to watch, but sometimes it's interesting because you can hear that, you know, both parties have in some ways.

Not always both parties, but sometimes both parties a kind of like disrespect of the other sex and gender, you know, And.

I think that's one of my main issues when I hear things like, oh, toxic masculinity and oh, the patriarchy. Like somebody commented on my post the other day, I was like, oh, the patriarchy has hurt men so much too. And.

And you know, I think that when we, when we don't like something, our initial response to it is to try and get rid of it. It's to try and, and exile it. Right. And the, like I was saying to you before we got on the show, like the first psychological and spiritual principle that everybody kind of knows about is that the more that you resist something, it persists. Right. And so the more that you, you know, if you have an inner critic or if you experience anxiety or if you have a lot of anger, the more that you try and rid yourself of that experience, the more you actually manifest more of it. Because the tension of trying to push back on that thing and say, I hate you. I want to get rid of you. I hate this stupid inner critic, or I hate my anger or I hate my anxiety that produces more of it. But we take that tactic socially, right? It's like, oh, toxic masculinity. I'm going to rail against it and I'm going to yell as loud as I can about how toxic men are and how toxic their behavior is. And it's like you don't, like maybe you don't understand or realize that you're actually producing more of it in, in the act of trying to rail against it, you know. And so I think that we have to. Not that we need to center psychological principles. I think we probably need to de. Center them somewhat from our culture, but I think that we have to become a little bit more cognizant and aware that when we go to war on something, we perpetuate it. Right? We've seen that in America with drugs, it's like you go to war with fentanyl, you go to war with drugs. It's like you just, you just perpetuate, perpetuate the problem, the war on. Because yeah, it's, it's right, because you, yeah, you just, you shame the crap out of people. And so I think we need more tolerance, we need more acceptance. You know, we need to have less black and white thinking. I mean, our, our culture is so ridiculous right now with the amount of polarization, like during the pandemic. Holy. That was like peak polarization ridiculousness. You know, people like, you couldn't, you couldn't even have a conversation about, you know, efficacy or, you know, where, whether certain things were working or whether it was the right choice, like, should we really be locking people down for like a year? Like really, you know, it's like to even try and have some discourse around that was to just, you know, become under a assault from people. And I think we're emerging from this kind of haze of getting really close in the west for the first time to experiencing totalitarianism and authoritarianism. And I think that men especially have their, like the bristles on the back of our necks kind of stand up because you can kind of feel it, right? When freedom of speech, when freedom of choice, when some of these things start to get infringed on from whatever side it's coming at, men kind of get their bristles up of like, oh, shit, like, do I need to be more aware of something? Do I need to pay attention? So, but I think that starts with us individually, of not engaging in this stuff of not being like all women this or all men that or. Right. You know, however it is that we are connected, contributing to the quote unquote.

Gender war and even contributing just with our attention. Like, are you consuming content that is divisive? Period, period. Like just getting off that for a while. Like, how many times has the, the counter argument been. Put your phone down, go outside, do some push ups, eat some great food, talk to your partner. Like, take your dog for a walk and what do you know? Like, your neighbor's still pretty cool with you, aren't they? So are the people three houses down. People are still holding doors for people in supermarkets. People are polite. Yes, there is this huge tension. There is this seeming, this underlying anger, but it's also being highlighted daily in videos of people fighting on planes and yelling at cops. And you know, there's this general anger that I think needs to get alchemized by coming back to some sense of agency. Like, we all lost our agency for three years. Like, I can't do this. You can't go here. You have to do this. Suddenly there are all of these rules imposed upon people now. The rules have been lifted and the adolescent angst and the adolescent, like petulance has, has stayed with the culture, stayed with the society. Like, you're not going to tell me what to do now. But it's like, I know I'm your neighbor. I'm asking if I can borrow a rake. I'm, I'm not, I'm not telling you who to vote for or what to think or whether to, or to not put a black square on your Instagram or whatever is going to, you know, get your business canceled. So Connor, how do you, when, when you deal with, not just individually, if we take it out. So we, we've talked about like fitness, we've talked about nature, we've talked about, about not engaging. We've talked about re. Establishing relationship. Let's sit on that one for the last few minutes. When you have guys coming to you or not even guys coming to you. When you look at a landscape that says more men are not in relationship than are less men are having sex than ever before, which I know you, we're not interested in, but there should be more dicks in vaginas. It's, there should be everything that goes with that, which is connection, intimacy, joy, relationship, what do you propose to the, to the society at large of like, how do we get men back engaged in relationship itself?

Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a. It's a tough one, you know, it's a tough one. I mean, I think, you know, I think in some ways, like, women have become much more obviously empowered, much more independent. And so the, the roles in which we as men used to occupy predominantly within relationships has altered for a lot of people. And so for a lot of men, they're not 100% sure what they want their role to be. And what has started to happen, which is interesting, is that, you know, as women have become more financially independent and become more sovereign, their mating and selection preferences haven't necessarily changed. And so an example of that is, you know, you have right now, like, 41% of men, 41% of college graduates this year are going to be men. It's the lowest that it's ever been. And there's a 15%.

Overage of women that will graduate with a college degree this year, right? So. So on average, many more women are graduating with college degrees than men. And it's, it's inverse. It's actually changed from the 1960s, right, because you had Title IX come out and, you know, women were empowered to go to school and all that's great. I'm not saying that we roll anything back, but what's starting to happen is that you have stuff like, you know, 78% of women still want a man with a college degree, especially when they have one, right? Because women tend to want to date up and to the right. They want to date men that are equal in status, equal in finance, equal in economic capacity or ability, or more, with usually an asterisk and an emphasis on the or more part. And so I think one of the things that, that we as many to do is we, we need to adapt to understand that there are many ways to, to gain status within relationships. Because we as men have been so focused in, on make money, make money, make money, make money, make money. But if you're a man who has a really robust social circle, that's a form of status, right? Like what you and I do is a form of status because we have many other men, men that are reinforcing that what we do is valuable. And for women, women trust men who have sort of been vetted and approved by other men. And so one of the best things that we as men can do, I think right now, for many different reasons, is develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence, of relational intelligence with other men and alongside other men. And when you can do that, it's likely that you're going to become maybe a little Bit more financially secure. I've experienced that, right. The more that I've doubled down on my male relationships, the more that I've actually made, you know, made and earned more money.

Because I have a better, you know, network. But also my relationships, my intimate relationships have improved exponentially because I don't need my partner for absolutely everything. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges that I see happening within modern day relationships is that the people, because they don't have a lot of social connections or maybe a lot going for them in their career, then we need so much from our intimate relationships. It's like, I need you to be my coach and my therapist and my cheerleader and my financial advisor and my lover and my best friend friend and my cook and like all of this shit. And it's like maybe just choose a couple of those, you know, and not expect the, you know, the Disney version that your partner is going to be this utopian version of everything for you. So I think for a lot of the guys just to sort of distill it down is don't get jaded by going on the Internet and seeing like, oh, this is what women want.

Really start to step into. Who do you want to be? What do you want to build? Right? What do you want to create? How do you want to build yourself? And prioritize doing those things, going to the gym, earning money, building a business that you really give a shit about, prioritize doing those things around other solid men. And when you can do that, that will not only bolster your sense of, of masculinity and.

Confidence, but it'll also, when you decide to date, when you attract women into your life or even if you already have one, it's going to send a signal to that woman that you have a different level of status. Because women also know that it's challenging for men to get along. Women also know that it's challenging for guys to get along. Sometimes we disagree, we get into bar fights. You know, like, women have seen that historically. So.

So yeah, I think, I think those are some of the basic things. But I'm curious to get your, your take on that.

Yeah, I'll. Yes. And everything that you said and add, I want men to plug back into the game of their lives, even if they've unplugged from the relationship idea at the moment. I think one of the challenges, challenges is guys like, well, no woman wants me. I'm quote, not this, not, not the package that they're looking for. And so because I've unplugged from the relationship paradigm, I've also given up and collapsed in most other areas of my life. And so to plug back in with some clarity of what do you want for your life? Period, period. What do you want? And I ask everybody who comes through my Nice Guy programs this question, and I'll give the same asterisks I have to give there 75 times that I don't want women to disappear from the planet. But if they did, and you were a heterosexual man, what would you then do with yourself? What interests would you pursue? What hobbies would you have? What things do you want to explore? What do you want to learn? When you get to that final breath of your life, at the very end, can you look back and be like, man, that was a full existence with or without women, right? It's a paradigm shift. Because when guys do that, they're like, hey, I really like Porsches. I don't give a if I'm married, single, divorced, if I never get laid ever again. I love Porsches. I me, personally, I love jiu jitsu. I love surfing. I'm not doing these to be around women. Like, there's no women in. Very few women in jiu jitsu, not a lot of women are like, oh, so you put on pajamas and you choke other men. I think that's super attractive. There's some, but not many. But I still do that stuff. I'd still write, I'd still read. I still have 50 subjects that I'd love to dive into and become an expert in if I had the time, energy, and money, right? That gives me purpose, that gives me direction. That takes the witness weight off of, hey, I may not have a date this weekend. I may not have a date this month. I may not get laid this year. But when I look back on my life, I get to say, man, I learned some really cool, right? And it's. It's the weird. It's like, with money, like, the less that you need it, the more it tends to flow into your life. Like, I remember someone, like, 20 years ago being like, you think Leonardo DiCaprio pays for his own dinners? Anyway, where he goes, even though he could afford to pay for, you know, the entire restaurant every time he went in. If that's the paradox. So when you take the focus off of what's happening out there and take the focus back onto, I'm going to get my black belt, right? I'm going to surf waves all over the country. There's 17 books on archaeology that I want to read because it lights me up. That kind of stuff. Also the, the unintended consequence of makes you attractive. You don't care, but it makes you attractive. And also one of those subjects, if you're interested in it, is relationship. I find relationship fascinating just as a concept. Just as a subject, right? I find connection fascinating as a subject, as a concept. If women disappeared, I'd still be really, really curious about how social dynamics and how people get together and what makes people happy and the energy exchange and being grounded and blah, blah, like all that. So I would love for men just to plug back into their lives and let the chips kind of fall where they may, or at least have the intention at the beginning of being like, I'm not doing this to get in a relationship. I'm not doing this to get laid. It'd be great and I'm not going to turn it down. And it'd be awesome. And it is awesome. And once I have that ball rolling, once I have some momentum behind me of what I love to do, I love who I am, I know what I'm about, then I can take some of that focus and go, cool, man. There's a lot of women who are hanging out at the places that I'm at. I really like this one. I'm going to compassionately and skillfully approach her. If she says, no, thank you, I'm going to high five her and go back to doing what I was doing, right? And I'm going to disconnect from the drama and the collective unconsciousness and the collective anger. You know, I think this is a fair point to say about both men and women. Something Michael Gay brought up on a call a couple months ago saying there's a collective story, all men X, all women X. And that collective story is often a different experience than the vast majority of the individuals in the story. And so when we hear women only want to date guys over six feet who make six figures, six inches, six packs, six this, and then you sit down with an actual real human woman. Like, hey, does that stuff really matter? If you have a guy who you're deeply connected with, trust, have intimate intimacy with, love, and adore? Like, did you like, Is that really the thing? Like, no, it's not. Just like with most guys, like, okay, you have this checklist of women, right? She's this tall that wants to have sex this much, boobs are this size, bodies this size. Like, does this stuff. And you sit down with a real human man and go, hey, if you had a loving partner who supported you appreciated you took care of you, like, nurtured you. You loved you loved on you. Do you really give a flying what her cup size is? Do you really give a flying what her hair color is or any of the imaginary things that you've seen? No, I think that's a really important point for everybody to swallow that what we're missing here is the, the under. The surface stuff. And when we get that, the drama of the upper, upper level, the. The surface level stuff, it goes away. So stop focusing on that. Get back to, like, real hard, like real nutrients and real, Real depth, real connection. That's it.

Yeah, it's, It's. It's interesting. I usually say, like, a woman is not a why, you know, and, and so many of us as men are doing things for women to get a woman, you know, or we, or we get caught in the trap of making our. Our. The woman that we're dating and the woman that we're with our purpose in life, you know, and just making them happy becomes a mission. And it's. And it just doesn't. It just doesn't work.

Does not work. Yeah, it does not work.

And so, yeah, so, like, a woman's not a why. And if you're taking time in your life. Because I do think it is important to say that, like, you know, like I said before, 66% of men between 18 and 29 are single right now. And of the Pew research did this.

Did this study, and they were looking at what percentage of people are not looking for a relationship when they found was that 50% of men that are single across all age ranges say that they're not looking for a relationship. Right? 50%. That's a lot of men that are just like, I'm out. You know, I'm checking out of the Dating Game. And I think this, you know, this mix of dating apps, which are, like, largely terrible, right? You have something like Tinder, where 70% of the profiles are men, right? So it's just like, imagine walking into a room where 70 of the, like for dating and 70% of the. Of the people there were men. You know, it's like you're in a sausage party, right? And you're. It's. It's just not going to be the great place to be when you're wanting to meet a woman. And so, so I do think that a lot of men have started to kind of take a big step back, and that's okay. But I would, you know, I think I worry a little bit because one of the Things that, that has been a little surprising to me, you know, in the last decade of doing this work with, with, with guys is like, how much men want relationship, you know, how much men want an intimate relationship. For sure. It's, it's, it's one of the reasons why I say like, 80. That's, it's why 80% of divorces are initiated by women, because when men commit good, bad and ugly, they commit. And so, you know, I think it's, it's not to get like, you know, gushy or anything, but like, it hurts my heart, you know, to hear that there's so many men that are out there who I know probably really want to be in relationship with a woman.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I hope that we as men can really turn towards each other, so support one another and, and really encourage one another to not go down the rabbit hole of woman hating, you know, because I think it's easy for a lot of guys to go online and see how much vitriol there is towards men in the masculinity.

Sure.

And, and for them to get caught of like, well, women then, you know, like, I'll just, I'll just meet them where they're at and it's not the, it's just not the mature thing to do. You know, it's like our role, I think, within relationships. I said this to the alliance. The idea I was like, your mission is to outregulate your partner always. You might not always win at that game. You might not get it right all the time. Hell, I don't. Right. But it's like, but if you can do it like 60, 70% of the time, holy shit. If you can outregulate your partner and stay grounded.

That is a gift to the world around you. A grounded present man is a gift to the world around him. It's a gift to children, to women, to other men, to culture and society. And so if we can practice that in our relationships, which is oftentimes where we're going to need to practice it, you know, because it, like you and I, Trevor can hang out for a week or two and like, we probably wouldn't have any conflict. I can hang out with my wife for a week or two and something will come up, you know, something will, something will transpire.

And I love her. Yeah, right. What's that?

Would you say I can hang out with Katie for an hour? Something's coming up.

There you go. Right. And so, yeah, so anyway, I think that's just part of our mission. Mission Right now there's, there's a lot of other topics that I wanted to dig in with you on. I don't know if, if we want to like take a, a right turn into other territory right now. What, what are your thoughts on what we've covered and if we want to cover anything else?

Yeah, I, I love this. One thing I would like to add before, if, if we do want to take a right turn is I also want to tell guys the one of the best gifts, like your grounded piece is spot on. I'm going to add to it that the gift you give to yourself, the give you give to your partner, to your community, to your family, is also being well resourced. And that's not just money, power, status, ammo. It's like emotional resource of. Are you living? Are you getting the feedback from the world that you want to get back? Like, are you walking around generally full? Or are you, are you depleted? Are you worn out? Are you exhausted? Are you emotionally, like, just drained? Are you around people who make you feel good about yourself? Are you the type of person that makes you feel good about yourself? Like when those things are locked in and locked on and then you're grounded? You are a force. And we need forces right now because we've talked at length of about the forces that we're up against. But when a man is healthy, and I don't want to keep going back just to like biological basics, but when a man is emotionally, physically, etcetera, spiritually healthy and full, he's unfucking touchable, right? You're not going to get knocked over. You're not going to play the ego game of a dating app. You're not going to play the drama of social media. You're going to actually be someone who other people come to and say, I'm not really sure what you got going on, but it just feels good to be around you. Men feel good being around you. You said children, women, everybody. You though, feel good being around you. So really making it a part of your ethos and a part of your actionables. Day to day to go, what do I need? Do I need a day off? Do I need to go get a massage? Do I need to go to the gym? Do I need to clear the sugar out of my fucking house? Do I need to go to therapy? Do I need to hire a coach? Do I need to have lunch with some brothers? Do I need to get on vacation? Right? Do I need to make a plan to clear out my credit card debt? Because that shit's weighing me down. Do I like how I look? If not, am I willing to take some steps about that? Do I like the relationship, relationship that I'm in? If not, am I willing to step up and say to my partner, like, I loved V's post the other day, like, it takes so much courage to say I'm not happy in here. Like it's a lot of men don't do that. And that in here could be, you know, Vienna was talking relationally in that constant, in that stance. But it can be about your life. Like, are you willing to take an honest audit of your life and say, okay, these are the places that I would like to see something different? And then are you willing to take some action yourself? Are you willing to be self led? And that does not mean lone wolf. This, it may mean, like, hey, I don't know how to lose that weight. I'm going to hire a trainer. I don't know how to get my finances under, under wraps. I'm going to work with an accountant. I, I'm struggling with the same thing about my past. I'm going to hire a therapist or I'm going to get in a men's group, etc. Etc. So I want to add that in of men being resourced right now is so vitally important and that will also feed into you being grounded and you being grounded will feed in to you being resourced. So I'd love that piece. And then I'm also happy to take a hard right if you want to take a hard right.

Yeah, man. Well, I think, yeah, like I said, just one, one piece is like, I remember I came in three, talked to your nation and I was talking a little bit about like the energy of the king and you know, just this notion that the, the true archetype of the king in mythology is, is not someone necessarily that just goes out and conquers. Right. I think we have this misconception from the archetype of the king. The king goes out and conquers and sends out armies, armies and etc. Etc. The real archetype of the king is the embodiment of the energy, of drawing things closer, that the king actually brings things into his kingdom, brings things into who he is. And that requires a good amount of discipline and grounding and regulation and presence. But if you like, even if you just. This is a good example. Even if you look at like the arc of Aragon in the Lord of the Rings, he draws things into him and he's sort of this embodiment of the like Balanced king that Gillette talks about in King Warrior, lover, magician, right? That there's this energy that you as a man, when you're really on your mission, when you're really pursuing your purpose purpose, when you're really living a life in accordance to what is authentic and true for you, right? Waking up, going to the gym, eating healthy, prioritizing your finances, etc. That you start to draw things into you because of who you are and you start to pull things into your atmosphere, I think is another way of saying. Saying it. And again, if you look at the, the arc that Eragon takes, he pulls in like Frodo and Sam, he pulls in this wild adventure, right? And he starts to go on that adventure and then because of who he is, he starts to pull in these other things that eventually leads him to take the throne of the king, right? In the end. I'm not giving any spoilers away. I feel like every human being on planet has seen it. But so I think that that's the, that's the sort of misconception around the King King archetype that, that I think is really important because I think a lot of men are wanting to build a certain level of self respect, of self admiration, of self leadership. But sometimes we can get caught in. I gotta go out in the world and I gotta conquer and I gotta do and I gotta get all these things and what they miss out on is, what if I just slowed down and prioritize some basic principles and see what happens. And when we can do that, we start to draw things into us. And all of a sudden, because we kind of get in touch with the. With the mysterious, right? With awe and with wonder. Because when we start to slow down, we can't help but see things that create an awe and wonder within us. And so we start to attract in relationships, business partners, wealth, women, opportunities, interviews, etc. That are aligned with who it is that we are living on a daily basis and that we need to go out into the world less to try and pursue and build and conquer because it starts to come in right, we start to draw it in just based on who we are. So I think that's just an important piece because sometimes I find that.

Myth is a very important teacher that we've strip mined out of our mainstream culture. And myths often hold a kind of fundamental truth based in a sort of couched in a story that we can't necessarily put into a one sentence, like a tweet, you know, you can try, but it loses the gravity of the Story.

Story.

And so I think sometimes myth is. Is where we need to return to understand some of the things that are happening.

Did you read Smoke Hole?

I did, yeah. Yeah.

So good, huh?

Crazy.

And talking about the this is, that was the first time I really understood that there's codes, right. Interwoven into story that they can't directly give you. But that is the power and the beauty of myth. That was another point, you know, I said when I had the dinner and asking guys, what do we need to do to keep men emotionally and spiritually healthy? It was nature, it was discipline. It was a lot of the things that we've talked about here. And one of the other points was the reestablishment of men studying myth because we, I think, actually have much more of a connection to it, right? We want to sit around the fire and tell stories. We want to, like, talk story with our bros. We want to shoot the. We want it. We need to be the ones connected to the thing that's bigger than us. Because I feel like, and I don't know how to quantify this, that women by their very nature have access to higher level spiritual information than we do. Or Katie's always like, you don't get it because you're dense. You know, like, I'm £190 and can walk through a wall, so I can't feel what God doing today, but yet I can look at myth and read myth, and somehow that has the ability to penetrate my system in a way that, you know, dance or ceremony may not. And so I agree with you completely and would love to have myth. Like, guys, you know what you get? You guys who want to have a, like, get together with the boys this weekend and drink some beers. Don't talk about sports. Don't talk about, about your sexual highlight reel. Don't talk about where you want to go on vacation next. Pick a myth and. And dive into it. It's like what's applicable right now in our lives that feels like it could be a myth. Because, man, these stories go from generation to generation, from culture to culture. Like, they're so universal. It's like we have the information that we're all looking for on TikTok, but it's not on Tik Tok. It's actually buried in Iron John. It's buried in Smoke Hole. It's buried in the myths that used to get passed down so that we would be okay, but they're not passed down anymore. And what do you know? We're a disaster. So, yeah, I feel you on that one, man.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's funny because like I was talking to somebody about this on the show on my podcast recently, and I was recalling a memory of being a boy. And when my grandparents were over.

You know, my grandfather fought In World War II, you know, born in like 1919, I think he since passed away. But recalling this memory of. As a boy, one of my favorite things to do and one of my favorite memories with my grandparents is I would wake up super early and I would go running into their bedroom when they were staying with us or we were staying with them. And my grandfather would tell me stories about animals. And it was, what I realized now is it was, it was, he was telling these sort of animist based stories, right, where the animals had Personas and they were, you know, they were interacting and they were going on these adventures and, and it was so fascinating because he was, he was sort of weaving myths to me as a boy. And I think I didn't really understand why I was so keen on them and why I loved them so much. But I found myself with my boy nowadays doing the same thing. Like we were outside the other day and we have, you know, five acres of land and there's lots of trees, like right. Our cabins, like right in the middle of the forest. And I just found myself taking him outside and I said, just listen, just listen, right? I pointed out his ear because he's just starting to talk. And so he's standing there, he's listening and you could hear the wind blowing through the trees and you could hear the birds and there's lots of different types of birds on the property. And I just started to talk to him and sort of paint this picture of like the bluebird was on this journey and the chickadee and the hawk and he, my son is active, active, active like he is a wild child. But he stood there and just listened for like five, six minutes. And so, you know, not needing to analyze it, but I think it's this reminder that we're story based creatures, you know, that a part of us is trying to make sense of the story that we're living in and through. And one of the things that I always find is so helpful for men is like, write out the theme of your life as a story. Like, what do you think the title is right now? And what chapter do you think you're living through in the arc of your own story? And maybe it's not clear in the beginning, but you can go and study myth. You can go and study some basic principles of story to kind of see where you are. You know, are you in the descent? Are you in the recovery? Are you, you know, is there a calling that's happening? And you can kind of get a sense of where you're at, and then you can extrapolate that out to the social level to say, like, what part of the story is society and culture living through? And I think the problem, the maybe somewhat esoteric issue that we've been talking about this whole time is that I think most of us can feel that culturally we're in a part of the story that is very precarious. It is wildly precarious. And we're at a kind of a precipice. And everybody can feel it and everybody can tell and everybody knows it's happening, but no one really knows how to fully articulate what needs to be done and what direction to go. And so, in the words of.

I've totally forgotten his name, Terrence McKenna, he said, what we probably are going to need at some point is an archaic revival, is a bringing back in ancient wisdom of mythology that's hidden in the codexes of these stories. And to start to perceive our current story differently. Because if we invite things like artificial general intelligence into the equation, and we don't have. We don't teach AGI, we don't teach large language models how to understand things like myth and mythology, it will be missing out on a fundamental point, principle of human consciousness. And I think that that's wildly dangerous. You know, I really think that if we're going to. If we're going to create some kind of sentience, then we need to create it to in some ways mimic or at least mirror or understand the fullness of what we are as humans in a more robust way. And myth and story is such an important element of it. Yeah. So, yeah. What about your thoughts? Do you have anything?

I agree. And I think even just on an individual level, as we begin to use technology more, as we become more reliant upon technology.

The tempering, the anchor point to keep us grounded, to keep us whole, to keep us healthy, isn't reaching more. More forward, but it is reaching to the past. Like having I have like a visual in my head of like an anchor that is myth. It's like, hey, you guys aren't going to get too far ahead of yourselves, because I. I have this piece here that's holding me one foot in the. In the. In the depth world, and then one foot's allowed to float up into the Unknown and the. The technological world, which is chaos and, and speed.

Right.

But hey, we're still going to sit by a fire and talk about the stories that have flown, have rippled through humanity since the beginning of time that will anchor us in our humanity as these technologies take us further and further out of our humanity. And it feels like you're right, that is the challenge I see culturally is that we are leaving our humanity, we. Which is why it's women's fault that men aren't having sex and it's men's fault that this is going the way it is. And it's the Democrats fault that it's this way and the Republicans faults. And we've forgotten that underneath every one of those labels is this idea of a human who is not encapsulated by just that label. And the deeper we can take the feel and the understanding and the.

Intricacy of that human, the more compassion, empathy and wholeness will have in our relationships and our relationships to ourselves. So I agree with you a thousand percent, Connor. I was so glad when that came up in that dinner, and I felt that. I don't know if I shared this with you, like, six months ago when I was going through the challenge of trying to integrate the primal and divine and what is the wild and domestic and going through my, my own personal, like, real life hardship. What came through me once was, you need to study myth. And I was like, what the fuck's that going to help me this weekend? I was like, okay, calm down. I'll take it as good information and listen to Smoke Hole, you know, four or five times just. And then promoting Martin Shaw's work. But just to say, oh, there are stories that have meanings that are bigger than me. And when I'm dealing with something that's bigger than me, or as a culture, we're dealing with something that's bigger than us, a force that's bigger than us, which is technology, which is good versus evil, which is duality, whatever we want to call it, then we have to go back to things that are bigger than us to draw upon in order to survive it. So yay, myth, man. I'm all for it.

Yeah. And I think, I feel like people can see it in culture, you know, it's like there's a reason. While we were talking about this, I kind of like, I had a funny internal thought of like, you know, one, we need to bring the ancient back into the present and the future, you know, and be able to weave those things together. There's. There's Merit in that. But you can see it in our culture, right, of, like, people starting to go on these journeys of, like, having complete natural births, never checking in with a doctor.

Right? This sort of, like, ancient way of doing things or. I mean, some of it's a little more absurd. The one that kind of made me chuckle is like, you know, dudes tanning their. Their taints, you know, like getting sunning their buttholes and like that. It's like, yeah, okay, you know, like, yeah, there's maybe. There's one study that points to, like, getting some vitamin D on your. D is maybe good for you. But anyway. But you can. You can see it in the culture, right, that there's. There's all of this pseudo spirituality that. That feels sort of old and ancient in nature. I feel like we covered a lot of ground, and I feel like we should. We should probably end on myth and sunning taints, you know, like that.

That's the perfect ending. So we're going to title this getting some D on your D with Conor and Trever. Connor, you want to talk a little bit about your book and where people can get it and where people can find you if they don't know you?

Yeah, I mean, you can just go to mantalks.com the book is called Men's Work. And, yeah, I would. I would strongly encourage any man out there to come and join one of the Man Talk weekends. Go to one of Travers weekends, you know, which is like, whatever calls to you. If you. If you feel called to get more deeply into the work, then. Then come and join us in person and get it. Get in real life for sure.

And, guys, if you want to find stuff for me, it's@manuncivilized.com My two books are today I Rise, which is specific around heartbreak or divorce. And the second book, Man Uncivilized. I have an uncivilized podcast, which you're probably listening to this or you may not be, but same thing. If you can find Connor and I, if you found something important in this, please do us a favor. Break Connor's rule of. Of what is the first rule of man club? We don't talk about.

Don't talk about what it's like to be a man who's struggling. But, yeah, man it forward, man.

Guys, brother, I love you. I appreciate you. Can't wait to see you next week and can't wait to do this again.

Likewise.

Cheers, man.