Why Successful Men Feel Completely Empty Inside, with David Deida

All right, Mr. David Deida, welcome to the ManTalks show. How you doing?

I'm doing well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

You bet. I feel like this has been a long time coming. I've had a lot of, a lot of men ask for you to be on the show, and so, uh, we both have published through Sounds True, and so when they reached out and was like, hey, do you want to have David on the show? It's like, that's, yeah, that's a no-brainer. Um, tell me a little bit about, obviously you've got this new book coming out, The Man of Zero, and it seems to be the next sort of step, the next progressional step after Way of the Superior Man. I'm curious to get your take if you feel like that is more of a, a journey that men need to take, like it's a progression for them after The Way of the Superior Man. Is it a cultural take, um, that you see what's happening with men in the world? What sort of brought this concept to the forefront for you?

As you say, I wrote The Way of the Superior Man long ago, and it's about how men can meet the challenges of life— sexuality, purpose, um, living a full life, giving their gifts, serving others, and dying complete. Now, I wrote that about 30 years ago, and it had a strong influence on the culture, but a lot of those people succeeded. They they're in pretty good relationships. A lot of those men are in good relationships who read that book now, and they're living their true purpose. They feel on point, online, on purpose. And yet they have a sense, or they sometimes come upon a sense of emptiness or meaninglessness. Meaning, whatever their experience is, it might be great. Like, they might be with their kids and they're jumping on the bed and they're having a great time, and they look over at their wife and she's so beautiful. And like, it could be a wonderful And yet in that moment, they may have a sense of, okay, like, this is life. This is, this is it. This is all. I mean, so they begin to feel that they know there's nothing else in life that they can get, that they've achieved more than the basics. They've, they've, they've kind of mastered the challenges of life. I mean, they're ongoing, so they're never finally mastered, but they're in the process and yet they feel empty. So I wrote this book, the new book, which is out now, The Man of Zero. When they come to feel, I call it zero, a sense of zero, meaninglessness, purposelessness, emptiness. And a lot of men think that's depression, or our culture often thinks that's depression. But I think that for a large percentage of those men, not all of them, For some men, it's a kind of clinical depression that needs maybe biochemical medication or intensive therapy. But for some men, they've just outgrown their usual life. They've outgrown the sense that life is here. The actual experience of life is here to fulfill you. And when they outgrow that, then when they're with their their wife, let's say, or their children, or their, their business, their creativity, their art— when they're doing the things they've always loved to do, there will still be a sense of emptiness that if you approach it correctly, it's actually spaciousness, it's actually boundlessness. It's actually— you don't need a purpose. You could live purpose-free and be lived by the same primal power, if you will, that is living the universe. I mean, you— we don't know what we're going to think next. So our thinking is happening by design on its own, you know, just happening. The weather is happening on its own. The cosmos is moving on its own, and we're part of that. We're arising as part of that. We are being lived. Um, there's a kind of illusion that all men go through, and it's very important one, that we can discipline our lives in a way to gain fulfillment. That's an important phase, I think, for men to go through so they master adulthood, basically. But at a certain point, they outgrow that kind of common adulthood, and they simply no longer can lie to themselves as if they're finding fulfillment in those things, those good experiences. And so that's what The Man of Zero, the new book, is written for. It's for, for those men, whether they're very successful or successful at all, but they just came to a place of, okay, I have no— I don't really want to do anything. There's nothing that really moves me. I could do it. I'm good at it. You know, I could earn a good living doing it. I have good friends. I could help people. I— people thank me all the time. They benefit. And yet, I— it doesn't feel true to me. And so this book, The Man of Zero, is the threshold for that. Like, when you come to that, what do you do? And so that's where this book begins. It's not exactly a phase after The Way of the Superior Man. It may be within. So, so someone may cultivate a career and an art and a family and then come to the zero phase where they are moved to do nothing. And that phase may last a day or a year or years, and then they may— that phase may end again, and they'll go back into creating a new business or something, you know. So these are phases, not necessarily final stages. And I really just wanted to address the phase when men feel no motive.

If, as I read it, it kind of felt like a meditation on being, or, uh, almost like a guide for resting in awareness and consciousness. Is— what's your— I mean, well, okay, I have so many questions. There's so many things I want to pull on with.

I would agree with that, just so you know. I would agree with what you just said.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, it was interesting because I think as I was reading this, I was like, oh, this feels very much like a kind of, as I was reading it, it felt like I was in a kind of written meditation, which was interesting, sort of bringing me back to awareness and pointing me back to this spaciousness of resting in consciousness. And it's interesting because you talk about depression, there's a chapter called Depression is a Gateway, and if you feel depressed, and I think, you know, it seems like A lot of men in our culture right now are lost, maybe feeling a bit hopeless, lacking direction, struggling with depression, feeling like things are depressed because of the current state of the economy or, you know, whatever it is. I'm curious if there's a part of you writing this that's speaking to what men are experiencing in the culture or Is that me reading too much into it?

No, I think you're right. Um, first of all, I think men have experienced the sense of purposelessness throughout history. I don't think it's unique to right now. However, I do think we're in a unique moment specifically where things like AI are replacing human minds, and specifically during a time when this is a generality, but I think that, that women are ahead of men in most ways. Obviously, in terms of going to medical school and law school and graduating, you know, women are outgraduating men. Um, soon I believe women will be outearning men. And so there's a sense in a lot of men that they're being ousted or that they're becoming obsolete. Through AI, through women taking dominance in the social scene and the workplace, which I think could be a very healthy thing. But it does leave men feeling like, okay, what's— what am I here for? You know, like, what am I gonna do? What's my purpose? And so that's what I wanted to address. Uh, so it's not so culture-bound. Like, it definitely applies to this moment because of things like Well, AI, women becoming ahead, psychedelics even. A lot of men in their journey these days, they'll have a psychedelic experience, and often a psychedelic experience leads to them feeling, wow, this is one of many potential experiential realities. There are whole other domains of being with, you know, latticework creatures of geometric form. You know, there's all these other spaces that seem utterly real. And that could give people a sense of like, so what the hell am I doing concentrating on this job? Like, what? So men could come to that place of meaninglessness through psychedelics or through seeing women ahead of men, or through AI taking over their job or their thinking needs capacity. So it does apply to the moment, but I think it's true at all time. Like you say, there's a— it's a kind of non-dual approach to being a man today. And that approach has been around as long as there have been men around. I think as long as there have been written form anyways, written records.

If you're like so many men right now, you're probably struggling with some form of self-worth and you might not even know where it came from or how it started. The reality is, is that if you're a guy that's harsh with yourself, you're beating yourself up, super critical, super judgmental. Or you just feel deeply insecure, and you're not able to figure out how to get out of the spiral, I want you to know that there is a way out. I've been working with men for over a decade. And I have helped so many men develop a deep foundation of self-trust, self-respect, and ultimately self-worth. And I've packaged it up into a free guide for you. So if you are interested in doing some of that work, having practical tools and direction to build self-worth again within yourself, then go to mantalksinfo.com/pod. Again, it's mantalksinfo.com/pod to pick up your free guide. There's practical tools in there, questions and prompts for you to answer, and actions that you can take. Enjoy. Say, say a little bit more if you can about depression as a gateway, because I think that might be a good thread to pull on for a lot of men.

Yeah. Well, one, again, some men are depressed for a leverageable reason. Their biochemistry is imbalanced. They need a different biochemistry. Some men have lost something, maybe they've lost a child or a partner, something very profound, and that grief has overwhelmed them and they've moved into depression. What they really need to do is talk about that grief, express that grief. So there are There are many forms of depression that need to be met with specific therapeutic protocols, and those are unique to each man. So what this book addresses is, is a subset of all men who experience that. And this is the subset who no amount of biochemical rebalancing will help. No amount of talk therapy will help. No amount of feeling their true pain and grief, which is essential, of course, essential work, but it doesn't help them. They're just feeling everything's empty. The grief is empty. The emptiness is empty. They don't even have the energy to not care about the energy. Like, they're just zeroed out. They've come to zero. And what I want those men to know is that although our culture doesn't support it, there's no need to feel guilty. There's no need to feel shame. There's no need to feel like you're a failure. Just be zero. So if you can, in other words, if you're If you have enough money for now to eat and your children are taken care of and your house is in order enough, I would just do nothing for 5 minutes. Like, if you are not moved to do something, just be. You can just sit there, you could walk, but just be like in this moment, for instance, and find out actually what this is. Like, what is the nature of you right now, of this moment? What's the deepest you could go? Because things like shame and guilt and failure, those are thoughts coupled with emotions and somatic sensations. Those are constellations of experience that come and go. But the deep sense of being that you mentioned doesn't come and go. If anytime you look, you are, you are being. You cannot be aware that you're not aware. You're always aware. That you're aware, that's being. Being is aware. Another word for awareness. Being, just being, is just being aware without adding anything or taking anything away. And when you are just being or just being aware, at that moment you are aligned with the universe, with whatever you want to call it that's moving everything. And so your true creativity, or what needs to move through you for real, not what needs— you need to do so you make your parents happy, the engram of your parents within you happy, not what you need to do so you feel successful or so you feel you could die complete, but just what— how the universe lives you, how, how love lives you, how, how you are lived by whatever is already living you now. So even though you might be very filled with energy and working hard, there's a kind of effortlessness to it because it's— you're doing nothing but being that which is now. And part of what's now is, is an arising of thoughts and actions and emotions, and that will then unfold as your life without you needing to stress on where you're going. You don't have to know where you're going. In the Way of the Superior Man, goals are incredibly important. You, you You make goals, you measure benchmarks. You know, I'm gonna do this this month, this, this week, and I'm gonna do this first, then that, that, that. And that's very helpful to accomplish things. But in the way of zero, you don't— you do nothing, you add nothing, and you find out where everything is going, what is happening when you don't interfere. Um, so you— it's a different way of living, one that's much more effortless and relaxed and spontaneous. Open, humorous, loving. It's not so focused and goal-oriented. It doesn't allow a lot of— need a lot of comparison, you know, like, he's succeeding, I should be able to succeed. So it's a different way of living that many men are ready for. And the first sense of that in many men is a kind of, I'm too depressed to do anything, I'm too unmotivated to do anything. And that's the point where this book intervenes. It's like, okay, don't do anything, but do it impeccably. Don't do anything Impeccably. In other words, don't sit there and read your phone or watch a video or watch porn or like that. That's not doing nothing. That's doing all those things. Literally do nothing. Just be. Just sit or walk or whatever. Just be the being you are and find out what that is as deep as you can and allow that to live. And then there are details like how do you do that sexually? How do you do that with a woman? Because part of this is your sexuality will shift. And if you have a partner, she'll feel your desire lessen for how it used to be turned on and be turned on by something else. So maybe a third of the book is about that, like how to be with your partner, your love partner, sexually, even when you're not motivated to even have sex. So I try to cover as many bases as possible in the book.

It's interesting. I mean, I definitely want to get to that part of it, which I think men will appreciate. But I think what I want to go to first, I mean, one, this resonates with me. I found it very interesting as I was reading the book is I do— I feel like you've kind of done it again in a way where you're, you're like, you know, I remember reading and I think a lot of men had this experience when they read Way of the Superior Man. It's like, oh, you're speaking to some innate nature inside of me that feels very true but hadn't been put into words. And as I was reading through this, I was like, oh yeah, you're speaking to this essence inside of me that— and I think many men, but I'll just speak personally— that feels very true in these moments of doing nothing but being. And that's something that I've had to work at, uh, through intentional practice. And I like this notion of what you're saying of, you know, do it impeccably. Um, I've actually— I mean, I've given that as a kind of assignment to men of go do nothing, and it's, it's wild what the response is sometimes, you know, like the complete bewilderment and befuddlement and, and, you know, sort of immediate frazzled nature that comes on the other side of that. Because I do think that in modern culture, we're so conditioned as men to be doing automatons. You know, it's like you just are supposed to be doing. You wake up, you do throughout the day, and then, you know, at night maybe you go to sleep and you shut down for a little bit. But I think a lot of men have a challenge not doing. So with all that in mind, What do you say to the man that's maybe hearing what you're saying, is getting it, but feels a sense of threat to his doing nature, whether you want to call it the ego or the identity or however you want to sort of frame that, and he feels a threat to that sense of self? Because I think that's the challenge that I've seen with a lot of guys, is that there's this story about being a man of zero, about moving into just being, that is usually shrouded in shame or judgment, or it's almost like it's an imposition on their masculinity or their potency. And so I'd love for you to speak to that.

Try, and you let me know if this is speaking to it or if you want to refine the direction we're going, or, um, People, men, I'll speak about men, they grow through phases. In this book, I use the base, the basic man is one phase, the superior man as one phase, and the man of zero as another phase. And each one in a way is when what men identify as their self-worth. So a, a beginning, like the, the basic man, he wants to have enough money, he wants to have security. Uh, he wants a partner, if he wants a partner. You know, some men want to play the field, so to speak, sexually. Some men want to settle down, have children. But he has an image of himself as accumulating a certain amount of whatever it is— money, security, comfort, home. And when he loses those things or doesn't have those things or can't get those things, his self-worth diminishes. He doesn't feel good about himself. And we could come into the psychological dimension. That's not my particular interest, but all men go through a phase of that. Like, you're raised by a family. We all are raised in family values, and we tend to live those out, whether we're struggling against them or we're embodying our family. We can't just eliminate our family. We're part of an ancestry, we're part of a lineage. We've inherited genetics, epigenetics, cultural things. We're all mammals. So we've inherited all of these things. So the basic man succeeds at those or tries to succeed. Get enough food, get enough money, get enough sex. Now, and if he does, he's successful. And if he doesn't, he feels unsuccessful. But then when he becomes a superior man, what happens? He goes, you know, I have enough money and food and whatever. I want a better— I want better sex. I want to master sexuality, or I want to learn how to love my woman You know, when she comes to me this way, whatever it is, when she comes to me with a complaint, I want to learn to roll with that so that both of us open. And so you, in the Superior Man phase, you learn skills, you, you learn skills mastering these challenges. And so when he, he's living on point, he feels fulfilled. I'm living my purpose. And then when he's, he's not living on purpose, he feels like, I need to find my new purpose. So many superior men phase— men are either living their purpose or their purpose is to find their purpose. So when they're not doing that, they feel they're failing. They— that's when they experience shame or guilt, when they're not living on purpose. Now what happens in the man of zero is there's just the motive to even have a purpose has exhausted itself. You've probably had a few purposes in your life and maybe succeeded enough to see that— I mean, it could be great, but it's just not it. I don't know how to put it. Like, everyone has a sense of depth of like what's really possible, and nothing seems to get them there. So when that obsoleteness of seeking really comes to zero, then he's left there as a man of zero with no motive to do anything about it. So even if his shame or guilt arise, like, what am I doing? I don't want to do anything. I mean, what am I doing? I'm just sitting here. This is wrong. This can't be right. Then I would, I would say, okay, notice those thoughts. They're happening on their own. And just don't add anything to them. Let the thoughts come. If you're thinking, keep thinking. If the thoughts stop, let them stop. And just be there with them and feel what it's like to be. Like, don't add anything. But in this moment, for instance, just be, which is what we're already doing. Obviously, if you're hearing my, my words, you're be— you're aware of my words. You're being aware, at least. So be that least awareness. Be totally lazy. Don't add anything. Be aware. Feel the quality of that awareness, not what you're aware of. So what you're aware of, wherever you are right now, Connor Beaton, and what I'm aware of are very different. I'm looking out a window right now. It's some trees. You have probably your own view. Um, what we're aware of is very different and unique, but awareness that we're aware is It's awareness. It can only be awareness. And so you and I are identical in awareness. So is a dog or a cat or our children or our wife, that when we look into their eyes, we see that same awareness that we are. And abiding or resting as that being, which is what we always are. So it's effortless. You could just remember it, recognize it, and yep, I'm aware. Then noticing that awareness in the other. We could say the eyes of another, but it could be through touching them or hearing their voice. But, you know, when you look into the eyes of your child, especially an infant, it's almost impossible not to feel oneness, not to feel just love, love, loving love. It's like your love loving the love and your infant is loving you. It's just love looking through itself through two eyes. And you can feel that with your sexual lover, looking into their eyes. You can feel that with your buddies or your men friends looking into their eyes. Many people find it easier to, to feel that with pets, with animals, with dogs and cats and horses. And, um, so that universal being is in all of us. And to feel that in others, to know that in others, is what I would call love. And so what begin— you begin to live as love loving the love that's living everybody, and then skillfully dealing with the inheritance of your body-mind as well as everybody's. Because you might have inherited alcoholic genetics, or you might have inherited violent genetics, or you might have inherited a cultural view of some kind that results in you being aggressive because of how you were raised as a child. You didn't ask for any of this. It's how you were raised. It's genetics you've received. So from that place of being awareness in this moment, all of that history comes through you. Your violence, your violent thoughts, your desire for violent actions, your sex, your mammalian sexual desires, your— all kinds of things come up. And unless we can digest those in our being, in awareness itself, then, as you know, we tend to project those onto others and we struggle with those same traits in others. You know, that's the origin of hate and war and fighting. But when we can feel that universal being in all of us and also feel how we have all inherited patterns that are now our responsibility to to feel, to dissolve in awareness, then that stuff can just come up and be dissolved. Come up in the life— over a lifetime, all of the stuff you've inherited comes up and is dissolved. And if you're not dissolving it in your awareness, you're probably suppressing it or bypassing it or transmitting it unconsciously and perpetuating it in a world of conflict instead of a world of peace. I don't know if I addressed your questions. Yeah, no, definitely.

No, it's great. It's really, it's really good. I remember, uh, I have two kids. I have a 5-year-old and a 5-year-old son and then a 21-month-old daughter. And after— and my— it's interesting because they, they both have been quite different in their demeanor in many different ways, but also in their, uh, like, their energetic engagement. My son is taking a little bit more work— maybe not work is not the right word, but intentionality— to sort of like bring him fully here and to be really present, because he's just, he's a bundle of nuclear energy. I mean, the kid is just like the sun incarnate. And then, and then my daughter, I mean, he's My son is like me when I was a kid. I was just, you know, rocket fuel. And my daughter, everybody that meets her, she is just this package of presence. You know, she just sort of like stares into you. And it's been wonderful for me. And after she was born, I remember we were— my wife and I were working with this woman and there was some stuff that was coming up with my son and me, you know, getting sort of impatient with them and being more sort of disciplined and hard. And I'll never forget what she said. She said something along the lines of, your job is to practice— or your job is to practice dissolving and disappearing. And I was like, huh? And it sat with me because I think in many ways, I mean, I can be a very intense person. Our mutual friend John Wineland has called me sharp. Like I'm a very sharp person. Uh, and so it really sounds like you're speaking to that practice of, yeah, of just sort of dissolving all of the stuff that's normally there that we get so lost in and heavily attached to. I'm curious, for the man that's listening to this and maybe is somebody that feels numb or is connected to that emptiness that you're talking about. How— maybe I'm not really too sure how to frame it, but I think a lot of the times— well, one, how do you distinguish between numbness and what you're talking about with men of zero? And, and two, how does a man begin to move towards that more when how he relates to his emptiness or his desire, this sort of like longing to just be still or to experience nothing or to do nothing or to just be when that is usually met with a tremendous amount of resistance or shame. Because I think a lot of men, when I hear them talking about this, it's like, oh, I don't want to do anything. And society or culture or my parents or, you know, whatever, wherever it was accumulated has told me to not do that. That that is a useless endeavor for me. That's, that's something that I shouldn't bother with. So I'd love for you to speak to that.

Yeah. My main impulse in writing the book is exactly what you just said. I came upon many men who had come to that zero point and then were feeling that they're not supported there, you know, that society tells them they're fucked and maybe they're telling themselves that, that they're failure, or maybe their partner is telling them that, or their friends or their family. So I think that is a commonplace for men to come to. I'm not sure. The entire book is an address of that. Do you have a specific question there? There were several questions I heard.

Can we pick one? Yeah, I like to do that. I'm notorious for several questions. How about we go with numbness? How does numbness fit in with this? Because I think that that's a state that a lot of men experience, and I'm curious about how it relates to what we're talking about.

Okay. Now, this might be kind of subtle. It may not be, and maybe we could unpack it if it is. But if you can say I'm feeling numb, then that numbness is something you're feeling. In other words, there's you feeling numb or feeling numbness. In other words, the numbness isn't you. You're feeling the numbness. If the numbness can be replaced with anger, you'd be feeling anger. Or the anger can be replaced with cold water, you'd be feeling cold water. So you are feeling numb. Now, if you just concentrate on the numbness, that's what I call being lost in experience, and that road leads to the spiral of depression. But if you can be aware that you're aware of numbness, like, okay, I'm aware of numbness. I am the awareness of numbness. It's not a mental thing. You actually, in this moment, bodily, somatically feel What is happening? Like, okay, I am aware of numbness right now, but I could be aware of anger or my foot. I could be aware of my foot. So you shift your center of being from the numbness which you're perceiving, authentically perceiving, to the perceiver, to the space of perception, to the being that's aware. And it's not a mental thing. You actually go, oh, okay, there's numbness. But I'm crystal clear that I'm numb. My awareness is perfectly clear that I'm numb. I am absolutely aware that I'm foggy, numb, tired, lazy. I'm a— and that awareness is pristine. So in this present moment, in any present moment, you can be aware of numbness, of torpor, of laziness, collapse, and yet it's that awareness that's the key, not the content. So it's okay if the content of your awareness is, is tired numbness, but it's not— if you get lost in the experience of numbness, that's a losing battle. 'Cause anything you do is just creates more separation, like you're fighting with this quality of your experience that's already there. Numbness. Instead, you just are with the quality of oneness. You're effortlessly already aware of it. There's nothing you need to do to become aware of it. It's there. You're aware of numbness, but also what's there is the awareness. And we, it's invisible. So awareness is invisible. Numbness has a texture to it. Your foot has a texture to it. Anything you could become aware of, you could describe to some extent. It's green, it's a foot long, it's, you know, it hurts, it vibrates. But awareness itself is always that which is aware. It's out of the picture. It's the blind spot. So it's an invisible blind spot of being. It's, it's an unknowable place. So you begin to live I don't know what I am. I don't know where I'm going. I just am. And okay, in this moment I am experiencing numbness, but what that I am is, is a mystery. Like, I'm just going to be that and be lived by that and discover, like, what is emerging out of that emptiness? What is the quality of the emptiness? And when you live from that place, everything shifts. You're no longer making choices because because I'm numb and I don't want to be. You're making choices because I am awareness and this is just arising through me. I mean, it's not that esoteric. Like right now you and I are talking. I have no idea what I'm about to say and you don't either. Like, words are just arising. And yeah, we've trained in English, so it comes out in English. In other words, everything we experience or do comes from our conditioning. We're not speaking in Chinese because neither of us were raised in the Chinese language, but What arises is arising spontaneously in the condition of our practice. So if we're, if we're a master at something due to practice, then what happens is that practice happens spontaneously. We spontaneously create our art. We're not creating our art because we feel we lack something, we, and we need to find a purpose. It's just we're spontaneously offering love through the shape of what we've practiced in our life, whatever that is, whatever our art has been or whatever whatever our psychological patterns have been. So that— your question was about numbness. There's nothing wrong with numbness because numbness is just another experience. And by noticing— it's hard to put words on the invisible awareness of that experience— you shift your entire life in that moment. And so if moment by moment with your children, for instance, in your case, the more you could look them in the eyes and feel the same being you are, and the more you could embrace their unknowable spontaneity along with yours. That allows you to come from depth of love and share your cultivated gifts with them. And also they would share their gifts without feeling forced by your sense of lack. If any of us had parents, we know that sometimes they they have a sense of lack, and therefore we shape ourselves to help them with their lack. And that results in all kinds of issues that hopefully your children will be able to get through because you're more aware than our parents were.

How, how does some of this show up in reference to navigating relationships with a woman in terms of conflict or chaos or creating sexual polarity?

Well, the starting point for the discussion of being with a partner— and although these, these principles apply to any relationship, you could be any gender, two men, two women, fluid genders, non-gendered. You could be oriented towards same-sex, opposite sex. You could have a body with a penis, a vagina, both. I mean, like, there's None of what I'm about to say is specific that way. However, to speak, I need to say he or she or they, and I find that since the majority of my readers, in my own personal experience, happens to be heterosexual male, that's what I'm going to speak to since it's my lived experience. But the principles apply to anything, um, any, any relationship of any gender and orientation or multiplicity or singularity. So given that, I will say that probably the number one complaint from— again, I'm going to say men, but it could be any gender. The number one complaint from men who've come to the place of zero is that their partner— I'll say woman, but it could be a man, it could be any gender— they talk too much, they're too much, they change their mind, they bring too much energy. The man is in a peaceful place and suddenly their woman brings an emotion to them. Or sometimes it's even more subtle, like they're— the man might be— the man of Zir, let's say, might be sitting in a room, uh, I don't know, reading a book. I'm just making this up. And then the woman walks in, and just him feeling her walk in before she says a word he cringes a little bit because he knows something's about to happen. And that's something, anything, even if she says, "I love you, let me hug you," you know, it could be a beautiful thing, but that something isn't nothing. And since the man of zero identifies with nothingness more than anything, even a loving woman entering a room could create a kind of cringe in his body-mind, even if he loves her. And there's a cringe, like, oh, okay, what's about to happen? Like, what's— she's gonna say something that's gonna result in the conversation. I'm gonna have to deal with something. And so there's a kind of feeling like this is not nothing, you know. She's walking into the room, something's about to happen. Now, that can be extreme. She could want to talk about something. She could have an emotional quality she wants to share with you, or a serious issue in life she wants to discuss. So It's necessary, obviously, to talk with your partner and to spend time with your partner. But again, I wouldn't want men feeling guilty or shameful because they're cringing just at the thought of being in the room with their partner. I'm trying to let men know it's completely okay. It's natural, even if they're identified with zero, for the feminine to initially feel like like, okay, like, uh-oh. Like, and if men feel that sense of, okay, I'm gonna lose my peace and quiet, this is going to be a violation of peace and quiet— if, if they really believe that, if they really believe that they're going to lose their essence, their peace and quiet because of her, then they're going to resent her. And a lot of the basis so much misogyny, which is all over the place, as you know. It's a kind of resentment for feminine interruption. And what the masculine needs to learn, like, in the way of zero, is to stabilize enough at zero, meaning not pushing, not pulling, being fully present, staying in place, feeling without limits, feeling her, listening to her, feeling her, noticing her breath, hearing the tone of her voice, listening to what she's saying, just being totally present with her without pulling away, that if he's not careful and stable in that, he will pull away. There'll be a quality of like, uh, and there'll be a subtle pulling away which she will feel, which will of course probably piss her off more. Like, the last thing she wants to feel is you feeling her less, you being less present. So every time she brings you something, even love, you might withdraw because it's a violation of your peace and quiet. And she feels that withdrawal, so she gets a little pissed naturally. And then you get resentful, like, why can't I just relax? Why does she always make a problem here? And that kind of situation is incredibly common where masculine-identified men, or men of zero in this case, really are so clinging to zero that they forget that they could be zero no matter what she does. She could be, she could be having sex with him in a wild fashion and he could be relaxed at zero. She could be yelling at him because she's pissed at something she did and he could be resting at zero. She could be in a moment of deep concern and telling him about something that happened at work that she wants to discuss and he could be resting at zero. So he could rest in total presence without recoil. Without flinching, without pulling back, regardless of what she brings to him. And then that shifts the relationship when she knows that she could come to him and he doesn't have that fear, that he doesn't fear that he could actually lose his peace and quiet, that he's so sourced, so grounded in that purposeless presence that she can bring anything to him and he's just there. That presence itself has a power. It, it has a power, as you said, to dissolve those patterns. So what will happen is she'll feel seen because she is seen. She'll feel felt because she is felt. She'll feel his presence because he's truly present. And feeling those things, her love will come to the fore. Now, there may still be many things to talk about, obviously, in an intimacy, um, but he's not threatened anymore by the loss of his peace and quiet, and she doesn't feel his building resentment and separation. And that changes everything. Everything. Um, I'm not sure where you want to go from here, but that would be the beginning of a changing relationship from zero.

Yeah, I mean, I think what would probably be good I think that's kind of speaking to some of the, the obstacles and the disconnection, the conflict that normally happens. I think would be interesting is how does one then start to create polarity from that place? How does one engage with, you know, deep sexual connection from that place?

Well, in general, these are all generalities. We were talking about the, the basic man, the superior man, and the man of zero. For the basic man, what turns him on and what turns on his partner are things like, um, the way her body looks, uh, how much money he has. So in, in the basic level of things, or basic phase of things, turn-ons tend to be things like sex and money. So a wealthy man man with a lot of power turns on a, a good-looking woman who will have sex with him. And these could be fake, like his money can be fake, like he could just have a fancy car but really be in debt, but he still looks rich. And, you know, she could have had massive, uh, whatever, breast augmentation or facial reconstruction, so, so she could have reconstructed looks, but still it's valuable to him how she looks. So the, the basic man, what's sexy is, you know, his, his Lamborghini and his watch and her beautiful legs and youthful radiance or something. Um, then people outgrow that. Some people never outgrow that, but most people at a certain time, it's like, okay, uh, good looks are great, or money is great, but it's not enough. And so the, the superior man level, what's sexy, like what's sexy about a superior man would be things like his integrity, his intelligence, his sense of humor. So his partner would love the— his insight. His partner would love the way— maybe his repartee, the way he could talk to a group of people and kind of turn them on or enlighten them or create insight. This is his charisma. So second, the, the stage or the phase of the superior man, a man is a turn-on sexually, turn-on because he's quick-witted, because he's intelligent, because he has a lot of integrity. He doesn't lie. Um, and for a woman at the second stage, typically what makes her intelligence— again, excuse me, it makes her attractive again— is things like her intelligence, her erotic intelligence, the way she looks at you, you know, that she says certain things. It's just like, it feels so good to be with a woman that sexy, that intelligent, that— and maybe you both have similar views. You both want to help the world a certain way. Um, that could be kind of sexy. You look at each other, this project is going well, you know, you've just made the world a better place. Now what happens in The Man of Zero is those two forms of sexiness fade. So they— a man of zero may find himself with a woman who's physically attractive, but he's looking at her, like the shape of her body or whatever, um, he's— he could see she's attractive, okay, but it just doesn't do what it used to do. It just doesn't turn him on in the same way. Like, okay, she's pretty or shapely, but okay, And likewise, she may be whatever, intelligent and witty and kind of erotic in that way. And he might go, I remember when I used to love that, the way she would tell a joke and wink, and I'd just laugh and I'd feel how much I wanted to be with her. And now even that isn't turning you on. So men come to this as a man of zero, and they may feel, I'm not turned on by these things that used me on. But what— and they end up discovering almost universally is that what he is now turned on by is her depth of love, or her devotional depth, that her entire heart and body are devoted to love, living love with him, with his children if they have children, with— in the world, that she's a a devotee of love, and there's a quality of depth and surrender that has a power to it of love that now becomes erotic. So the way— so if he is truly at zero, meaning he's not distracted at all, he's totally present with her. So let's say this, you get in bed together and you're not turned on by anything. You're just being. It feels great. You're just being. You look at her, your partner, you love her, but you're not particularly sexy. So a basic woman would just reach over and start, you know, yanking your dick and giving you foreplay. A superior man type woman would start a discussion with you that would be a humorous, amusing discussion that turn you both on. But if you're present, true zero, what happens is she can't help but surrender to that depth of presence. She has been waiting all day. She's been waiting her lifetime to be met 100% in her heart, heart to heart, being to being. And now that she's finally being met there, it may take a little time. She may have old habits of of protection. But as those habits melt, she begins to surrender in devotion. Not surrender to him as if he was a superior human, but surrender because finally she's with a presence that is as deep as she is. And together they can be that being, that love together. And when a man of zero feels a woman completely surrendered to— we could say his presence, but really it's just presence, it's love, it's awareness. When she feels— when he feels her surrender completely to that, that surrender or devotion to love or the power of love itself is a turn-on. And nothing begins to turn him on more than her devotional quality, which she could transmit. You know, you could come home from something, your wife might be there, maybe your kids are there, and she could just— she could be with the kids, she could glance up and she could look into your eyes with utter devotion. Just like, love you, I love that you love me, I love love, we are love. I'm putting words on it, but it's really just a feeling. And you would fall into that mutual devotion together, and that would become the basic of your basis of your eroticness. Not necessarily the shape of her breasts, not necessarily, oh, how humorous she's being or how articulate she's being, but that mutual devotional recognition and trust and communion, heart to heart with each other, becomes the basis of sexual attraction for the man of zero. Hmm.

What about— I have a couple, I think, questions that would relate to some of the men that are listening to this. What about the men who have maybe struggled to get out of the shame cycle that surrounds their sexual desires or just their sexual and erotic energy in general?

I'm not sure this will address it. Let me know. Um, all of us have, as I mentioned earlier, have inherited certain patterns. Some of those patterns are from our parents or from our childhood. Some are before our childhood, they're in our grandparents epigenetically inherited, or maybe they're from our mammalian past, you know, from hundreds of thousands of years or maybe a million years ago that we now have in our bodies and minds. And things like shame are part of that, or guilt. And so we may have cycles of shame and guilt, we may have thoughts circulating through us and so forth. Now, there is— there are ways of working with that, specific ways, therapeutic modalities, many different ways, and everyone has to find what works for them. So there's ways of directly working with that. And— but in my experience, those patterns almost never totally disappear. Just like your capacity to speak English now, now that you've got that pattern of English in you, it never totally disappears. You could move to France and speak French for the rest of your life and probably someone came up to you and spoke English, you'd know what they were saying, probably for the rest of your life. That is, these patterns become kind of permanent. You don't have to use them, but they're permanently there. And so the shame pattern may be residing in us all of this life. And the difference between the Superior Man approach and the Man of Zero approach is the Superior Man approach sees the shame and works on it. Like, I've got this shame, I'm going to do internal family systems. I got the shame, I'm going to take psychedelics. I've got these. So you apply some specific modality to reducing the shame. In the way of zero, you realize all of those patterns are pretty much endless in you and in everybody. And so we're living in a world where shame, aggression, Violence, self-hate, all of those things are patterns that are already in this world. They're already in us. We've already inherited them. It helps to do some of that work that we just described. It's very helpful in the Superior Man phase to directly address seirshen. But eventually, as the Man of Zero, it just moves through you. You are being being, and it's like, oh, there's a shame cloud. Sort of moving through the sky. And it, it could be moving through you, it could be moving through someone else. So shame happens in human psyches, and it doesn't have to collapse everything. It's just an inherited pattern. And that's true with everything. Some inherited patterns are pretty destructive. You know, if you look at the history of spiritual teachers, let's say, there have been some pretty open spiritual teachers who are effective in a kind of transmitting love or the understanding of the nature of experience, but yet in their personal behavior have some pretty destructive, and my guess is largely inherited behaviors. So they, they were alcoholics, they were anything. They could be having sex with people they shouldn't be having sex with. They could be have money, you know, do criminal money activities, even because of the way they were treated as a child. So there is no relation, direct relationship, with the integrity of your actions or the integrity of your feeling. Am I in shame now or not? There's no direct relationship between that and the depth of your realization of love or being. You could be being love, you could be know yourself and know everyone, know your lover, your children, as love, as being. And yet suddenly, just like you find yourself speaking English spontaneously, you find yourself hitting someone, you find yourself drinking alcohol, you find yourself gambling. We, we inherit different so-called vices, and it's not— some of them are not easy, like the English language, to get rid of. Once we have them, they keep patterning. Now There again, there are ways of working with them directly that loosen them, that can bring us some humor, some freedom, but they never completely disappear. So it behooves us to kind of smile, to allow those patterns to come, to stay present with them, to not act on them, to minimize harm that they cause, to right any wrong that has been caused by your own patterns or others' patterns, but to not expect them to be gone. So you don't need to add shame to shame. It's more like, oh yeah, there's shame. I feel that. I felt that all my life. My parents felt that. Interesting. Interesting thing to come through me instead of shame. I feel so ashamed. I feel ashamed. I feel so bad. I feel bad. One of the things I say in the book is it's fine to be in a bad mood. Just don't feel bad you're in a bad mood.

Yeah, that's great. I love that. I think, I mean, Listen, I think I could talk to you for hours on this front, but I maybe have one or two questions to finalize this. I'm, you know, I think one of the things that I've seen with a lot of relationships and that you've kind of alluded to this or pointed to this is the sort of shifting dynamics within society and how I think a lot of the relational distress or disconnection in our modern times is that there's been this sort of upheaval of roles and people don't really know where they, where they stand. And I think for many people that's confused how they approach things like polarity. And one of the big ones that I see with a lot of men is that they are dating or they're married to strong women, you know, whether you, whether you want to sort of say it as masculine women or just strong women, direct women, um, assertive women. And I think that for a lot of men, that can be something that they perceive to be a challenge, or that they're not really too sure how to, uh, be in relationship, even though they're, you know, in love with that woman, or they're married to that woman, they have kids with that woman. And so I know you sort of addressed this in the book, but how does a man of zero traverse that relationship.

Yeah, that's very important because, as I said, as you just said, that women are really in charge of a lot now, and more and more so, that men used to be in charge of, or at least thought they were. So their men are feeling that, you know, they're being replaced or their value is diminishing. Um, so yeah, a lot of men now can look at their lover, their intimate partner, their wife, whatever. They can look at their partner and see somebody who earns more money than they do, who may be smarter intellectually than they are, who may be more powerful in the world culturally. Maybe they're a politician or a CEO, or, you know, so they're in charge of others. And I think that's more and more going to become the case. Now, the beauty of The Man of Zero, this kind of work, is that obviously the more women take over, the more men can do nothing. And I don't mean that entirely fascistic— fascisticly, excuse me— but it's kind of true that if a man is truly at zero and is no longer motivated to go out into the world and kick ass and but his partner is. His partner loves to. So his partner's out there making money and being super creative in a tough world, doing the battles, and she's good at it, better than him, let's say. That liberates him. But it doesn't— what men don't understand is that there's this option of zero. It's not like they have to go, okay, she's in charge, or I'm in charge. And if she's in charge, then I'm the housewife, and I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want to do that. I don't know what's left. But Whereas if they said, well, she can earn the money, but when she comes home, you're an absolute presence. You look into her eyes without wavering. She feels the entire day melt away in the depth of your being. Um, you align her and the children by the steadiness of your love. You're not distracted. That the new role, if you will, for the man of zero is to provide that alignment via zero or depth, the alignment of everyone they know, the alignment of life through their effortlessly deep presence. Now, there are ways of articulating that, as you said, they're in the book, but the bottom line is instead of men trying to do better than women, they learn to be deeper And by that being deeper, they're providing a value for the doing. And together, that the love of doing and the love of being create a wholeness. It's just it used to be that men were do, do, do, do, do. And now, as you say, women are becoming better doers than men. And so it allows men the opportunity to be, be, be and to sink into the depth of being. And there's a power there. There's a financial value to that being. There's a sexual value. To that depth of being. When you're deep in being rather than superficial mind, people trust you more. It creates a shift in people's perceptions around you. Um, so the new way is for more women than men to be in positions of success and power, but for men to take that opportunity and take the next step and not feel like they failed at doing but feel like they have succeeded to the point that they no longer have to do, and that now they can, if you will, practice being or abiding, practice stabilizing as what they always are. And that depth of being, which you always are, but you can forget, that depth of remembering, of being, that instantly creates sexual polarity between you and your partner, no matter how much money she makes or how strong she is in the world compared to you.

Well, I think that's probably a great place for us to pause. Um, this has really been wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me, David.

Um, thank you for having me.

Yeah. Um, The Man of Zero is out now, and you can get it, uh, anywhere, um, that books are sold. Uh, is there anywhere in specific that you would like people to go then and the links we'll have in the show notes. But any, anywhere in particular you want them to go?

Oh, I have a lot of free material, chapters and recordings on my website, which is deida.info. D-E-I-D-A dot I-N-F-O.

Perfect, perfect. Well, we'll have that all in the show notes for you. You can check out The Man of Zero. And as always, don't forget to man it forward. This is probably an episode that a man that you know in your life would love to tune into. So don't forget to man it forward. And as always, until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.