"To be respected by the men I respected, and desired by the women I desired"

Hello, Are we live? Looks like it's trying to. Trying to work. Oh, okay. I think we're live now. I like to post different things. I mean, my first of all, hi, you know, this. You know, welcome to Sunday, last Sunday of the month. And we're deeply into summer now, where we're actually in summer. And so, God, I was on vacation last week. I have the pleasure of being able to sleep late as often as I want to and just got some projects. Hey, Tracy. Claiborne. Claiborne. Just, you know, getting into the summer. One of the things that I have to think about this summer is the realization that Jason. Jason is heading into his last year of school. This is the end of his childhood coming up. And I have to try to ask myself, what is it that I want him to understand in order to become a man? Every time I go out of the house, I remember I might never come back. Something could go wrong. I could get hit by a meteor or a bus. So have I given Jason the basic tools that he needs? My daughter Nikki, she has her basic tools. She's cooked. She's off living her life. And I know she'd miss her daddy and she'd cry for her daddy if something happened to me, but then she'd just get on with her life. That's all I'd want for her. So Jason isn't quite baked yet. One of the things is that trying to figure out what is it that I need to give him to the degree that I have exemplified something that he would want to be in life, you know, that he likes the results that I've gotten in life, that I. That he feels that I'm the sort of person that he would want to be to that degree. Then the best thing I can do is to tell him this is how I became the person that you see. This is how I develop these characteristics. And one of the things that is important was that there was a point in my life where I felt like I did not have a tribe. And that meant that I was not. Did not feel connected to the men, the sort of men who I wanted to be part of that tribe. And I wasn't able to attract the attention of the women that I was attracted to. So that question of what is it that I really want? Boiled down to a statement that I said to myself. Could I have phrased it differently? Of course I could. But it's honest that I made the statement that what I wanted was to be respected by the kind of men I respect and to be desired by the kind of women I desire. Very, very clear. Now, people could say, well, you know, in a non binary, you know, gender world, shouldn't I say people? Well, that would be lying about what it was that I said back then. I believe that if Jason is gay and hiding that from me, he'll make that modification in his mind to be respected by the kind of people I respect and desired by the kinds of men I desire. I don't, you know, if he. That means he'd be dishonest with me, which is certainly a possibility. A lot of kids aren't clear about that to their parents. It would sadden me that he felt like he could not be honest with me about that. But it's a possibility. And I consider that he knows how I feel, that whatever it is that he loves, whatever kind of love two adults can find with each other, I think is the most precious thing in all the world. So I think that he would be able to make that distinction. So my responsibility, I would think, is to live the kind of life that my children would feel. This life is worthy of emulation. I don't want exactly what he has, but I like the basic things that he has. In my case, it would be, he admires my physicality, especially at my age, my advanced age. Oh, my God, I'm ancient. The fact that I earn good money doing something that I love doing and have fun with, and the fact that I'm married to his mother, that we have a relationship that is still filled with fun and passion, and he can see that spark between us. So he's got to be asking himself, how can he do that? So what I'm thinking about doing, and before the end of the summer, it's that question of what are the things that I want to give him? What are the most important things that I can give him? And I thought that I would give him that statement that I made to myself. Now let's unpack it. Because any simple statement can be misinterpreted. I can say, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you and somebody. And it's not foolproof, because fools are so ingenious. They can say, well, you know, what if somebody is a masochist and they like to be hurt, so, you know, they're doing unto others what they would have them do. It. There is no simple statement that can't be misinterpreted, especially if it is to somebody's advantage to misinterpret it. So be very careful, you know, Pete, you can Make a simple statement and somebody can pretend not to understand what you meant. So in this particular case, let's say, you know, you say, well, what would be the follow up questions? Because if this statement is designed to begin, a conversation might take place over the course of years, decades, you know, until I'm no longer here. There'd be two kinds of questions that would rise out of this. One of them would have to do with the difference in the way that I treated or viewed men and women. Well, I wanted the respect of both groups, but I only wanted to be desired by one of those groups. If a guy thinks that I'm hot, that's, that's interesting. You know, it's flattering, but it's certainly nothing that I was trying to trigger. See what I'm saying? Whereas there is nothing that is sadder than an adult who doesn't understand the, that a woman can respect you and like you and still not desire you straight into the friend zone. It's how do I get out of the friend zone? How do I trigger that particular little ding, ding, ding, mating instinct thing in a woman, separate from simply being respectful and nice and a good friend. And I believe that there are differences. I think that most of the human race has said that there are real differences. And I think that everybody on the planet right now is descended from people who made it in that particular way. So it's not unreasonable to assume that some of that is kind of hardwired into us, not all of it. Obviously there's a lot of flexibility in the system. A lot of flexibility in the system. So I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that there is something there that I think that it is, it would be foolish not to look at. So take a look at what I thought about it and hopefully Jason will ask me questions so that I can explain what my process was. What kind of men did I respect? Well, respect in this particular sense means wish to emulate. I wanted to be like them. I would like to, wanted to have a life like theirs. That means that they had to have mastered something that I was interested in doing. They had to, you know, they might be great writers or they might be, you know, great martial artists, or they might have had a successful, happy, healthy relationship with, with a woman. Because that's what I was interested in long enough to raise a family. Okay, so, and if they had more than one of those things, then, you know, like, let's say a great writer who was in decent physical condition, had a long time relationship. That's great, you know, or just the long term relationship. And one of those things, I wanted to be like them. So the idea is that if I can manifest within myself some of those same characteristics, they will look at me, see themselves, and to the degree that they like themselves, love themselves, feel that they are. Let me put on my little neck fan here, it's getting warm in my office. There we go. The degree to which they like themselves and like their life. And that would certainly be one of the things I wouldn't want to model somebody who had accomplished something but didn't enjoy it, what's the point in that? So to the degree that I am carrying myself as a person who has the same qualities that they recognize that they pursued, they will respect me to have the respect of those people. Obviously the question of what kind of human beings should we emulate? They should be people from my position, people of honor, integrity, kindness. What are the three gates? Honesty, kindness and usefulness. Those are things that I care about from human beings in general. But just as with women, there are relations. There are aspects of your relationship with other women that are different from your relationship with men. It is going to be true that with men there are going to be aspects of my relationship with men that are different from my relationship with women. One of them, in terms of the ties of men that I respect is it had to do with being a warrior, being able to defend your family, being comfortable, confrontation, being an earner, you know, being able to hunt and gather and protect. It was basically that thing that. That is how I defined those things. So I looked for the men who could exemplify those things and did it with a certain level of grace and clarity. And we're good people, they were good people. That human beings have this entire 360 degree spectrum of all the qualities, but that men and women per se have pieces of that. They're not exactly the same. They're complementary. They have aspects, they overlap a lot. And in the 21st century they're overlapping a lot more. There's a lot more fluidity in that system, I get that. But I can't predict how that's going to shake out. So all I can do is to offer the things that have been useful in my life, in my way. I can honestly say that. And then hopefully have prepared him to make the modifications that he needs in order to take the things that dad said and make his life with it in the 21st century. Now what's the other side of that? The question of being desired by the kinds of women I desire. Well, the kinds of women I desire respect the enough to not let themselves act on a desire with a man who would be inappropriate. So in that sense, desire is not going to mean, oh, that's cute, or that could be fun, but rather I would like to see whether or not this person could conceivably be a mate. It's that question of who do I want walking at my side for a lifetime? And to have a woman of pride and intelligence and personal force say that she would trust you to make children with is arguably the greatest compliment she can offer. I remember when I was working at Pepperdine University and there was a really gorgeous woman there who all the guys liked and I tried to date her and she said something very interesting to me one day. She said, steve, I'd marry you, but I wouldn't fool around with you. It took me a long time to realize that what she was saying could be interpreted not as any kind of insult, which was my first reaction, immature reaction, but rather the deepest sort of compliment imaginable, that what she was looking for in someone to spend her life with was the qualities that I had. But if she was looking to have fun for a weekend, that wasn't me now it was because. Was it because I wasn't sexy enough, cute enough? That could be. And she would trust me to be a hard worker and really respect her and be there for her? Maybe. So there are lots of different possibilities in that, but I don't want to speculate on those at the moment, except to say that I treated it as a compliment that she was saying that I wasn't the sort of person that she would fool around with. I was the kind of person that she would fall deeply in love with and would trust to move through life with, to be desired in that sense by a woman who has self respect, personal force, who has her own destiny and is not looking for just, you know, the fun, although the fun has to be there. I mean, because, you know, if you can make her laugh, what you're doing is you're. You're helping to reduce the tension. And relationships are going to be tense. You know, life is tough. So if you can make her laugh, if you can comfort her, things like that. But that question of how do you differentiate between the friend zone, which can be a place where people respect you, like you think you're a wonderful person, but they're not turned on by you, how do you get out of the friend zone in that sense? How do you trigger that particular thing? I wanted to know what that was. I wanted to be able to get that result. And I know from, from having been a teenage boy that, that these are core questions that he's asking. Where am I going to find, you know, the, how do I gain the respect of the men who will be part of my tribe? You know, and if there are women who are, you know, those bosses, compatriots, whatever, that's great. But there is that thing of I want to be a man, I want to find men and walk in that path so that I can be a man is pretty common human thing, just, you know, modeling that behavior. You can, a woman can show a man how to be a human being, but there are going to be aspects of being a man that she's not going to understand. And it's not necessarily going to be a good idea for you to take her advice any more than a woman can necessarily trust that men are going to tell her how to be a woman. They're going to tell her what they want, they're going to tell her what is convenient for them. But that's not necessarily the same thing as what they would want in their sisters, their daughters, their mothers. So what was that thing? Well, that's a separate conversation. But I think being able to be honest about the fact that we want to be respected by everybody, but certainly to have the people who we would like to grow up to be like look at us and say, yes, you are on the page path. And in terms of having someone to walk that path with in life, which is what I think sexual attraction is about, that you can take 80% of what human beings are and boil it down to survival or reproduction. You know, there's just a ton of it that disconnected right there. You get that stuff handled first or you're on the wrong path and a lot of things in your life and you will wonder, well, I thought I'm doing all the right stuff. I said I wouldn't touch specifically on that question of what is the desire thing, but I think I need to comment, I need to tell a little bit of a story. There was a guy and he's gone now. His name was Otis and Otis had never had a job that you couldn't have. Right out of high school, he'd always had a weight problem. He had a personal cleanliness issue. Sweet guy, very smart guy, vast amount of trivial knowledge about things and just really open hearted sweetheart. Well, he ended up being homeless at one point and I let him live in an abandoned apartment that I owned. And we were Talking one day day and he was discussing his feeling of loneliness. And he was saying, you know, I just don't understand why I can't, you know, find a woman who's attracted to me. And so I said to him, what is it that you have that would be attractive to a woman? And she said. He said, well, considerate. I'm honest, I'm kind, I'm a good listener, I'm supportive. And I said, she can get all that from one of her girlfriends. What is it specifically about you as a man that would make a woman want to behave other than just as a friend? What is that thing? What is it that she's going to get if she takes that risk? Because it's a risk. You've got to have something that her girlfriends don't have. And it's not just physiological. What is it that would make her want to drop her defenses in that particular way? Solving that riddle is, I think, one of the things that's important for an adult, finding the riddle of how do you find community with men and women who are worthy of respect? And how do you specifically attract people who you could be attracted to? What your heart calls for. I believe that at the core level, what our hearts yearn for in a partner is an energetic doppelganger, an energetic miracle where we're yearning for some balance with ourselves, something that is like ourselves or complementary to ourselves, that, you know, what a person wants to be partially by what they're attracted to. You know, if you don't really care about your own body, but you're attracted to people with hard bodies, I think you're lying to yourself. And the same things are going to be true about success and this and that. Of course, there are going to be differences in the ways that that balances out male and female culturally over time. You know, I think that the kids are coming up with a balance right now where they're demanding something pretty close to equal amounts of beauty and power from each other, whether they're men or women. I think that's a healthy thing. It's a, you know, we're working it out. That's not the past. You know, in the past it was, you know, men selected more for power, women select, were selected more for beauty. You know, in terms of what we looked for in each other, which is why you get that millionaires and supermodels being attracted to each other. You know, what does she see in him? Jason is going to have to out figure, figure this stuff out, and the world that he's going to move into will make demands upon him. But whatever that coterie of men that he'll be a part of, whatever that coterie of women that he will want to select a mate from or want to be selected from, those rules in the future will be those rules. They won't be the rules of the past. But I think that asking yourself the question, what am I attracting to? And using that to help guide the person that you become is reasonable, rational, and powerful. Anyway, if you have any comments, questions, or requests about any of this, I'd be happy to answer them in the comments. Otherwise, I'm going to enjoy my day. I have a day off before I hit the week running, and so I hope you guys are having a wonderful summer and you're gonna have a wonderful Sunday. Take care. Bye. By.