The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire

by David Deida

Most postponements are excuses for a lack of creative discipline. Limited money and family obligations have never stopped a man who really wanted to do something, although they provide excuses for a man who is not really up to the creative challenge in the first place.

Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women.

In any given moment, a man’s growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does.

Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another. If you are at your edge, your men friends should respect that, but not let you off the hook. They should honor your fears, and, in love, continue to goad you beyond them, without pushing you.

Whatever the specifics of a man’s purpose, he must always refresh the transcendental element of his life through regular meditation and retreat. A man should never get lost in the details of his life and forget that, ultimately and in truth, life amounts to nothing other than what is the deepest truth of this present moment. Tasks don’t get a man anywhere more conscious or free than he is capable of being in this present moment.

“Keeping your word” is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly “lying.” In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, “I hate you,” or “I’ll never move to Texas,” or “I don’t want to go to the movies,” it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well-considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man’s word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman’s word is her true expression in the moment.

The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. A man must be unabashed and expressed in his appreciation for his woman. Praise her freely.