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

Is this a pastiche of '70s radfem writers or just an exercise in how many innuendos you can work into a self-help book? I've never been thrust into so many unsheathed topics that we should fully receive as a loving message that blooms as we release our energy from the sucking verbiage.

So beneath the comedic insistence of putting the message in terms of fucking, what's left? Women be emotional. Male and feminine energy be different. Women want you to take charge. It's fairly boilerplate, bullsetpoint stuff stretched out for entire chapters, but with some real howlers like how you shouldn't allow your woman to make you cum because if she can "drain" you, so can the world, and in realizing that she'll resent you. The latter part of the show more book is just some reworked kundalini and tantric yoga, hold your breath enough and you won't blow your load too fast.

Could your relationships improve if you become more assertive? How about working on that one pump chump problem? Sure, it might help. But given how often this book comes up in lists of books "for men", and the quality of the writing, the real question should be is this the best we can do? If this was genderswapped it'd be on lists of "worst of self help" and derided as some new age horseshit by the very same people who are giving this 5 star reviews. show less

I can't tell if Deida is brilliant or insane or insanely brilliant. Masculinity in general is in crisis, and between you, me, and everybody on the internet, my personal masculinity isn't doing so hot. Deida identifies this issue as a blockage in the flow of masculine energy associated with the rise of the counterculture in the 1960s and feminism as a social movement. And the basic fix is to get right with your masculine essence.

"I do not avoid women. But I do deny them my essence."

In Deida's reading people of all genders have both masculine and feminine energies, which are available in various amounts. Men and women are of course legal, political, and social equals, but the private world of an intimate relationship, especially a show more physical heterosexual relationship, is only truly enacted in the interplay of energies between these two poles.

Assuming that you're a straight man (Deida notes he is writing mostly for straight men, though others can gain insights from this book), getting right with your masculine energy means getting clear about your purpose in life, finding strength in stillness, comfort with fear, and aligning and unblocking your natural impulses.

As this relates to women, to paraphrase, take women seriously but not literally. Feminine energy is about change, flow, and emotion. You can't capture it and hold it without killing it, but you can dive right in and ravish it, which is what women really want. They'll tempt you and distract you and place tests in your path, which you should read as indications of emotional insecurity rather than sincere desires. They don't want you to do what they ask, they want you to be strong enough to resist and impose your will on the situation.

So yeah, it's proto-Jorpian "Wimmenz are teh CHAOS DRAGON!" vibey stuff. But it's provocative, and what the hell, we're due for a vibe shift anyway. show less

This is a hard book to review. It's got some fantastic advice in it, and also has a _lot_ of shit. Some of the great stuff is about making moves in the world even if you're not super sure where you're going, being confident in your relationships and striving to be true to your purpose above all else.

And then it gets to the "women" portion. The Way of the Superior Man comes off as a book written by a guy who has never once been in a healthy relationship; it's full of advice like "if you come too quickly, your woman won't respect you and will attempt to undermine you at every turn" and "if she doesn't sound happy about your accomplishments, it's because she's testing you to see if you give a shit what she thinks." This is some dark red show more pill shit dressed up in language about love and "her positive feminine energy." Nah, Deida, just stop dating terrible humans and things will be alright.

Rating this a 4/5 because of it's good advice for taking care of yourself; skim the stuff about women. show less

I have read this book at least half a dozen times. Along with Tony Robbins, David Deida had a profound impact on effecting positive change in my life.

The core concept of the book is simple, align your life's energies with your true mission, cut through the bullshit and stop trying to be something you're not.

It's a wake up call in the face a of modern movement to align the sexes as if they were the same. The Way of the Superior Man shows that being a man is still a manly endeavor, but it's not some bullshit 1950's caricature.

"Live with an open heart, even when it hurts" probably wasn't your granddad's worldview. At the same time, "Live as if your father were dead" wasn't either.

The core of the book is how to figure out who you really show more are and who you want to be, and align your life around that purpose. It's quite a challenge, and quite a challenging book. The writing style is simple, but the lifestyle is challenging.

If you think men and women are the same, this book is not for you.
If you think one is better than the other, this book is not for you.
If you understand that masculine and feminine are different, and that that difference moves the world like the tides, and you're willing to stand and face the challenge of challenging yourself to both excellence and love, this book will be worth its weight in gold. show less

There is some very useful thinking in here about relating, and in particular about energy and polarity, but there is also a lot of bullshit as well. I highly recommend Christopher Ryan’s podcast about the book for a balanced critique: https://overcast.fm/+REszz_PmA

Generally, when engaging with the concepts of masculine and feminine, I tend to highlight the similarities as opposed to the differences. So often I see difference used to stereotype and degrade others.

But maybe there are times when the differences are worth exploring too.

For David Deida, the masculine is everything eternal, and the feminine is the ever-changing. I’ve been reading a lot of other texts that have been talking of such subjects recently [J. G. Bennett, Joseph Campbell]. I can see how this can be a useful frame some of the time.

I find Deida somewhat annoying. He read the book aloud in my audio edition, and he places emphasis on everything!

I wasn’t particularly into this book, but I can think of a handful of friends that show more would probably love it. show less

Описва отношението на мъжете към жените и как трябва да мислим и да се държим спрямо жената до нас. Преувеличава разликата в мъжкия и женския начин на мислене, за да направи идеите си по-ясни. Има истина в това, което казва, а 2-3 от кратките глави са направо животоспасяващи за всеки мъж във връзка.