Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What's happening, people? Before we get into the episode, I wanted to give you a disclaimer. David didn't show his face when we were recording. David's a pretty esoteric guy, decided that he's going to retreat from the world. He's living in a house in the middle of nowhere in Florida, I think. And even though it might have been nice to have seen his face, it's completely on brand.
So we've tried to make it as engaging as possible. I hope you enjoy the episode. What is a man of zero?
Well, to me, a man of zero is somebody who has come to the point in their life where their motivation has evaporated or isn't there. They feel they still may be very active. They may be married. They may have children. They may have businesses. They may be creative. But under it all, there's just a feeling like, why am I doing this? And part of me would rather not do anything kind of feeling.
And I noticed a lot of men feeling that, that I was interacting with over the years. And so I wanted to address that.
Is this the next stage after the superior man?
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Chapter 2: What does it mean to be a man of zero?
Is this a spiritual sequel to the way of the superior man?
It's a kind of sequel, but it's not necessarily a stage progression. So somebody might go into the phase, I'll use the word phase, of A Man of Zero, and then after...
month a year a decade whatever they may come back to being the superior man to me what a superior man is is a man who is motivated by a deep sense of purpose and that sense of purpose might be to discover their purpose but they're motivated by a sense of purpose often to serve the world or to give their gift or to make things right and
when that evaporates or when they no longer feel that, that's the beginning of the phase of the man of zero. Now, it may last a very short time. It may last a long time, the man of zero phase. So they may eventually go back to, oh, a new purpose. For instance, for myself, this book emerged out of nowhere as a kind of, oh, I should write this book. I need to write this book.
So it just came out of nowhere. And then, you know, the discipline of writing a book,
working with publishers and all of that that takes effort so that came up you know i was working as kind of a superior man phase for a while and we'll see if i could get through this interview without resting back okay if you if you degenerate into total apathy we'll know that you've gone back into man of zero phase it's not exactly apathy i'm glad you said that it's a kind of It's a clarity.
It's pure presence. It's pure awareness. It's being absolutely present with the moment, but just not having an urge to...
push and change things like you're deeply content with the way things are but that doesn't stop you from changing things it just means you're not stressed you know most men have a kind of kernel of stress in their gut or their heart or their solar plexus that moves them to do something well the man of zero is what happens when that stress isn't there what are you moved to do like how does the universe use you how does
you know, that deeper thing that's beyond you move through you because in the superior man phase, one is motivated mostly by their personal sense of purpose rather than being kind of used by something or much larger if shaping, if size even has meaning.
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Chapter 3: Is the man of zero the next stage of the superior man?
They seem okay. They seem like they have a reason to get up in the morning and go forward. Why don't you? There's a kind of... Well, you could either call it peace or you could call it lack of stress in your heart or your depth. And many people then, many men then assume that's an issue, that's a problem because they've been motivated, like you say, for many reasons.
And suddenly, they're just not It's not sufficient to move them anymore. It feels false. It feels like a false life. It feels like they're not living true to their deepest self. And temporarily, their deepest self wants to do nothing, which to me is a portal. Like if men learned how to do nothing impeccably,
So not get on their phone or look at pornography or watch movies or whatever people might do when they don't want to do anything. If instead men just took a moment and really were present, totally aware, like crystal clear. not pulling away, not pushing anything, something emerges from that.
So when you're able to just sit, or you could do it walking, or it doesn't matter at all, but if you could just be, that being then begins to unfold through your life, through your body and mind. And your body and mind are conditioned, like your body and mind are trained a certain way, so when that being unfolds,
flows through your body and mind, it'll look different than when that being flows through my body and mind. I'm not sure if that answers your question.
It certainly does. It's a kind of stillness indicator would be you're comfortable with peace. But it seems to me that it's almost like it feels like a deceleration in striving is one of the sort of core components here, the need to do, the need to be busy.
That's a core component to the sense of seeking for something, whether it's self-validation or peace on earth, whatever you're seeking just somehow dissolves and you're left with just being. So again, most men, they get to that place of just being and they think it's negative, like, you know, I need to take testosterone or, you know, I need to drink more caffeine or whatever.
They feel like they need to do something to get their mojo back, where in fact that is their mojo. Their mojo is leading them to relax their body and mind. to become transparent to their being, their deepest being. And it could take time. It might not take time. It's not predictable. But once you're living from that place of being, there's a through and through sense of authenticity.
There's not a sense like something's lacking that you're trying to fill or stress that you're trying to release. It's just... a fullness of being that's living your life. It's the same, you experience it, it's the same force, let's say, that's growing trees and moving your blood. Your thoughts are just appearing out of nowhere. Nobody knows what they're about to think.
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Chapter 4: How does ambition change as men age?
There's never... Anyone who's succeeded at anything knows that it's empty. The first thing you discover when you succeed at anything is... okay, you know, I've made zillion dollars. I've got the beautiful woman or whatever their thing is. And there they are. They're the same one. They're the same being. Was that it? That they were before. The question, was that it? Well, it wasn't.
I mean, you had to do it. There's no reason to not. Like, if you're motivated to make a lot of money or you're motivated to find a partner or to have sex with a lot of people or whatever one's motivation is... You can explore that. I mean, that's what human birth is for, to explore all the possibilities of being human. But there comes a point if you mature, and it could be at any age.
A lot of people, due to psychedelics and all kinds of things, are coming to this point early in their life. But there comes a point where they're just… It's just empty. It feels empty. The tone is emptiness, meaninglessness. They're there in their mansion, you know, whatever their situation is. And it's like, nothing really has changed essentially.
Things have changed externally, bigger house, whatever, but essentially they're the same one. And that's disappointing to people. They think there should be some feel differently.
Does this mean, therefore, that becoming a man of zero is more common among people, guys... who have achieved that in order to realize that success is empty, you need to have achieved some success.
If you're lower down the sort of ladder, still striving with more unfulfilled desires and goals and accomplishments that as yet you haven't reached, you're more likely to keep playing that game as opposed to arriving at this position of stillness.
I think a large percentage of these men have achieved a modicum of success and have come to that point of meaninglessness. However, I think more and more younger men, before they flex their muscles in the world, before they've achieved success, often due to a meditative experience. I mean, people can have these deep experiences now cheaply. So they could have an unearned glimpse of infinity.
And they could come to a place of, why do anything very early in life before success? And their practice would be the same as the successful person's practice as outlined in the Man of Zero book.
Yeah, it's referred to as spiritual bypass by some of my friends that sort of do a lot of psychedelics. People go away to the Amazon rainforest. They sit with the shaman. They have this transcendent experience. They touch the divine. They feel the infinite. And then they come back and they're the same prick that they were two weeks ago. There's no integration. Nothing changes.
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Chapter 5: How can men transition from sex to deeper intimacy?
One way, there are several ways, but one way would be to... So let's take this moment now. If you're thinking thoughts in this moment, let's say those thoughts were, my friends are succeeding or my friends, you know, everything that you just said, those are thoughts that are going by.
Chapter 6: Why is discussing intimacy challenging for men?
If you can see those thoughts or witness those thoughts, you see them come and go. Like there's a beginning of a thought, there's a thought, it's over, now it's another thought. So there's these thoughts that are moving. And it's not that difficult to see that you're still there. The thoughts are changing, you are not. You are experiencing those thoughts.
The experience changes, the thoughts change, but you are not. And so it's hard to put words on, but you sink into that.
being or you rest as that being or you relax as that being and then you those thoughts may or may not continue but if you buy into those thoughts that's what contracts you so if you start getting lost in the thoughts or lost in anything lost in a sexual relationship lost in your work but when you get lost in those thoughts You feel suffering because you're not yourself, true self.
You're lost in the stream of thoughts. So the checking is, are you free? Even if thoughts are moving, Are you free as they move? Are you the awareness or the space of awareness, however you want to say it, in which those thoughts are moving? And if you can stay there, just rest, relax there, it's effortless. It's just what you always are.
So if you feel that effort coming up, you know you're missing the mark.
It's interesting that so much of what I think a lot of men do is hide away from the fleeting thoughts, the scary fleeting thoughts and the patterns that only come up in moments of stillness and quiet by staying busy. So this must be, it's almost like a perfect storm. The drive that kept you busy is no longer there.
And as the busyness falls away because you're less driven, the quiet fleeting thoughts come up, which you've been hiding away from for a long time, which is even scarier. And that then gives you more to contend with, which incentivizes you even more to push away the phase of zero and go back into the drive and the pursuit.
It's kind of worse than that. Brilliant. Because we've suppressed a lot. So let's say you told a lie to somebody. This is just one example. Let's say you told a lie to a business partner or to your wife or whoever, or maybe just to yourself, but you've told a lie. And then for some gain, personal gain, you know, so you told a lie and now that moment has passed, but you know you've told the lie.
That creates a kind of contraction or tension in your body and mind. And when you come to this place of zero, all of those tensions from your entire life, all the ways you've lied to yourself and others, come back to the surface. So you'll be sitting there and a memory of this person you lied to will come up. It could even be deeper than that.
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Chapter 7: What indicators suggest you're becoming a man of zero?
Well, a third of the book is about sex, of the book The Man of Zero, because a lot could change, because a lot of our sex is based on our past, our mammalian past, as I said, our psychological past, the way our parents treated us, our first sexual relationships. as we rest at zero more and more, more stably, more frequently, those no longer motivate you.
So what men often feel as they approach this phase of the man of zero is less actual desire for sex, but more sexual fantasies coming out of those depths that I described earlier, like that we stuffed down. So they might be sitting there and they may have all kinds of weird sexual fantasies and thoughts, but when it comes to actually having sex and having a relationship,
all they know is what they see in their friends or what they did in the past, which is based on these conditionings from their past, their mammalian conditioning, their personal past, their childhood traumas. And those just are no longer an interesting way to have sex. So a lot of men go, you know, I'm losing my sexual desire. I need to get it back. Whereas, as I describe in the book, there's
What turns you on now is not as much, you know, what turned you on before, lingerie and porn or whatever. But a partner, I'll say woman, it could be any sex, but a partner's actual love, her devotion, her surrender. So when you feel someone's devotion to love, or surrender, opening their body to love, that brings a part of you to the four that could become sex from zero.
Like you're rested at zero. You're not pushing. But from that place comes a polarity or sexual attraction. There's a lot in the book about that. We can unpack it more now if you want.
Absolutely. Yeah. I think the role of sexual polarity, obviously massive part of your first book, and then to see it, you might think that the amount of stillness would kill the polarity, but you're suggesting that that's not the case.
stillness is one side of the polarity the other side is fullness or energy and that's you know i use the word masculine and feminine it's problematic for some people but the way i'm using that word is that the masculine is that unchanging stillness that we can all experience and the feminine is everything that moves is life force is energy um it's is in fullness to the emptiness.
And so as you rest in emptiness through polarity, you tend to attract fullness. So if in a heterosexual relationship, you will tend to attract to you women who are very active, they like to talk, they like to socialize. Just as you're feeling, I don't want to talk, I don't want to socialize.
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Chapter 8: What is the core of masculine essence?
And so it's important to learn to embrace that polarity, but it's still a polarity. And ultimately, the polarity is being the fullness of your depth, of your awareness, and attracting to you a woman who's in her fullness of devotion. That is, her heart is... open and full of love that she also wants to share, but she's not driven by a sense of lack.
So she loves you, but doesn't need you and vice versa. And that's a very strong polarity. Your depth of stillness is in polarity with her radiance, her power. I see it even coming out as more and more women, I'm sure you know this, You know, there are more girls who graduate high school than boys. There are more women in law school and medical school than men.
I think it's going to keep going in that direction. I think that over time, women will be
much and already are will be more there'll be more women leaders than men there'll be more successful women than men the pendulum will swing and then men will need to learn how to rest as this man of zero in depth because then they still have polarity it's very valuable when a woman is very strong and powerful kind of comes home from work if we want to use that metaphor like she comes home from
a day of being in the world, and there you are, completely present, rooted in the deepest sense of being, absolutely attentive to her without being singing because your awareness is free. She feels that is the greatest gift on earth. So she moves from being attracted to a man who, whatever, makes a lot of money and is socially charismatic,
to a man whose polarity matches her at the level of being and doing or emptiness and fullness.
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