These are my notes on Brian Johnson’s Philosopher’s Notes on David Deida’s book, The Way of the Superior Man, A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenge of Women, Work. And Sexual Desire.

This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unabashedly masculine – he is purposeful, confident, and directed, living his chosen way of life with deep integrity and humor – and he is sensitive, spontaneous, and spiritually alive, with a heart- commitment to discovering and living his deepest truth. – David Deida (DD)

Your Mission

If you have a masculine sexual essence then you would probably admit, if you were being brutally honest, that your intimate relationship is just not as important as the ‘mission’ in your life – but you still want a full and energetic relationship, perhaps quite badly.

The core of your life is your purpose. Everything in your life, from your diet to your career must be aligned with your purpose if you are to act with coherence and integrity in the world. If you know your purpose, your deepest desire, then the secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your deepest purpose and minimize distraction and detours.

Your masculine gift is know where you are, where you want to be, and what you need to do to get there. If you don’t know one of these, then you need to discover it by any means necessary. This vision is, essentially, the basic gift you have to offer your woman, as well as to the world.

To offer this masculine gift, you must cultivate your sense of daily practice, like a musician practicing his art, you must practice, daily, the art of feeling through your fear, feeling to your edge, and then living just beyond your edge, neither slinking into private consolation nor pushing so hard you disconnect form source. The source that is your deepest truth must become more and more the impulse of your life. Over time, all of your activities must become aligned to this source. And so must your relationship.

I don’t talk a lot about my intimate personal life much on this blog but everybody loves a strong intimate relationship, right? Getting your mission right makes you better guy all around. You’re a better guy for yourself and your lady will get a better guy too.

Quit Making Excuses

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.

This is true. As I entered middle age (that sounds weird), I realized that the excuses are only made up to tell one person, for me. So, if I make excuses, I’m only letting myself down. And, on the other side, if I change my mind and go to it, I improve myself and become more valuable to those around me.

Being Who You Are

Make your life an ongoing process of being who you are, at your deepest, most easeful levels of being. Everything other than this process is secondary.

It took me many years to like the guy that I am, to be comfortable in my own skin. It took a long time to be okay with me being me. I wasn’t disappointed in myself anymore. I wasn’t down on myself anymore. Start being okay with who you are now, and you can start taking risks to be better tomorrow.

Take Responsibility

My deepest wisdom is leading me to this decision. If I am wrong, I will learn from it, and my wisdom will have deepened. I’m willing to be wrong, and grow from it.

It’s my own choice to change my life. No one else out there is going to do it for me. No one else is going to help me out of my situation. Just me. I gotta live my life.

Good Friends

Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another… Choose men friends who themselves are living at their edge, facing their fears and living just beyond them. Men of this kind can love you without protecting you from the necessary confrontation with reality

Although no one can live your life for you, good friends will help you keep moving in the right direction. They can’t do it for you, but they can drag you along and push you along, until you stand up and move yourself. My friends have challenged me to do things I thought was physically impossible for me in the triathlon world. That success has spilled over to my professional and personal life to challenge myself to do thing I thought was financially, or professionally impossible before. I can count on my hand the few good friends that have really made a huge difference in my life. I’m thankful to them from the bottom of my heart.