P. S.: Post Scriptum

Lately I have been reading the way of the superior man. Forget about Nietsche, here the reference, although never made explicit, is to the superior man in the I-Ching. “this is the situation, so the superior man does so and so”. The book is extreemly interesting, and brings on the series of books on male issues, that I have been reading in the last ten years. Starting with Robert Bly’s Iron John, to King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, and then Fire in the Belly and finally Biddulph’s book manhood. Is also nice for one time to have a book about man that does not refer to christianity but to taoism.
The book is structured in 51 small chapters. Each giving one concept, one idea. You can’t stop thinking that the author maybe wanted them to be 64, and then link each to one of the iching hexagrams. But then fell short of things to say.

The core idea is that, while yes it is possible for man and woman to be very similar, and this helps in bringing peace to society, it also comes with a huge price. The lack of desire for each other. In Italy for example, there is a growing literature on sexual anorexia. Man (and woman) who between the age of 25 and 35 just decide that they don’t actually need sex in their life. And is more the problem tha it brings than the joy. But not only on this, the idea that old couples don’t have sex anymore, is quite common, and generally considered to be one of the causes why man might flip in society.

Well, the idea in this book, is that while is possible to depolarize each other, is also possible to polarize each other. To take different roles. In fact, the book claims and I would agree with it, those roles do come quite natural, once we take the extra step of relieving ourselves of the burden of the wishful thinking of how nice would life be, if men and women could have the same role, while keeping desire for each other.

Interesting the idea is that those roles not only come natural, but are seen as the natural frame in which to interpret his desire for control, her (only) apparently illogical actions. His role is then to guide, and her role is to test him.

After ending the book, I went back to it, and reorganised it through a mindmap, which is available from my maps page. If you are reading the book you might find interesting my reorganization of the chapters. But don’t think that you can get the essence of the book just from my mindmap. Way too many things are missing.

Is also very interesting the idea that the primary focus for a man (with a masculine core, i.e. 80% of man) is his work and his spiritual quest. Relationships come only after. And instead of seeing this as a problem, this is seem as conditio sine qua non for a good relationships. While for the woman (with a feminine core, 80% circa) relationships are the main focus. Yet, according to this book, women might ask their man to be more present in the relationship, but actually they want a man who is heavily focused on his passion. A man who stays at home, and needs mommy, not only is not sexual, but sickens them. How very true!

So looking back at my life, and at different relationships I had, I remember one in particular in which I was very focused on my meditation, and she would follow me. I was for this heavily criticized, but actually the relationship was going well, and the polarity was creating a huge desire for each other.

So, another book under the list:”things I should have known when I was 16, but I am happy eventually I found them out”.