Why Many Men are Delusional and How to Face Reality with Brent Perkins

[00:00:31] Hector: . Richard, welcome to the Modern Masculinity Podcast. Thanks for being here.

[00:00:34] Rich: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:35] Hector: I ask all of our guests to take us into their world and, , just share The load, the challenges, the crosses that you as a, a man, as a, maybe a father or a partner or whatever roles you sort of play, even in this stage in your life, , what are you still, what mucking through, if you will.

[00:00:52] Rich: I think I'm still mucking through who I am as an adult male because I went from my teen years graduating college almost immediately into the relationship that then became my marriage, and so I spent the next. You know, 30 years either being a husband to someone who, , unfortunately had, you know, certain emotional issues that I became a caretaker for fairly early on.

[00:01:18] Rich: And then, after some infertility, we became pregnant, and then the three kids came. And for a good portion of my life, I was making decisions for myself that were not for myself. So, divorce is now eight years past. And I'd have to say I'm still mucking through. Who do I really wanna be?

[00:01:41] Rich: And I think, you know, mindful masculinity is an example of how that's manifesting itself.

[00:01:46] Hector: Yeah, well, you and I are there together. I don't know that I foresaw

[00:01:51] Hector: divorce in my, , you know, in my cards. And so it's funny when I, go and I meet somebody, or, there's a girl that I'm, dating or talking to, and then I remember early on it was like. She's like, I was like, so what's your deal?

[00:02:04] Hector: Right. I was just, you know, as a joke, like, what's wrong with you, sort of thing. And she goes, what's your deal? And I'm like, it's easy. Don't you know, I've got two kids. I went through a divorce, you know, all this. And I'm, you know, I'm only 34 and I'm here. You know? And so when people hear the sort of life experiences that I, I've had at this sort of age, , I think a lot of 'em are shocked, frankly.

[00:02:21] Hector: And that's Okay. all that to say that, . I don't think that you can ever like plan when you are gonna go through an experience of like that That's never something that you go, okay, let's let the world fall apart. let's go through that process, that whole grieving process and separation process and working through the kids. We go, you know, I think it seems like a convenient time to, like it's one of those things that you just sort of gotta be ready and prepared for if and when you're sort of called to duty.

[00:02:53] Rich: Absolutely. and I think through a life, if you're paying attention enough, you're picking up bits and pieces of it. you've kind of got, maybe not a clear North star, but certainly something that, you know. You're gravitating around the belief systems that you, , start to say, that feels really good for me.

[00:03:13] Rich: I'm really believing in that. So do believe if you're not paying attention, and I know a lot of men. Who never paid attention. And they found themselves lost after a divorce, after they retired from work, a career. And so, I think it's so important, , mindfulness and, and meditating that it, it kind of lets you sit above things a little bit and you observe things and you start to see patterns both of life and of yourself.

[00:03:42] Rich: At least. That helps a little bit.

[00:03:44] Hector: Yeah, let's be clear. You know, this is the first recording that I've done since, , my ex and I have gone through legal proceedings and in the middle of it, and it, came first from my kids, which was an interesting thing. and then she brought it up in the courtroom, but we were never legally married.

[00:04:00] Hector: through the state, we had a $20,000 wedding. Everybody came. you know, we had the wedding, we lived together. There was everything except the state was involved. And part of me in the moment, you know, I was 25 when we went through that, let's just call it, I guess, a ceremony.

[00:04:16] Hector: I dunno, because the kids came home one day and they said. They said, you and mom never got married. And I was like, oh, I didn't know this. It was news to me. And they're like, yeah. She said, you guys never got married. And I was like, well, we had a wedding. so I say all that because maybe that means.

[00:04:32] Hector: Something to somebody out there. I do understand that that is even stickier when you have to separate assets and you have to get the state involved to say that, you know, you no longer have to be with this person. But if anybody who's listened to

[00:04:47] Hector: this show for any amount of

[00:04:48] Rich: Not to mention custody of children.

[00:04:50] Hector: that's what we're going through now, you know, and in the middle of it.

[00:04:52] Hector: That's its own sort of thing. And so I say all that both to be. Technically and legally, , correct. But point is, is that, men are.

[00:05:02] Hector: Are sort of thrown into these, situations, environments, and I think that they have this opportunity to utilize it as a place to grow, right? I was lost. It was the first time for me that I had a chance to actually think for myself, because for the first. 20 some odd years of my life, it was you know, what are my parents, what does my family want me to do?

[00:05:25] Hector: you know, let me stay in line there. And then I got into every sort of, you know, into relationships and okay, let me do things to, you know, Mr. Nice guy, you know, happy wife, happy life sort of thing. And now all of that crumbled and yes, I had the kids, but it was the first time where it was like, what do you actually wanna do?

[00:05:42] Hector: And I had never given myself the space until then to actually even. answer that question honestly.

[00:05:49] Rich: Before you got married, did you have a career path that you felt strongly about that you. Were like, you were building something, or when you got into the marriage, did you make a choice based

[00:06:03] Rich: on the marriage?

[00:06:05] Hector: Yeah. Looking back on it, I had built a sales business and we had a ton of success and, you know, record breaking years and all the trophies and yada y and I just realized that I was just not fulfilled and happy, though I was miserable at the time, rich, you know, at least for a 25-year-old, right, I had way more money than any 25-year-old should have, or I made way more money.

[00:06:23] Hector: I spent it just as much as quickly as I got it you know, looking back on it, I was looking for. What I thought money was supposed to give me. Oh, it's supposed to give me fulfillment or confidence or self-worth, or all these sort of things. And so it's like, well, okay, it hit the bank account.

[00:06:41] Hector: I don't feel that yet. Let me go and try and buy those things. And those are very, , expensive mistakes. and so when she got pregnant, I realized that the path that I was on and the. Industry and sort of the business that I was building, , was not conducive towards being the father and at the time the husband that I wanted to be.

[00:07:03] Hector: I was working, 50, 60 hour weeks. I was, you know, six days a week. It was just, it was grind, grind, grind. And that was not what I wanted to do. And so this is, you know, 2014. So if I would've held on, maybe like, I'm looking back on it, I'm like, man, maybe you could have held on because the internet changed things and social media changed things.

[00:07:21] Hector: iPhones and all this sort of stuff changed, but I ended up, , you know, starting online business from there so I could work from home and be home. And at the time I thought, being around what I was, optimizing for, you know, spending time, being present, like that's all the things that I heard growing up that were important, and I definitely still think that they are.

[00:07:40] Hector: What I didn't realize though, was that. Time away and going out of the house and doesn't have to be the man, but is, a masculine energy to leaving, going and doing something productive and then coming back with sort of the fruits of that, productivity I did, you know, decide to, spend more time with the family at the expense of making more money or knowing that it was gonna, you know, make less money. , and did that, cause the demise of our relationship? I think it definitely impacted it.

[00:08:13] Hector: And I think it was also still the right decision.

[00:08:16] Rich: did you have, , going into the marriage and becoming a father, did you have an image of who you wanted to be or was it a blank slate for you and you were kind of making it up as you went along?

[00:08:28] Hector: you know, I had some loose ideals, I knew that I wanted to be like a family man. my dad did some things right. A lot of things not, probably like all dads. And, , you know, one of the things that I wanted to do was to have a, family.

[00:08:42] Hector: you know, I wanted kids. I knew that, and I wanted them to like, love and appreciate. I wanted there to be an appreciative relationship between us. Right. , I had those sort of ideals. what I didn't have though, that I built sort of afterwards or not even built. I sort of discovered and built upon was who I was outside of my family or work. And I remember early on this process, at an event, someone asked us to introduce ourselves.

[00:09:08] Hector: And I just mentioned this on the show, but I think it's worth, , repeating, to introduce themselves without talking about their family or their career. And I was like, fuck, I don't know. You know, that's, that was mostly what it came down. That was, you know, I could give you two paragraphs of those things, but if you take those away, it was like well shit.

[00:09:28] Hector: And I really started to wrestle with that question 'cause it bothered me. Right. I love, you know, having the right answer or at least having an answer, especially to something like that. And so I, it was then where I went okay, well if you took all that away and you had to start over 'cause there were some real.

[00:09:41] Hector: a number of moments throughout the whole journey where it was like you could lose it all. And if that was the case, what then? And it was like my brain and my minds fought to actually have an answer, right? When my ex and , my daughter, you know, they were both in the hospital and my wife codes and, you know, almost dies while she's pregnant with my daughter.

[00:10:03] Hector: And they save them both. Like what are you going to wallow in that forever? Or, if and when you have to pick yourself up, what, like, you know. And so unfortunately there were a number of those times where I had to like wrestle with those questions and so thankfully.

[00:10:19] Hector: If you listen, there are some answers that emerge from those, you know, that when things are not in crisis mode, you know, can sort of become this north star. And so, it was probably the worst. This whole relationship's probably like the worst and the best thing to ever happen to me.

[00:10:36] Hector: You know, it's like the hardest and the best, , , you know, reminds me of like a crucible. That idea of, you know what, it's either gonna break you or it's gonna make you,

[00:10:44] Rich: and, the nice thing about that whole concept is, you know, the pressure of a crucible. Hopefully, at the very least you learn who you are going through that process and. I had some, peaks and valleys before my marriage started falling apart. And I think I was picking up bits and pieces of who I was and realizing I needed to go do something that I currently was not doing.

[00:11:12] Rich: one of my favorite, , stories that I try to tell people when they talk about finding their North Star. , I was middle management at American Express. I was sort of a chief of staff to the senior vice president of a billion dollar division, and I used to run his communications for his distributed network of sales and client managers mostly.

[00:11:31] Rich: And I come back from a town hall that I, you know, Tom. He used to give a 20 minute slot where I kind of ran it 'cause he didn't want to be standing up there the whole time, you know, talking to his employees for 90 minutes. So I come back to my desk and one of my sales vice presidents was in town from the West coast and we'll never forget and, and.

[00:11:52] Rich: if, if I am not allowed to curse on this program, let me know. But I'm sitting at my desk and I'm getting ready to hit the then button on the post town hall survey and I feel this presence over my shoulder. So I look up and there's Maryanne and I'm like, there something I can do for you? Or you standing here 'cause you, you need me to do something?

[00:12:10] Rich: And she goes, no. She goes, what the fuck are you doing sitting in this cube? And I looked at her and I said. What do you mean? I was like, did I forget to be at a meeting or something? And she goes, what you just did for 20 minutes during that town hall? You should be teaching this to people. You should be in front of audiences.

[00:12:30] Rich: Showing people how to do this. She said, because I've never experienced what you just did for 20 minutes in that conference room that we just left. And it kind of gnawed at me for days that I was pushing down a talent. That I had I'd been a public speaker long before I joined American Express.

[00:12:51] Rich: , So I was used to standing in front of audiences, but now here's somebody from, you know, a Fortune 500 company telling me, stop minimizing yourself. And so, you know, as my marriage progressed. I wish I'd paid attention because I was minimizing myself there as well. I was, didn't wanna rock the boat. Like you said, I was trying to make this other person happy, at least create an environment where they could be happy.

[00:13:17] Rich: And I was deprioritizing Richard Deprioritizing. And I think that's a very male thing, and I think men don't get credit for this. I think you know, women, you see memes on social media about. How women have to give up everything in order to be a mom and someone who works outside the home, blah, blah, blah.

[00:13:36] Rich: Men do that too. Maybe not as many in volume or percentage as women do. But I know lots of my male friends who totally abumed who they were for this role of husband and father. You know that is a very male masculine thing.

[00:13:57] Hector: Perhaps, I also think that what's not given enough credence to is sort of the conditioning that young men have gone through at the time of their upbringing. And I think that. Our, future generations will look back on this time and they'll go, oh, that was a very, skewed view of masculinity in this particular time.

[00:14:23] Hector: Especially because, I mean, why wouldn't there be when we're going through the, post-feminist movement, which I think is, has all of its sort of merits. In its ideals. I don't think that the ways in which that it happened. we could talk about all, all the equality and fairness, but what I think is just not given credence to, given that phenomenon is the effect that it had on young men.

[00:14:49] Hector: And there's just, there's no conversation to, okay, women were given this place in society. Fantastic. Great. They're able to vote, they can go out into the workplace and earn their own. Amazing, fantastic. What we didn't and now we're sort of catching up and, conversations and, Not like, what about us? But to your point, it's like, okay, if that's the case, who are we then still? Because if we are not the breadwinner, okay, that's fine. No reason you can't go out and, make your money and have a career. But what does the role of a provider then and if it does not just mean money, what does it mean?

[00:15:26] Hector: Because that's something that I've started to realize is that. I used to think it was just money, and so, okay, if I wasn't making the money, then I wasn't being a provider. And of course that. What I wasn't seeing was that being a provider is about having foresight. So if, I'm not gonna be the one that's making the lion's share of the money, how can I make sure that we are prepared?

[00:15:49] Hector: How can I see into the future? And make sure that, you know, our family is ready, and just things like that where we're missing the, essence of it, there's so many instances that get blown up on social media these days where a woman is getting attacked and guys are standing around watching this woman get beat up.

[00:16:11] Hector: Some of them are filming and it's just like, it's such a bastardization of quote unquote masculinity. And also the comments are why would he go in and protect her if he's just gonna get punished for doing that?

[00:16:26] Rich: Yeah. one of my favorite topics, I actually wrote about, the four reasons why I'm a Feminist. I wrote last week for my substack because, you know, my take on whatever you want to call masculinity. I mean, the word is so amorphous to me at this point because. I just feel that it comes with too much baggage.

[00:16:48] Rich: , I use mindful masculinity for my Substack name because I'm trying to convey a message that there's this thing that we've all been talking about ad nauseum, and it's the mindful part that comes first because. What mindful means to me is that a person is living in the present moment, that they are trying to be as aware as possible of how they're reacting to any situation.

[00:17:15] Rich: Whether it's marrying a woman who makes more money, , finding yourself in a situation where you need to quit work because your child has an issue, your wife makes war, your partner, whatever, and. Your role as a dad or a parent is to take care of your kid. And so to me, the way I look at feminism is that feminism is the model for healthy men.

[00:17:45] Rich: Because what feminism did for women was it said, stop. Limiting what you can be. You want to be a stay at home mom. That's your choice. You want to be a hybrid mom. You work at home, but you also have a job outside the home. Fine. You want to be a complete outside the home mom, and then take on that third shift of additional labor when you get home.

[00:18:12] Rich: Look. You make those choices and hopefully through mindfulness and communication with your partner. And if you don't have a partner on your own, you do the best you can. And I think that's when men still get hung up, is we're always trying to create masculinity in relation

[00:18:30] Rich: to women.

[00:18:31] Hector: at least the younger, and once again, I can only speak from a 30 something year old perspective, and I see it even more. It's, It's gotten worse. You know, when you look at the 20 somethings and I, can't imagine what the teens sort of, face, but , there's this song that, it came out a few years ago, my daughter, when she was maybe three, she sang it and it, it pissed me off so much because, and it's in this nice jingle, right? And my 3-year-old, she's singing. She goes, I don't need a man. I need a puppy. And I go, that's the problem that we're experiencing is because feminism and like I said, I can appreciate feminism in its ideals, and perhaps there were things that were captured or things that were not, perhaps emphasized or things that, once again, were bastardized of the ideology.

[00:19:17] Hector: But the challenge that I have with feminism is that it doesn't create a space. For men in relationship, it says like, it takes that to the nth degree where they don't need a man. and perhaps they could point it back at us and go, well, for the longest time, men didn't treat us and were abusive.

[00:19:37] Hector: And, and yes, yes, yes, a hundred percent, but I don't think there was ever a time where we said, we don't need women. it was actually. We were willing to abandon our morals ourselves. We were able to go to the depths of human depravity, oftentimes over a woman and for a woman, right?

[00:19:59] Hector: It was like a lot of times these wars all of these things, when it comes down to it, They're, it's doing for resources. it's for women. And I think that, well, again, it was bastardized, but what is slowly starting to creep through in the most woo woo of spaces is this, what I call integrated masculinity and sort of integrated femininity, which is a, it's the yin and the yang.

[00:20:21] Hector: it's an acknowledgement that. On one side of the circle is mostly white and a little bit of black. And on the other side of circle is mostly black and a little bit of white. And somehow we've seemed to forgotten that in me as you and as you and me, and, and in a man, as a woman, and as a woman and as a man.

[00:20:39] Hector: And that We get lost in the gender stuff and we forget that there are these polarities that are sort of timeless.

[00:20:46] Rich: Help me understand the polarities. 'cause I have had conversations with men in person and online, and I've, when they've used the word polarity, I kind of get lost in an ambiguous space

[00:20:58] Hector: here's the polarity of it, right? Here's a perfect example well, lemme ask you first, would you want the metaphor or the direct case example

[00:21:05] Rich: Both

[00:21:06] Hector: Okay. I'm gonna give you both, but which one do you want

[00:21:08] Hector: first?

[00:21:08] Rich: gimme the literal one first.

[00:21:10] Hector: the literal one is, what I see guys all the time doing, and especially with like very quote unquote dominant women, is they ask them where do they want to eat? they're giving that power to them because they think that's what they want.

[00:21:22] Hector: Right. And if you were to ask most women, they would probably say they don't like men telling them what to do. They're just like in their heads. They don't like telling them what they do. And they also hate it when their boyfriend, their husband, asks them where they want to eat. And they would much rather prefer in most instances, and we're talking generally for them to say, Hey, I love to go here today. And to offer, right? they want men to quote unquote lead, so the polarity is that, is what I've liked into like a, a furnace, right? A furnace Is nothing without the fire. And the fire is nothing without a furnace because a furnace, what it cannot do is it cannot bring that, life force, that energy, it's just not built for that.

[00:22:08] Hector: it's way over indexed in its ability to provide structure. It's way over in its ability to provide direction so that if you provide something like a fire, which. Is the opposite of polarity has no structure. it's so wild and dramatic in its form and thus that is its power.

[00:22:31] Hector: That is how it does. What it does is through that ca And so the polarity is that you have this essence that is very rigid and structured and of course it's gotta be able to withstand the heat, so it's gotta be able to get hot. And then you have this fire, and it's only when you put the two together that do you have something that is greater than the individual.

[00:22:55] Hector: And so that's sort of how I see polarity. You know, when I think about polarity, another polarity is, maybe like the nurturing and the discipline polarity, right? they're sort of on the same like length, right? If someone who's hyper disciplined, the best ones are because they care, but they get so far into this pole and it's oftentimes because they over-index in their ability to nurture.

[00:23:18] Hector: Whereas you have these people who are nurturing, you see these like they're the yes parents, right? Where they, over-index this way. And so it's, balance, right? That is necessary. what I feel we've been living in is, the women and to their credit, should they go out and have a career?

[00:23:32] Hector: Should they make an impact society? Like, absolutely. that's not the point. The point is the pie has just gotten so much bigger. And so now we haven't really had the conversation to talk about, okay, so now that the pie is bigger, what's the expanded roles of us? And unfortunately that requires both parties to be in dialogue,

[00:23:51] Rich: I wouldn't

[00:23:52] Rich: say unfortunately.

[00:23:53] Rich: I would say fortunately,

[00:23:55] Hector: well, the, unfortunate part though is that, I can only draw this conclusion from my own experiences and what I see on social media. So when those two line up, that's where I'm going. Okay, this is not truth the reality, but this is perhaps this is a microcosm, right?

[00:24:12] Hector: Perhaps my experience is a microcosm of what is happening in society and it just seems that women. At a large, let's call it , You know, the ones who aren't on either sides of the polls right? are not ready to have that sort of conversation about what is the larger role of a man.

[00:24:31] Hector: Right. and I asked my, ex this one time because she told me, she said, I don't think you're man enough to be with me. That's what's why I started the show, so I'm fuck. Does that mean? I wanted to find out When we're here, we're 115 episodes in, and I don't know if I've got an answer, but a few weeks or months later, something came up and I asked her, I was like, this is when we were still sort of trying to work through it.

[00:24:52] Hector: I, I asked her what is, like, if I'm telling cash, like here's what it is to be a man. We were going through that, some of that stuff, and we were talking about that and being tough and we were trying to get, toughen him up a little bit. He was, you know, not having as much confidence.

[00:25:05] Hector: And so we were, we were having that conversation with him and I said, okay, so for Kyra, what does it mean for her to be a woman? She couldn't answer. and that gets caricad on television where they go, what is a woman? And they're talking about, you know, genitalia stuff. I don't even know if, they're ready to have that conversation.

[00:25:23] Hector: Okay. If say, what is a woman, ideally, spiritually, holistically what is a woman? And if they can't define that, or if there's not a consensus there, it's hard for us to say, okay, well here's how we can fit in.

[00:25:37] Rich: I agree with you in the sense that pop culture, whether it's on a small screen, a big screen in a movie theater, social media on your phone, I agree that. There are these voices that are trying to help, any person define femininity, masculinity, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man.

[00:26:01] Rich: I've been studying the whole concept. I do not have a degree. I, The woman that I'm currently seeing, she and I were having these discussions four years ago. And so I started pulling down abstracts from research from all over the world, not just the United States, principally the US and Canada, but , only because, it was more close in proximity to my experience versus Sweden or Kenya, whatever.

[00:26:24] Rich: So anyway, and what I've learned. Over these years, of studying this is that gender the manifestation of being a heterosexual male, heterosexual female is extremely contextual.

[00:26:41] Hector: I think we should take that out though, right? I think we should take out like gender.

[00:26:45] Rich: Why? I don't think that we're talking, 'cause I talk about energies. 'cause even if you look at a lesbian relationship, there's clearly a feminine.

[00:26:56] Rich: but I would say that a lesbian is not a heterosexual female. So that individual may have lived a life that projected more of

[00:27:09] Rich: these

[00:27:10] Rich: qualities,

[00:27:11] Rich: these trait.

[00:27:11] Hector: My point though is that even if you take away gender, these energies still exist they tend to manifest themselves more and over index more in, You know, masculinity tends to index more, and we could talk about it's expected of more from people who are born with penises and Femininity is expected more from people who are and often it

[00:27:37] Hector: seems to be to index more. So, I'm happy to agree to that and say that there, that perhaps there's too much pressure on people born with penises to act a certain way and people born with vaginas to act a certain way.

[00:27:52] Hector: I'm willing to take all of those out

[00:27:54] Rich: But I would say to you that what you were talking about before, the fact that you are sensing that men are struggling because feminism has opened so many doors for women and men haven't adjusted to it yet.

[00:28:08] Hector: that's not, and that's a great point. Because you, pointed on a big distinction. We are not. We are not upset at women and their rise in sort of the marketplace and their opportunities.

[00:28:19] Hector: Like, and that's, that's sort of what I think gets sort of pigeonholed or straw man or whatever sort of the, debate term is because we are as a whole, men don't think that there are men who go a woman can't do that job, or they shouldn't do that job.

[00:28:34] Hector: I think that there are bigots who have, preconceived notions that are just, they're just bigots and they're racist, and they're all those sorts of things. But an integrated man doesn't go, oh, because a woman is a woman, she can't do their job. An integrated man goes, who's the best person for the job?

[00:28:52] Hector: That's who should be doing the job. And an integrated man goes, you know what, maybe more men should be firefighters, than women, and that it's okay because. X, Y, and Z Right. And I live here in Southern California where we recently had kind of a big debacle and, and there was this big thing about, you know, gender equality and, and firefighting and all these sort of, and it's just like if we've gotten so far past it, where now we are, we're losing sight of, the essence, right?

[00:29:21] Hector: And the problem that men have is not that women have gained more opportunity. And again, once again, the integrated man isn't the one who's doing the work. They're not. The challenge for young men at least, is that women aren't even seeing a need for them in their lives. They don't even see a, a, a

[00:29:41] Hector: need.

[00:29:42] Rich: I think pop culture does that,

[00:29:44] Hector: well, well,

[00:29:44] Rich: think.

[00:29:45] Hector: can't separate the two though.

[00:29:47] Rich: No, but what I would tell you is that while that may be a message from pop culture, I will project back to you that the reason why Taylor Swift sells out 45,000 seats in an arena night after night after night. Is because women still do have a need for men, and that what you are telling me is more of, to me it's like a trauma reaction. It's a, I need to be defiant as a female. I need to say these things because I have experienced certain things in my life that make me feel like I am less than. Is that actually what they think and feel? I personally don't believe so. I personally

[00:30:32] Rich: believe What I see from having three young adult children is that Young women looking for someone. Who will just take them as they are. And the problem about the integrated man that you've been talking about is does he see himself becoming a registered nurse?

[00:30:48] Rich: Does he see himself becoming a middle school teacher? Because what feminism did for women was it, it said, as you said, it opened the doors. I can go be whatever I want, but we still haven't told boys and men. What do you wanna be? Because if you think you have to be a fireman, you have to be in construction.

[00:31:09] Rich: Well, guess what? You know there's some pretty damn good high paying jobs being a registered nurse in a hospital and you can have a damn good life, but you're not thinking that way because that's still not considered something you are open to. and so that's why I say feminism is the model. For men getting out of this funk for finding equality with women is by saying, I'm gonna go be whoever the hell I wanna be without memes and social media and stupid male characters on television and movies.

[00:31:44] Rich: I'm gonna go write that chapter on my own. And men need to feminize themselves in the sense that. They need to liberate themselves. That to me is the connection between feminism and masculinity is, let's redefine it the way women redefined it, being a woman.

[00:32:04] Hector: I think you did a great job of scandalizing that headline and making it seem way more controversial than it is because I agree with all that. And I'm even willing because I, I don't think blame is a helpful, energy. And so it's fun for sake of debate and for sake of argument and to say, you know, to create, , a side. And I get that. , And also the truth is, is that it is the responsibility of men to do what you're talking about and liberate themselves and wake up and pull themselves out of this.

[00:32:35] Hector: This matrix that the unfortunate side about feminism is that I think, again, in its ideals, it was great and in its practicality, like so many movements get sort of hijacked for, certain reasons. And, and, to talk about the, the 10, 15% that, You know, it was negative about it.

[00:32:55] Hector: And there's 85% I think is a, you know, minimizes the movement. And that's not my point. My point is exactly what you're saying is just, okay, now we're here. What do men need to wake up to? And unfortunately for me, it took a divorce. It took my life sort of crumbling for me to liberate myself from that and to stop looking at the models of social media or to look at the models of, you know, these things.

[00:33:16] Hector: And the, challenge with social media these days is that. For a long time. You know, when I was growing up it was sort of propaganda but I mean, like I can't, but help that think that there was some sort of. Even if it's a collective consciousness that pushes it to where you have Homer Simpson, Tim the Toman, Taylor, you know, Al Bundy, , Ray Romano, , according to Jim, I mean like the list goes on and on and on about buffoons who were husbands who somehow got hot wives , but are just these.

[00:33:47] Hector: exact, what I think is to masculinity, like I think that is, you know, it's obviously not aggressive, it's not violent, it's not, you know, berating.

[00:33:55] Rich: why do you think, 'cause I agree with you I talk about this all the time in my substack, is that popular culture does not create healthy male role models. Why

[00:34:06] Hector: the challenge though is today it's that it's not actors creating that content anymore. These are people. they're people on the street that are getting interviewed and you hear these things that they're saying. they bring in these podcasts where they bring in just 12, you know, oftentimes it's two guys and 12 girls.

[00:34:23] Hector: It's just the, just two guys are oftentimes, you know, very highly structured debates. They're very intelligent and they just bring in 10 to 12 girls who are. Not of, you know, of I don't wanna judge them in any sort of way, but they're not bringing them in for their academic, acumen.

[00:34:36] Hector: They're, they're trying to get a sample size of the, popular general women. And so you hear these, some of these ideas that they're echoing and it just, it scares me because, , if I were in a position of power and I wanted to maintain power and sort of keep the masses, pacified, , yeah, I would emasculate the men. I would take their spirit out. I would, , dampen their opportunities. , I would make it harder for them.

[00:35:04] Hector: I would do everything exactly that happened over the last 50, 60 years if I wanted to make it harder for, individual families, frankly, to thrive. Like, that's exactly what I would do, is weaken the man.

[00:35:17] Rich: I mean, I think what you're describing. Is 21st century capitalism, which certainly is much more directed at shareholders, whether they're taking money from females or males who work in these companies and redistributing it to people who can buy big chunks of stock. , I don't think that's.

[00:35:39] Rich: Gender based. I think that's capitalism, the way we've constructed it in America, and I think you see this with women CEOs and men CEOs. What I will say though is that I do believe that men don't spend enough time thinking about how is the world changing and what do I need to do to adjust to it because.

[00:36:04] Rich: We have had issues with filling healthcare jobs despite the fact that they are fairly lucrative in certain job classes and men still don't apply. So, changing the way we men look at capitalism, to me, would be a healthy thing for men. And, is that, powerful people emasculating us or is that us?

[00:36:27] Rich: Looking at a narrow definition of masculinity and saying there's a hell of a lot more to create in this world if I think differently. I don't have the answer to those questions, but I don't necessarily believe it's being forced on men. I think a lot of men have just said, this is the way I was raised.

[00:36:46] Rich: This is what I was told to believe. And they're going along with an old script.

[00:36:51] Hector: Right. And so hopefully these conversations can just give some context to, what is going on.

[00:36:56] Hector: Alright, , let's bring this home. Richard, I got two more questions for you.

[00:36:59] Hector: The first one is if people want get more in touch with you, , read the substack, , follow up. , Just get more involved. Where's the best place for people to go?

[00:37:06] Rich: By all means you can go to mindful masculinity on Substack. , It is where I do my long form work. I'm starting to do more video. . , And then of course, I'm on Instagram. I have yet to launch my TikTok, but, , I understand that that algorithm is better for getting, new people to look. So, look for me on TikTok soon. The most important thing is what you are doing here, which you've said a couple of times.

[00:37:33] Rich: We need to have conversations about these things. We need to have open conversations where we're listening to each other because we don't have to necessarily agree, but if we stay in our echo chambers. gonna have more bird shit on the windshield and not know it. And I really enjoy, you know, hearing what you are experiencing in life and how life looks to you, because it's quite a bit different than mine.

[00:37:56] Rich: And I don't want to project that I have the only belief, , system that works so that people can flourish more. So I really think you're doing a great job and keep going.

[00:38:07] Hector: Thank you. I appreciate all that and receive all that. My last question is, in your opinion, , what is the definition of modern masculinity?

[00:38:14] Rich: My definition is a person, , let's say they have a penis, um, who doesn't restrict themselves. That if they find out young in life that they want to be a stay-at-home dad. They feel no shame about it. They feel no restriction about it. That's what they wanna be, and they're gonna go be it. So you know, it's that kind of thing where you're truly liberated to take whatever it is that sits inside your heart and your head and just go be the best that you be.

[00:38:47] Rich: That is what a.