BONUS: Conversation About Modern Masculinity with Dr Simon Fokt

In this episode, you’ll hear my conversation with philosopher, educator and writer, Dr. Simon Fokt. He’s the creator of Mans Compass. He is a wealth of knowledge and someone who, in his words, is trying to navigate the chaos of modern masculinity. Please join us as we get philosophical on you, check out the Conversation about Modern Masculinity with Dr Simon Fokt, episode.

Contact info:
https://simonfokt.org/
https://medium.com/@simonfokt
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQiSp3ByjDHWfAzIk1y1bg
https://twitter.com/SimonFokt
https://www.instagram.com/simonfokt/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553756774456

Transcript

Bill Simpson: Hi, and welcome to the men on the Path to Love Podcast. Bonus episode. Conversation about modern masculinity with Doctor Simon Fox episode. I am Bill Simpson, your host. I coach men who are struggling in relationship how to communicate effectively, build trust, and deepen intimacy so they could be the best version of themselves and relationship and live the life they love.

Bill Simpson: In this bonus episode, you get to hear my conversation with philosopher, educator, and writer, doctor Simpson, Fox. He is the founder of the diversity reading list and the creator of man's compass. He has a wealth of knowledge. And he, someone who in his words, is trying to navigate the chaos of modern masculinity. We'll dive deep and get philosophical on you.

Bill Simpson: So kick back and enjoy. You just might learn something.

Bill Simpson: Welcome, Simon to, men on the path to love.

Dr Simon Fokt: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. Me too. Read a lot of your stuff and just really looking forward to having this conversation and and digging in deep with your passion for modern masculinity and the changing role of men in society. The time is right for this. And I do a lot of storytelling in my show.

Bill Simpson: And what I'd like to do before we get into all of your thoughts, Simon, is to tell us your story. Tell us how you got to this place where you're you're passionate about modern masculinity and and whatnot. Tell us your story.

Dr Simon Fokt: Sure. Of course. Yes. I've been interested in the topics of gender for as long as I can remember, I could basically as a as a kid, I could never kind of understand why is it that we treat boys and girls so differently. And I remember that, like, when I went to university and discovered feminism first, and I was told that it's all about you know, equality between men and women.

Dr Simon Fokt: I was just like, well, why wouldn't it be like that? Like, give me a good reason why not to So it always seemed to me like it's the as the thing is that, like, we don't really have a good reason to not be equal. But the more I delved into it, the more I realized that actually the conversation is so often centered around women only, when with respect to this, or there's very little talk about you know, the role that men should be playing. And I kind of really wished for quite a while that there was a similar conversation about masculinity as there is about women and femininity within the feminist movements. And I just thought that it's it's such a shame that basically women are spending all of this time rethinking?

Dr Simon Fokt: How did their gender works? How do they express their gender? What does it even mean to be a woman? Like, what can, like, should we question the ways in which society tells us, acceptable ways of being a woman or acceptable things for women to do, or acceptable ways of expressing that gender. And And they are doing all of this work.

Dr Simon Fokt: They're having all of those discussions, and they're coming up with some really excellent thoughts about this. And It's just a shame that men are not doing it. Yeah. Because for so long, it seems like, men have kind of treated themselves as the default human. And so much of, when feminists criticize men, it's very often They say, like, oh, we need to talk more about women because everyone talks about men all the time.

Dr Simon Fokt: So why should we need to talk about men? But we don't really talk about men. We talk about, like, men talk about themselves as if they were just generic humans. And they don't when they talk about their own problems, they don't talk about their problems as men.

Bill Simpson: Right.

Dr Simon Fokt: They don't really question what it is to be a man. They just talk about human problems. And then as I went on, I was involved in a whole bunch of various diversity projects. I'm an academic. I'm a philosopher.

Dr Simon Fokt: And in philosophy, as with many other academic disciplines, there's been a long discussion about how science and the academia in general has been dominated by white men and how we should do things to change this. So I was, you know, very involved in a number of diversity projects that we're aiming to increase the representation of groups that have been historically underrepresented. And that's all fantastic, but it seems like there's so many of those projects that are focused on finding new ways to allow people who are not men to express themselves, and that's absolutely fantastic. We should do all of that. But I think that there should also be a place for men to kind of rethink themselves as well.

Dr Simon Fokt: And this is what I would wanna doing my work. I just feel like right now, there isn't very much of it, and the stuff that there is tends to be quite problematic sometimes. It's very much not focused on love, I'm afraid. Right. Yeah.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I'd quite like to have a bit more of of this discussion.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. Absolutely. And what we're doing right now is all part of that. And I'm I'm just grateful to have you here. You know, I've talked a lot on my show about toxic masculinity.

Bill Simpson: And Mhmm. What is your take on that?

Dr Simon Fokt: Right. I think that the term toxic masculinity has been so overused that it's quite difficult to talk about it right now because I think that so many guys when they hear it. All they hear is just, oh my god. Somebody's gonna have a problem with me now. To some extent, that's fair enough because I think that the term has been wildly overused, and it has been basically a term of know, how do you express that?

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. You don't like something. Toxic masculinity is this kind of like umbrella catch all phrase for all the stuff we don't like about Bill the best. Yeah. Exactly.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I don't think that this is a useful way to to, to use it. I wrote this kind of longer text about this at some point looking into the actual origins of the term, which, I don't know if probably many of your listeners would also know. But it actually was coined by men. It was coined within the Mythopathic, men's movement of the eighties. Okay.

Dr Simon Fokt: These were kind of men who wanted to escape from the what they perceived as the kind of, like, industrial innating industrial society in which men instead of having an opportunity to be themselves, they just need to work those really long jobs to bring the money home and of the cog in the machine rather than really living a fulfilling life. Right. And and one of the things that was lost, they said, and this kind of cog in the machine life was this connection to a healthy masculinity that men had to themselves. And they came up with this term toxic masculinity to express the way that men who are forced into this environment, coped with this environment by kind of overdoing their masculinity, like being overly I don't know, focused on just achievement or overly needing to express their dominance or, like, doing too much of the otherwise healthy masculine traits. And they were kind of like, aiming to use this time to, you know, just teach men to be better.

Dr Simon Fokt: It's just don't be like that. Mhmm. Don't, you know, hide away all of your emotions so that you can be a better cog in the machine Right. But screw the machine, you know, be a better you. And if that means that, yeah, you should you should be better with keeping in touch with, you know, your own emotional state as well.

Dr Simon Fokt: And it wasn't until much later. Like, the term wasn't really used for a whole number of years. Basically, people kind of almost forgot that the term existed And then it wasn't until the me too movement in 2015, 16, but it exploded again. And now it was used very differently, and it was used by very different people. And, like, while previously, it was kind of a term that was used within a group of men for the sake of self improvement.

Bill Simpson: Right.

Dr Simon Fokt: Now it became a group, a term that was used between groups by one group to criticize another group, which I think is pretty problematic already. And, I mean, you can you can understand why, and I think it's pretty clear, like, why the term was used the way it was. And, you know, there's a lot of very understandable impatience and anger among the people who have been mistreated or abused or otherwise harmed. And it's hard to expect them to, you know, not be angry. But angry people end up, well, hurt people, hurt people,

Bill Simpson: and go too far.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Exactly. So I think we're kind of, like, in this weird situation in which on one hand, we could have this term be used by men to help each other to improve themselves. But instead, right now, the term is mostly used to kind of, like, by one group to really criticize the other. And I was hoping that maybe there is some chance that we could reclaim it somehow Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: And just go like, okay. It's, like, there's something definitely valuable about using the term between groups because, you know, there's nothing at some urgency when somebody has a problem with you. Right? So, like, when when when something like, when you only rely on self regulation and expect people to do something out of the goodness of their hearts, you know, you're gonna wait. It's not gonna happen.

Bill Simpson: Good luck with that. Right?

Dr Simon Fokt: Exactly. Right? But, you know, if someone from the outside comes in and says, like, guys, not tomorrow, not in a week's time today. We need to do something about this. That kind of adds this this pressure that I think is needed.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think that mean, you know, let's be honest. I mentioned this myth of birdic men's movement of the eighties. I mean, it's just not done much, frankly. Mean, for all the great theory and everything, I mean, you know, we have exactly the same problems today as we did then. So, you know, 45 years later, but much change.

Bill Simpson: Bill, and I think too, you know, change is hard. And it's a process. It takes time and a lot of reinforcement. And if they weren't getting that, if we're not getting that, then, yeah, it's gonna kinda land flat.

Dr Simon Fokt: Absolutely. I think so. But I still think it's worth to come back to some of the ideas that they had in terms of what this whole toxicity can mean. And I think it's really useful for men specifically to kind of conceptualize it as just it's kind of, like, too much of the good thing potentially. Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: It's, like, I Bill like to, as a philosopher, I really like to think about this in terms of Aristotleian virtues. Aristotle had this theory that every virtue, every good way to be is like a golden middle between 2 vices. So if you're courageous, for example, that's a virtue, Like, there is advice of deficiency of courage, and that's just being correlate. And then there is advice of excess of courage. And there's just being, you know, brazen, like, just, I don't know, getting in trouble all the time.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think that this is kind of, like, maps quite nicely on this whole idea of of toxicity. Because when you think, like, what are the sort of things that we label, like, as toxic masculinity? It's just when you're, I don't know, so completely, you know, pushing away all of your emotions so that you're not, like, you know, completely unfazed by any of this. Like, it's just, like, overdoing something. You know, it's there's a good thing in the middle the good thing in the middle is just being in control of your own emotions.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right? You can have this advice of deficiency in there, which is just, like, letting your emotions do anything they want to. Yeah. Right. But then, like, being so in control that you never let anything slip or anything.

Dr Simon Fokt: There's just too much, and you're not letting anyone in and stuff like that. And similarly, with other things, like, with, I don't know, dominance or aggression or or other things like that, I mean, some aggression is good. Like, if someone threatens you, you should have the guts to defend yourself. Yeah. And, you know, you should have the guts to take the risk when it makes sense or to, like, use even use violence when it's really justified and needed.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. When it has its place.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Exactly. Right? And you would also say, like, too little of it means that, well, you're crave and then unable to act when you need to act, but also too much of it, just like when you're, you know, resolve every problem with violence or something like this, well, that is toxic. Right?

Dr Simon Fokt: I think. And then I think that when we think about it this way and kind of think about this whole idea of toxicity as just too much, then we can also conceptualize it of like, ah, okay. It's not that, like, I'm a horrible, evil person or something like that. No. I've just overdone something a bit.

Bill Simpson: Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: Like, there's a good thing in there. Like, I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to, I don't know, be strong and protect my family or something like this. Right? But, like, I've just I've just been overdoing it a bit.

Bill Simpson: What I'm hearing today is is having that awareness. And Mhmm. Okay. Maybe it did take a step too far. Yeah.

Bill Simpson: Maybe next time, you know, hopefully, I can learn from this so that I don't do it the next time.

Dr Simon Fokt: Exactly. Right? I think that it's also really useful to think of yourself or of humans in general as this constant work in progress Absolutely. We are we can always get better. It's a fantastic thing about humans.

Dr Simon Fokt: Some people are a bit it seems like some people are a bit scared of it. You know, some people just wanna, I don't know, like, turn, I know, 30 or 25 or whatever else and go like, okay. I'm a finished human. I know who I am now. I can just sit and relax and just be me.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right. But it it just doesn't work like that. And it's really funny because there is some good psychology research on that topic. You know what? They did.

Dr Simon Fokt: They asked people how much do you think you have changed over the last 10 years?

Bill Simpson: Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: And people go like, oh my god. I changed massively. I'm a completely different person now than I was 10 years ago. And then they asked them, okay. How much do you think you will change over the next 10 years?

Dr Simon Fokt: And most people go like, nah. I'm I'm pretty much who I am right now. It's just that's just it. Just gonna be it. But the thing is that people answer the same way regardless what age they are.

Dr Simon Fokt: So you ask, like, thirty year old question, and they say, like, no, I'm telling 40. I will not change at all. And then you ask forty year olds, and they go, like, yeah, in the last 10 years, I changed massively. But in the next 10 years, I won't really change. And then you ask fifty year olds, and they say exactly the same again.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. People always kind of think, like, there already are who they are, They never really are. People are always changing, but that's really fantastic. I think that's a good thing. And there's, again, like, so much Fridish Nietra had this fantastic quote, you know, is, like, life is about becoming who you are, you say, and basically becoming who you are is just like you have this idea of your, I don't know, some kind of your potential, you know, your ideal self, something like that.

Dr Simon Fokt: And you're always overcoming who you are right now, so that you can become this person you really actually want to be. And I think that's fantastic. And I think that potentially, you know, also dealing with the fact that sometimes you are overdoing things in a way that some would label toxic or something like that. Well, that's a that's a fantastic thing to improve, you know, and just be a better Simpson.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. Another learning experience. You know?

Dr Simon Fokt: Absolutely. Yeah.

Bill Simpson: If we could see these so called setbacks or failures or however you wanna look at it, as an opportunity to learn from and grow, that's that's what we can do. You know?

Dr Simon Fokt: And Absolutely.

Bill Simpson: One of the techniques you mentioned that study in one of the techniques I use with my clients sometimes is looking back 5 years ago.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yep. You

Bill Simpson: know, where were you then and where you are now? And that's where they actually see the progress, you know, versus what they're searching for. And then we go, okay. Well, let's imagine 5 years from now where you'd like to be.

Dr Simon Fokt: Well, that's that's that's exactly it. I have to say I recommend one thing. This is something I have been doing for myself. And I would absolutely recommend it to any person, which is do rituals. Yeah.

Dr Simon Fokt: We, as a society, have completely forgotten about the power rituals. I am not a religious person. I am not particularly spiritual, but I do absolutely believe in the psychological and the social power of rituals. And I think that they are absolutely fantastic in helping us with exactly what you described right now because so many changes in life happen very gradually. They happen very slowly.

Dr Simon Fokt: Nothing changes from yesterday to today. Exactly. You know, you're still the same person. It's very difficult to see at which point something changes. And the kind of rituals of passage that our ancestors did, the kind of rituals of even the seasonal rituals, like the beginning of summer.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right?

Bill Simpson: Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: Are a fantastic time to kind of stop and give yourself this time to think like, okay. What did actually change over the last year? No. How am I different from the last Spring Equinox or something like this? Right?

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Maybe he wants to think of. Like, I I just did this ritual for myself. There's an old slavic ritual in which you create a wicker figure of Magana, who has the winter goddess. And then you burn her and you drown her.

Dr Simon Fokt: And the idea is, yes, absolutely. It's pretty morbid. But the idea is that you are just, like, communicating that all of those things that were there in the winter that are things of cold of death or things that you don't want to have with you anymore, they should just go away.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. It's just a metaphor for releasing what's not serving you, that kind of thing.

Dr Simon Fokt: Exactly. Right? And that is a fantastic moment to kind of stop and do exactly what you were saying a moment ago what you do with your clients, which is to kind of force yourself to go, okay. What is it that I don't want? What is my intention for the next year?

Dr Simon Fokt: What are the things that I don't want to take with me anymore? And we still do some such rituals. You know, we do graduations, for example. Graduation is a perfect example because, you know, nothing changes from the day before you graduate the day after you graduated. You're not suddenly smarter.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right? No. You have been getting smarter for the last 3 or 5 or however many years. Yep. Yeah.

Dr Simon Fokt: But then because you have this one day, you go like, alright. I achieved something. I'm like, there is something new. Right?

Bill Simpson: Acknowledgement of that too. Yeah.

Dr Simon Fokt: Exactly. So I think that, yeah, like I say, our society kind of forgot how to do these sort of things. So I think that it's up to everyone to bring it back somehow themselves. I would very highly encourage people to do that.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. And I can see rituals too. I did a whole episode on rituals and relationship. But if it's a daily ritual, weekly ritual, monthly quarter, whatever, yearly, however you wanna do it. But the more you do it, it reinforces that change that you're trying to make.

Dr Simon Fokt: Absolutely. I think so.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. We need that reinforcement over and over. It's so easy to slip back into our old ways.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Unfortunately.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. So, you know, my show is all about relationships. Just curious, you know, some of your philosophy around, modern day relationships. What would you wanna say to men looking at to get into relationships, how to

Dr Simon Fokt: perceive relationships, and so on. Mhmm. Yeah. That's a great question. And so many people and so many men are struggling with this these days.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think that thank you for being here. I think this is great. And thank you for helping so many men with us as well. I think fantastic to have this, like, people needed. Sure.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think, like, part of why people needed this because, unfortunately, there's so A lot has changed when it comes to relationships over the last 50 years. And a lot of the kind of old scripts in which it just follow you know, follow the the script are just not that anymore. You know, people don't get married and at 20, have kids at 22, have, you know, 3.5 kids a house and a dog, and that's it. Right? And I ever ask if this is what they ever wanted.

Dr Simon Fokt: No. People don't don't do that anymore. And you know, everyone is constantly on this mission to optimize how great their life is going to be. And they constantly want to optimize their relationships as well. And that leads people to constantly ask, like, I am I doing it right?

Dr Simon Fokt: Am I getting the best deal I could get? And all of the kind of commodification of love, which is happening with dating apps and things like this is not helping because it's just it's this kind of, like, shopping experience almost.

Bill Simpson: I just saw a thing recently on the news about, you know, these scams that are going on with the dating apps and people

Dr Simon Fokt: Mhmm.

Bill Simpson: Running people's lives because people trying to take advantage of another person.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's really shocking how people are trying to just monetize others misery, frankly, and others loneliness. It's it's just disgraceful. I think that my advice to first of all, I just wanted to say that I want to acknowledge that it is genuinely hard.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right? Because I feel like sometimes people just go like, oh, what's your problem? You know, just like, you know, if if you have a problem with that, something's wrong with you. It's like, no. It's genuinely hard.

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. So first of all, guys, if you're struggling with this, like, you know, don't be too hard on yourself. It is objectively difficult right now.

Bill Simpson: Absolutely.

Dr Simon Fokt: And and, I mean, I'm I'm also saying that from a perspective, maybe I should do a full disclosure. I'm saying that from a perspective of someone who has been very nontraditional when it comes to my relationships. I have been in open relationships for quite a while or in poly relationships. I have been, I had quite a lot of partners as well, and I moved to Berlin where I'm part of this kind of very sex positive scene as well. I thought a lot about this, and I tried various kind of nontraditional ways of doing relationships.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think what helped me the most in this whole thing was paradoxically not thinking so much about the relationship but thinking more about myself. There's a fantastic book that I have read recently called PolySecure. It's kind of focused on open relationships, but it doesn't matter. And here, it's really useful for anyone. The author's main thesis in that is that if he wants to be positively and securely attached to your partner, you first need to learn to be securely attached to yourself.

Bill Simpson: That's right.

Dr Simon Fokt: You first need to know what it is like to actually really feel good with yourself to, you know, appreciate yourself, to, you know, give yourself grace, to give yourself the benefit of the doubt, to basically be nice to yourself. And, and it's not always easy. And I think so many people right now, partially because they're experiencing the, you know, some sort of set box and dating and other things are just not not very nice to themselves. They don't treat themselves as well as they should. Know, they don't sleep well enough.

Dr Simon Fokt: They don't exercise well enough. They don't eat well enough. They don't take care of themselves. The way you should take care of a person you love. And I think it's so important that we love ourselves first and learn how to do that before we can go out and try and find relationships and love others.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think this is very closely connected in practice. I think that the more you love yourself or the more you, I know, secure in your own being, the more attractive you are, the more you seem like the sort of person others would want to be with. And, like, paradoxically, the less you focus on finding a relationship, and the more you focus on just being the kind of person that people would want to have relationships with, easier it will be for you to to find a relationship. So I think that this is my top recommendation to any guys is just really focus on on yourself on being in tune with, like, actually really understanding what is it that you want. Again, it's like, I will refer to Anchen Philosophy because it's it's just the best in this respect.

Dr Simon Fokt: Socrates had this fantastic line saying that you should know thyself.

Bill Simpson: Right.

Dr Simon Fokt: Or that an unexamined life is not worth living. That's from Plato's the apology, I think. And the, basically, the idea is that well, we should stop and just think, why do we want the things we want? Why do we think the way we do? Yeah.

Dr Simon Fokt: What is it actually that I want and what is it the stuff that kind of, like, society tells me I should want or, you know, the guys are telling me I should want or whatnot? How should I be with myself or with other people in a way that works for me and not necessarily for others? And I think that when you have this sort of awareness, and you have, like, give yourself the, I don't know, attention and love, then you just become the sort of person that Alice wants to be with.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. And I, you know, I look back at my journey and, you know, I've been through 3 divorces and, you know Mhmm. Learned a lot through through the years and There was a time where I had overlapped most of my relationships out of my own insecurities. And it wasn't until I was alone and I had a twenty seven room house at the time and a dog. You know, everybody was out of the house.

Bill Simpson: And I was in the middle of my living room and just as alone as I'd ever been in my life. And that's where everything shifted to where I had to Bill okay with me and learn self compassion and really be okay by myself. And taking that time made all the difference in the world. A lot of what I do in my practice is based around self compassion. Because we're just not taught this, you know, especially as men, And, you know, and it's not a a a pity party.

Bill Simpson: It's always me. My life sucks. That self pity. It's I hear about myself as I would Simpson that I I would love and want in my life. And that's a process because

Dr Simon Fokt: Absolutely.

Bill Simpson: It it takes time and takes a lot of reinforcement because we're so used to being hard on ourselves, most of us.

Dr Simon Fokt: I think that's totally right. And thank you so much for sharing this and for helping Adam and do that as well. And, unfortunately, there's also kind of, like, almost a Tigma is like, oh, you're just being so full of yourself or something like that. No. Just be kind to yourself the way you would to another person.

Bill Simpson: Yeah. Yeah. It's just that Simpson, yet it's hard. It's hard to plot, you know, because it

Dr Simon Fokt: It is. It is. And I think it's also maybe worth adding in there that you said being by yourself. And I think that many people associate that with loneliness

Bill Simpson: No.

Dr Simon Fokt: And loneliness is a very negatively charged term. But loneliness and being alone or solitude are 2 completely different things. Like loneliness, you can be lonely in a crowd. You can be lonely at a massive party, and you still feel like you're just, you know, alienated from everyone else. Lonliness is not the fact that you are one person in a room.

Dr Simon Fokt: Lonliness is in your head is how connect do you feel to everything else? If and loneliness also is about whether you chose it yourself or not. If you choose to be home on your own, read a fantastic book, make yourself a delightful dinner, and then, you know, just feel great by yourself, or even just, you know, sit and think about your life or whatever else, you've done it by choice. You've elected solitude, and you have, you know, spent this time on I don't know, becoming a better person potentially. Whereas if you are, you know, wishing you or somewhere else and your home on your own playing a computer game or whatever else, then you're lonely because you're not really spending this time on being with yourself.

Dr Simon Fokt: You're just distracting yourself constantly with something you're just kind of, like, using whatever it is, you know, TV, computer, whatever else just to not think about the fact that you're on your own. I would very much recommend that people purposeful elect to be on their own for the sake of learning to just love themselves and be better with themselves.

Bill Simpson: Absolutely. You know, this one thing I've said a lot is I'd rather be alone than feel alone in a relationship.

Dr Simon Fokt: That is a perfect way to put it. Absolutely.

Bill Simpson: I'm okay. I'm okay with me. I just don't wanna feel lonely when I'm with you. So, Simon, I I know you came up with this, thing called man's compass. Can you tell me if that's all about?

Dr Simon Fokt: Of course. Right. So I've started blogging about masculinity about a year and a half ago. I've been kind of doing some academic work into this before, but I'm I wanted to bring out the academic knowledge kind of out of the academia and actually talk to people a bit more. And I was thinking how should I and deliver this so that it just helps people as well or maybe inspires people to be better.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I came up with this idea of the man's compass And the idea of the compass is that we are objectively thrown into this pretty chaotic world right now in which everything seems to change a lot in which we have been handed scripts about how to be, what to do, and all that. And then we do those things, and everyone tells us that we're doing it wrong. Right. And everyone keeps telling us that every everyone keeps telling us what not to do, but hardly anyone ever tells us what to do.

Bill Simpson: Exactly. Right.

Dr Simon Fokt: And everyone seems to like, it it seems like this world is just really chaotic and unwelcoming to many men. And I think that many men resent this and want to either go back to the old world or kinda, like, shut it down or something like this, but the truth is we can't peddle back history. We won't be able to go to it. Like, this is this is the world we're dealt, and we need to somehow find our place in it. So the idea of the compass came from this kind of narrative, which is that we need to find our place somehow and a compass is a pretty good tool to help us find a place.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I also use the metaphor of a compass because, you know, how, Jordan Peterson is in his 12 roles for life, he says that he is trying to give you a map through chaos. I think that Joden Peterson is really great at identifying the problems that guys are having. I just don't think he's great at offering solutions. I think that his solutions are very often very outdated and just do not really affect the world as it is right now. And this is the metaphor that I was trying to use as well.

Dr Simon Fokt: I wrote this text. Don't trust an old man's map. The idea is that maps go out of date. You print them up. And in 20 years' time, you know, things have changed.

Dr Simon Fokt: And this is this is what happened, I with with Jordan Peterson. And I like the idea of the compass better because, you know, the compass will always show you the right direction.

Bill Simpson: And the Compass has been around for a long time too.

Dr Simon Fokt: Exactly. Right. Yeah. In preparation for this, I listened to a few of your episodes as well. And I just wanted to also say, I'm really appreciative of the fact that you are actually doing things that help men, you know, be more aware of their mental states and emotions and everything else.

Dr Simon Fokt: There is a great quote from Bill Hooks. I don't know if you've read her No. She's one of those feminists who are always, like, accused of liking men too much. And she had a fantastic line saying that men will not learn to love unless someone teaches them to love or unless we give them scripts on how to love something like this. Mhmm.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I was thinking about this while listening to your podcast because I think that this is exactly it. It's like, how are people meant to know how to do things if nobody tells them? That's right. That you're doing a good job of trying to help them in time.

Bill Simpson: Awesome. Well, I appreciate that means a lot to me, Simpson. Thanks so much. Well, Simon, I Bill appreciate you taking the time. I mean, you have your wealth of knowledge and this man's compass Are guys able to join this and join your discussion?

Bill Simpson: Or what what's the process here?

Dr Simon Fokt: Absolutely. So, right now, I'm basically trying to publish various, text and videos on various platforms. So you can follow me on medium. You can follow me on soft stack. Or you can watch the videos on YouTube as well.

Dr Simon Fokt: And in all of those places, there's the built in discussion, discussion tools. So if you would like to have a discussion there, I would very much welcome this. I am planning right now to expand this a bit and potentially start either a Discord channel or maybe a Slack or something like this. That would be more kind of a community based thing. I will definitely update you when this happens.

Dr Simon Fokt: Right now, I'm in the process of working this out.

Bill Simpson: Awesome. Well, I'll make sure all that contact information is in our show notes. And, hopefully, we'll we'll cross paths again and get updated on all the things that you're doing. Any last words you'd like to share with us, Simon, before we part?

Dr Simon Fokt: Yeah. Of course. I just wanted to encourage every man who's listening to this to just be kind to yourself and don't don't feel horrible when you make mistakes, maybe this way. I think it's so common for men to feel like they need to be perfect out of the box. Like, any mistake you make is just a proof that you're not man enough or lesser than or somehow unworthy or whatnot.

Dr Simon Fokt: Mhmm. She's like, no. Mistakes are human. We're all imperfect beings. And it only means that we can improve.

Dr Simon Fokt: And I think that if you focus on on finding better ways to improve and to train your virtues as Aristotle would say, then you will end up on top, and if there's a much better way to live. Yeah.

Bill Simpson: Some great words of wisdom there. Simpson Fox, I appreciate what you're doing. Keep up the good work. I wish you continued success, and hopefully our paths will pass again.

Dr Simon Fokt: I really appreciate your work as well. Thank you very much for the invitation. I'm looking forward to any future, meetings again. Yes.

Bill Simpson: And that will do it for this bonus episode of the men on the Path to Love podcast. The conversation about modern masculinity with Doctor Simon Fox episode. I'm Bill Simpson, your host, Thank you for listening. Once again, thanking my guest, Simon Fox. His website is simonfox.org.

Bill Simpson: That's simon okt, by the way, simonfox.org. You'll find links to Simon's contact information in the show Now coming up on the next episode of the men on the path to love podcast, we'll get into Artie's story and how he learned about the one thing that put the nail in the coffin of his marriage. It's a sign that all of us in relationship should be aware of. What is it you may ask? You have to listen to the next episode to find out.

Bill Simpson: The answer just might surprise you. Please join me for the relationship Bill. A good sign your relationship could be over episode. Now as always, if you have a comment or suggestion or idea for the show, if there's something going on in your relation ship you need help with, maybe you wanna collaborate with me, be a guest on the show, or just wanna contact me, simply go to my web site where you can email me or set up a free call. Go to men on the path to love.com.

Bill Simpson: And when you're there, go ahead and download my free cheat sheet 5 ways to communicate better in relationship. You can do it right there on my home pay atmenonthepathtolove.com. And if you know anyone you think might get something out of listening

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Bill Simpson: podcast, Please share the link and share the love. And until next time, keep your heart open and stay. On the path to love.

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