Most of the Transcript HR Day 615
Back To: HR!Day615 - The Challenge of Being a Man with Dr. Jed Diamond
[Jim Garrison] 11:09:06
I'd like to now introduce someone who I've gotten to know over the last year who's become a friend and colleague, and with whom we're beginning to collaborate developing at Ubiquity University a whole program on mail health and well, being because given what I said in the
[Jim Garrison] 11:09:26
Introduction, the issue of how we understand the male Psyche, the male body, and why there's this proclivity among men to do such pervasive violence against women, against the earth, against each other through war and devastation, is perhaps the greatest the issue of our time, and so we are going to
[Jim Garrison] 11:09:52
Begin that exploration today with a gentleman named Jed Diamond, who's been one of the foremost leaders in the men's movement for over 50 years, because it was over 50 years ago that he founded the organization men alive.
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:08
He's written 17 books, including a number of international bestsellers.
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:13
I can remember reading Mail Menopause number of years ago, and the irritable male syndrome.
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:24
And now Jed is just about ready to publish his new book called The Moonshot.
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:28
Would really looking at how men can improve their lives. And with this immediate goal of just living as long as women? Because, as all of you know, almost everywhere in the world women live much longer than men. Why is that
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:48
So to help us understand. I'd like to welcome Jed to the program. Jed.
[Jim Garrison] 11:10:53
Thank you so much. He and his wife have 6 kids and multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren.
[Jim Garrison] 11:11:02
So. Jeff is a man par excellence, and has really focused his life on the empowerment of went out of men in a very, very specific way.
[Jim Garrison] 11:11:14
So Jed, I'd like to welcome you. And why don't we start with you?
[Jim Garrison] 11:11:19
Responding, in whatever way you would like to my opening remarks, and then we can just get into more details about your various.
[Jim Garrison] 11:11:30
Ideas for the program that we're code developing. But speak to us as deeply and as long as you would like about the challenge of being a man in our time
[Jed Diamond] 11:11:43
Thank you, Jim, and thanks for the opportunity to be here with you and with our audience today.
[Jed Diamond] 11:11:52
One little quick! Quote. I can't remember who who authored it, but it's it's very powerful, has lived with me for a long time.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:01
I, he said. Men are violent because their souls have been violated
[Jim Garrison] 11:12:09
Hmm.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:10
So if I could. Press what I'm going to say with that idea, and acknowledge that not all men are violent.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:20
Clearly, this is some men, and not all men whose souls have been violated in some way, become violent as a response.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:31
But those who become violent have had their souls violated, and we talk a bit about what that means.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:39
But I think if we can just let that reality come in, it allows us to stay out of the either.
[Jed Diamond] 11:12:50
Accepting or believing that this is all men. This is a a, a problem, that is, men who are just bad men are bad, you know.
[Jed Diamond] 11:13:01
Some people say we ought to just get rid of men. You know.
[Jed Diamond] 11:13:04
World would be better off if men would be gone, and others believe that the the community of life on planet Earth would be better off if humanity were just gone.
[Jed Diamond] 11:13:17
Well, I think we can do better than that, and I would offer, as at least my own introduction to this work.
[Jed Diamond] 11:13:29
It. I got interested more than 50 years ago, after the birth of my first son Jamal, and as I held him in in my hands for the first time, tidy little baby, and look down at him, I I made a promise that I would be a different kind of father then my father was able to be
[Jed Diamond] 11:13:56
For me, and to do everything I could to create a world where men were fully healed.
[Jed Diamond] 11:14:03
We're fully engaged with themselves there, their families, and the community of life
[Jed Diamond] 11:14:12
Then I was able to be, and I wanted to pass that on to to my son, and later, when my first daughter Angela, was born in in 1972, my son was born in 1,969.
[Jed Diamond] 11:14:30
That was really the birth of men alive, where I felt that I wanted to have a a a window to the world, if you will, to help me understand some of the questions that you are raising like.
[Jed Diamond] 11:14:46
Why did my father reach a point when he was midlife?
[Jed Diamond] 11:14:53
Where he felt that he was overwhelmed with guilt and shame because he couldn't make a living to support his family.
[Jed Diamond] 11:15:04
That's how it felt to him, and he felt that if he couldn't do that, if he couldn't make a living, if he couldn't be the breadwinner, then he shouldn't be here, and I think that theme that if we don't fulfill a certain role that i've
[Jed Diamond] 11:15:29
Come to see as a very narrow role. Some call it the man box.
[Jed Diamond] 11:15:36
The these beliefs that say, not only are we restricted, and who we could be, how we can feel what we can put out, but that there is a certain part of men that are inherently bad inherently awful.
[Jed Diamond] 11:15:58
Some of you all remember, or if you're a vrim grew up with the nursery rhyme that said contrasted males and females, said, little girls, remember this one were made of sugar and spice, and everything nice and little boys on the other hand, were made of
[Jed Diamond] 11:16:17
Variously translated snips and snails and puppy dogs, tails.
[Jed Diamond] 11:16:23
I'd always with that image. What happened to the puppy dog?
[Jed Diamond] 11:16:26
Why, why were there tails cut off, and the the employee was well, that's what boys do, cause that's who we are.
[Jed Diamond] 11:16:35
That's what we're made of. And I think there's reasons why that belief has gotten in our culture, because now we know that modern research clinical research as well as scientific research has shown pretty pretty substantially that the reason that we have problems in our lives whether it's physical problems
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:10
Emotional problems, relational problems have roots that go back to our childhood.
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:18
They call them adverse childhood experiences that are very common.
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:22
Everything, from divorce to growing up in a family that was violent to having fathers absent.
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:29
I wrote a one of my books is called My Distant D.
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:33
Dad Healing The family father wound so so many men and women, boys and girls grow up with fathers who were physically or emotionally absent, or who were in some ways wounded themselves and passed on that woundedness to their children, and so we have to ask then in in the context.
[Jed Diamond] 11:17:59
That you're you've you've raised some questions below the surface of wire.
[Jed Diamond] 11:18:05
Men, so violent? Why are we doing the things that we do to others?
[Jed Diamond] 11:18:12
We have to also realize that the flip side of the outward violence is inward violence.
[Jed Diamond] 11:18:19
You know, suicide is the ultimate expression of a hopelessness, a feeling of not only that the world cannot be improved, or I can't make it better, but somehow the world would be better off without me, and if there is a a a a process going on somewhat universally throughout the world of men as
[Jed Diamond] 11:18:47
A group becoming more violent, outwardly, and inwardly.
[Jed Diamond] 11:18:52
We know the suicide rate, for instance, for males is 3 to 18 times this us, but not so different other places.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:01
3 to 18 times higher for males and for females.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:06
And just think about. Let that sink in a little bit.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:09
Suicide rate 3 times to 18 times higher for males than for females, and rises as we get older.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:20
I mean, we all suffer from all the diseases and all the challenges of aging, but males as a group give up that are disconnected in some way from themselves, from the healing parts of life, and these are realities, not only that we have to face but once facing them.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:40
We can do something about. And I think that's what I've what I'm doing, what I've discovered, what I want to share with with the world and teach other people how to understand these things.
[Jed Diamond] 11:19:53
So that together we can rise together, and we can work together, and we can change the world together.
[Jim Garrison] 11:20:00
Thank you so much, Jed. Why don't we just start with men alive?
[Jim Garrison] 11:20:09
I loved it before we dive into the moonshot, and the program would would love to hear more.
[Jim Garrison] 11:20:18
About over 50 years of this organization being of service to men, tell us the the motivation to get it started.
[Jim Garrison] 11:20:30
Tell us the the evolution of of what you've learned about the male Psyche and men's head over these 50 years, because you've been in this domain very consistently for the arc really of the Women's Liberation movement.
[Jim Garrison] 11:20:50
You've seen all the social changes that have happened in the United States and around the world, and all the way through that you've been attentive to the male Psyche and male health, and I think people would be very interested in in hearing from you that journey
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:12
Well, the simple part of it is as a male and as a male who grew up with a father who, you know, took an overdose of sleeping pills at a certain point in his life, and was committed to the state mental hospital.
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:30
I grew up, really wanting to understand what happened to my father.
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:34
I think that's the personal part that we all have in whatever we do, that we want to know something about our ourselves.
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:43
So I wanted to understand what happened to my father, and below.
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:47
That was. Would it happen to me? What what is in me?
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:53
I'm a male. My father's male.
[Jed Diamond] 11:21:55
Is there something in me that's going to end up at a point where I will no longer wanna live, or I will wanna take my life.
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:04
And then beyond that, how can I prevent that from happening to me?
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:10
First of all, because you know, that's how I got into the field.
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:13
What can I? Ask? And I keep it for mapping to me, and then my own family is I had children, son and daughter, and then other children and grandchildren, and great grand but how could I help prevent other families from going through what what I went through so that really was the the impetus and when you have
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:35
Children when I had children, at least, having a boy.
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:40
I realized right from the beginning was a different experience. My male child was different from my female child.
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:49
They weren't just children, and they were, in fact, gender differently just from experiences.
[Jed Diamond] 11:22:57
Whole idea of well, children are totally a product of their environment.
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:02
Because I believe that at the time, and I wanted my son not to be, you know, just into sports and outward and into aggression.
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:13
Yeah, I wanted him to be soft and gentle and caring, and on my daughter to be able to be whatever she wanted to be, and he wanted to be a professional sports person.
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:23
I want. So I tried to guide them in the kind of the reverse of what the stereotypes were, and there are a lot of stereotypes that do not hold up in terms of what's real, but there's some biological realities that i've come to
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:40
Understand. And so men alive really, was my exploration place.
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:47
So it was where I wrote articles a lot for myself, and then, as people respondents oh, that was really helpful to me for other people.
[Jed Diamond] 11:23:58
And then over the course of these you know more than 50 years.
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:03
It's become a place where I could share my clients.
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:09
I could share a community of people who were exploring together.
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:11
I could house the books that I wrote. I've written, as you say, 17 books.
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:15
I've written a 1,000 articles over the last recent times before that I didn't keep track of them, but a 1,000 over the last, you know, 15 years or so that I put out and have, you know, found their way into the world and it's a really a place where we continue to explore together, and learn
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:34
together, share together, open our hearts together, be vulnerable to together, and find the way in which ultimately we can create a world that is the the the place we all know.
[Jed Diamond] 11:24:52
We want to be the place at once was, and can be again where humans were friendly with nature.
[Jed Diamond] 11:25:02
We're trying to dominate it weren't feeling dominated by it, but we were one part of the community of life it's been going on 3.8 billion years.
[Jed Diamond] 11:25:11
This community of life on planet Earth. And we want to be part of that for a long time into the future.
[Jed Diamond] 11:25:18
And that means humanity needs to change some things, and I think understanding men's wounding and men's healing is perhaps a key part of that, and certainly the part that is grabbed my attention and will continue through the rest of my life at
[Jim Garrison] 11:25:37
So I mean over these 50 years, Jed, you know we've all seen the arc of women's liberation and the extraordinary empowerment that's come to women and and girls a lot less focused has been on whatever arc there has been in terms of the male journey.
[Jim Garrison] 11:25:58
So you look back 50 years. And then juxtapose, where men have come today, have you seen men fundamentally changing?
[Jim Garrison] 11:26:08
At levels, for example, that women have. Do you see that men have basically stayed more or less the same?
[Jim Garrison] 11:26:16
What kind of changes have you seen in the mail journey over the last 50 years?
[Jed Diamond] 11:26:24
Well, again, it starts personally like so many things do in my life, and I think all our lives, and I happen to put put a lot of my personal story into my writing, and to my experience.
[Jed Diamond] 11:26:37
So I share, and one of the things that was early on in my experience was that I realized that my relationships with women were problematic.
[Jed Diamond] 11:26:49
I wanted a really good relationship. I wanted a different kind of relationship to the one I had with with my family, or that I signed my family growing up, and I got married early, had a children early, the my son and daughter adopted daughter and I went through divorce.
[Jed Diamond] 11:27:10
And then I licked my wounds and figured I'd made the wrong choice of partner, and then I I fell in love.
[Jed Diamond] 11:27:19
Again, and got married again, and I got divorced again, and if you go to my website metal live, you'll see my introductory video and sharing is kind of my my welcome.
[Jed Diamond] 11:27:35
I'm honest. I I I say, I I wanna share the confessions of a twice divorce marriage account, and going through divorce and a breakup is difficult for anybody and everybody, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that's been through.
[Jed Diamond] 11:27:55
A divorce and ending of a relationship. But if you're a marriage and family counselor, it has its own kind of guilt and and shame that it's you know I'm supposed to be helping others.
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:08
How can I do that if I'm not even able to have my own good relationship?
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:13
So I took a break. I actually dropped out of the field, counseling for a short time I became a waiter.
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:22
I decided I would just go back to basic. So I thought I'd get a basic job as a waiter at Howard.
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:28
Johnson's restaurant in Mill Valley. Actually, people know the the Bay area.
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:34
I worked at Howard Johnson's, and I learned some things just about myself.
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:38
I went back into therapy. For myself, I did a lot of reading, and I came out with, I think, a better understanding and what that led me to is I joined a men's at the time, you know, when women's liberation was happening, and women were coming together I felt kind of lonely I
[Jed Diamond] 11:28:56
Wanted something for me, but no men were were doing that, or very few at the time, but I found a group.
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:04
I I joined, and that group has now been meeting for 53 years.
[Jim Garrison] 11:29:10
Hmm.
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:12
And it was the the the core of what I learned about myself and and others, and what that group started.
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:23
And then I have another group that's been meeting now for 43 years.
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:27
That's continuing, and my wife, who now my third marriage with Carlin, she and I've been together now for 42 years, and she says a lot of the reason that we have a really great 42 year meeting is I've been in this particular men's group for
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:43
43 years. So I see that trend now, which was very small, back 42 years ago.
[Jed Diamond] 11:29:54
Not very many people were focused on men. Men were seemingly not that interested, although I think we were interested.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:01
Then we just didn't know how to do it. To come together in groups.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:05
And now they're groups all over the world. One of my books called 12 Rules for Good Men.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:11
The first rule, or the first guidance that I think helps, is men coming together in groups like these.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:19
You know where we can talk, we can be vulnerable.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:23
We can tell our truth, we can feel safe with other men, as I have come to see with the men's group.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:29
I'm in, and to start the dialogue to start talking about the the hazards of being male.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:38
The the problems. Not that we're just talking about.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:42
How can we be the alpha male or the you know the number one man often.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:48
That is a cover for our our weakness, our vulnerability that we're afraid to share, because so many of us have grown up with sports adages.
[Jed Diamond] 11:30:59
I was into sports, you know, with the red Grange was kind of the the famous coach from Ucla, who said, Winning isn't everything.
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:11
It's the only thing, and that's kind of transferred through the sports world.
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:15
And into men's Psyche in some way that has kept us from being able to be the whole people, that we are.
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:24
So that's really the beginning. And it's reaching, I think, peak potential.
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:31
Now, where these ideas, I think, are starting an exponential growth, where people are starting to come together to say, not to to neglect there's still a lot of work that needs to happen in healing the world of women and to be able to you know, make our apologies to own our part in this but we don't need
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:52
To do one or the other. In fact, they're intimately related.
[Jed Diamond] 11:31:57
I did a a training program. I was invited to be part of a a high school training program.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:05
It started out for girls to come together and and support and empower girls.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:12
And one of the things that came out of the the girls talking was that they said the number one thing that they thought would help these girls and high school have a better start at better beginning into the world of adulthood.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:28
Is, if we did something for males, you know. Get the boys you could help get the boys get their shed together.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:35
So to make you know this, and really help the girls. This was their.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:41
So then we started a group for boys and started a whole program in the High school to complement what was being done for Android with girls.
[Jed Diamond] 11:32:51
So these 2 parallel paths of healing men, healing women, and together healing our relationships is part of that larger picture of Helium.
[Jed Diamond] 11:33:02
Not only our relationships to ourselves, each other, but healing our relationship to the planet, that we all share
[Jim Garrison] 11:33:11
Beautifully put art and Mitchell is put in a quote from Bell Hooks, that that is just to this point that would love to have you respond to.
[Jed Diamond] 11:33:19
Yeah.
[Jim Garrison] 11:33:22
He says we need bell Hook says we need to hide the role women play in perpetuating and sustaining patriarchal culture so that we will recognize patriarchy as a system.
[Jim Garrison] 11:33:34
Women and men support equally, even if men receive more rewards from that system, dismantling and changing patriarchal culture is work that men and women must do together.
[Jim Garrison] 11:33:49
That's from her book, the will to change men, masculinity and love.
[Jim Garrison] 11:33:56
So speak, to us about that observation by bell hooks
[Jed Diamond] 11:33:58
Yeah.
[Jed Diamond] 11:34:01
Well, Bill Hooks is one of my heroes. What I learned early on was that you know a lot of the wisdom coming out of the the gender issues that were happening in the sixties, and seventys when I got started were from women.
[Jed Diamond] 11:34:18
And so I I early on felt that the women's liberation was my liberation.
[Jed Diamond] 11:34:25
You know I I went to feminist bookstores to read.
[Jed Diamond] 11:34:28
You know, people like Bill hooks. So I think it's it speaks to the recognition clearly of a you know, very understanding and a very powerful woman, of the connection, and the things that are wounding all of us, and one of my colleagues that I've I've been working with
[Jed Diamond] 11:34:50
For more than 30 years. Rianne Isler, who wrote The Chalice in the Blade, and many other books, and Ryan had a very interesting view.
[Jed Diamond] 11:35:01
She? She said that she had a different conception that I I like, and I use about the the the 2 has that the world is on 2 contrasting systems.
[Jed Diamond] 11:35:16
Then she called the Domination system, and the partnership system, and so, rather than call what we've some have called the patriarchy.
[Jed Diamond] 11:35:26
She uses the domination system, which I I find is less putting on mail.
[Jim Garrison] 11:35:29
Hmm.
[Jed Diamond] 11:35:35
You know the patriarchy. I think we understand what that is.
[Jed Diamond] 11:35:42
But it it covers over some deeper truths about the the domination system, which you know in my writing, in my books I talk about goes back 6,000 years, you know, not not just to the the dawn of when we think of city-states and some say civilization was what we got off track when
[Jed Diamond] 11:36:03
We moved from Hunter, gather a culture but a certain way of being in the world that had to do with domination and some other colleagues of mine have done studies of what happened back 6,000 years ago, and James de Mayo did some very interesting research that indicated that there was environmental crisis
[Jed Diamond] 11:36:28
That happened in the middle east of not man-made environmental change, but generations of drought that caused, you know, people to die, families to die, and a feeling then of disconnection from up until then that feeling that the earth would provide that the spirits of the earth so this very long period in the
[Jed Diamond] 11:36:53
Middle East, of drought and famine many believe, then, was the beginning of that armoring that had to happen, and that Mays.
[Jed Diamond] 11:37:03
You know what that was kind of the beginning of the domination culture that spread in some ways throughout the world.
[Jed Diamond] 11:37:09
So I think all of this together can help us understand what the origins of this this problem that now we're living with an aspect of it, the domination but as Rienne says, there's also a very long history, a longer history of partnership, that I think we can re reclaim
[Jed Diamond] 11:37:35
Reimagine. And I think a lot of it's gonna be triggered and hopefully supported by men doing our part so that we can join the women that are doing their part to make the changes that we all know need to be made
[Jim Garrison] 11:37:50
Hmm, hmm! Well, let's deepen that that, and that's transition to your current project, which I'm thrilled to be participating in with you.
[Jim Garrison] 11:38:03
And ubiquitity University. Tell us about the moonshot for me that you've been galvanizing over the last year or 2, because this is really the culmination of your life's work in a very very fundamental way, and so for the balance
[Jim Garrison] 11:38:23
of the time. Let's talk about this moonshot.
[Jim Garrison] 11:38:26
What do you mean by a moonshot for men
[Jed Diamond] 11:38:29
Well, let me give you a little background about how this started.
[Jed Diamond] 11:38:33
Is we talked men alive has been going, you know, since my first son was born, so November 20, first 1,969 was kind of where I I placed that beginning, and then my daughter's birth in 1,972 and the actual starting of men alive, and the website and
[Jed Diamond] 11:38:54
I tried to orient what I knew about how to how to heal myself and others, and then I read around research study that that in a way just totally shocked me, and it felt like a call, to action.
[Jed Diamond] 11:39:10
2 colleagues. Randall. Nessie is an Md.
[Jed Diamond] 11:39:15
Who's a friend I got to know at conferences, an evolutionary psychology and evolutionary trends in in the world, and he and his colleague, Daniel Krueger, did a study of cultures throughout the world.
[Jed Diamond] 11:39:34
And they start 20 different cultures and countries and what they found they were interested in understanding how men and women live.
[Jed Diamond] 11:39:46
Their lives, and what would be the factors that would allow for good, healthy, long life, and one of their findings was that in every culture they studied they found that men died sooner, and we, you know, I think that's common sense.
[Jed Diamond] 11:40:05
We we kind of know that. And they also live sicker.
[Jed Diamond] 11:40:09
They get more of the major disease killers, heart disease, cancer.
[Jed Diamond] 11:40:16
That at higher rates than women, and those are the things that eventually kill us, and their conclusions were for me the call to action.
[Jed Diamond] 11:40:27
They hoped that once these findings were put out, the governments and organizations would jump on this and and start to make these kind of changes, and what they found was that if you could simply help men live as long and healthy lives as as women and there's things we now know that you can
[Jed Diamond] 11:40:51
Do? They said that you would save 375,000 men's lives every year in the United States alone.
[Jed Diamond] 11:41:01
So let that sink in a little bit. 375,000 men's lives every year in the United States alone.
[Jed Diamond] 11:41:11
So think about. We all have fathers, grandfathers, men we know, who died before their time, and we all know women who often are carrying on with a wounded.
[Jed Diamond] 11:41:26
This was friends I've seen. What would it be like if those men didn't die if they lived a full life, and you could live, and there's reasons, maybe, why we can't get the whole way, because there's some biological things that maybe are more difficult to change.
[Jed Diamond] 11:41:43
But we can do a lot. So 375,000 men's lives every year in the Us.
[Jed Diamond] 11:41:50
Alone, and there. Bottom line. Conclusion said, if we could do that we would do more good in the world than curing cancer.
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:00
So I think curing cancer. We were all right. That would be a good thing, you know.
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:06
Everybody says, Hey, man, if you know, if we could do that, and everybody's got their own, if if we could do that man and we can do this and the the moonshot idea really came from Google, I have a I have a colleague who was one of the the main people at what's
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:31
Called Google X, and Google X is the division within Google that does big projects.
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:39
They look for things that they can in impact with not a an incremental change, a 10% improvement in something.
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:49
They want a 10 apps improve at 10 times, and it's called their moonshot factory.
[Jed Diamond] 11:42:56
That's the the common name within Google for Google Acts.
[Jed Diamond] 11:43:00
They call it their moonshot factory, and in my mind, going to the moon was a big deal.
[Jed Diamond] 11:43:09
But if I think of what would have an impact on humanity and on life on planet Earth getting men to the moon, I think, pales in comparison to what it would be like if we could live peaceful lives on this planet and be able to have relationships that were healing and helpful and men and women live long and
[Jed Diamond] 11:43:34
Healthy life. So my moonshot came together, as you said about 2 years ago, where I recognize that I had been doing this work for all these years.
[Jed Diamond] 11:43:48
I had some pretty good ideas of what worked, but I also have developed, you know, I've been traveling all over the world.
[Jed Diamond] 11:43:57
I've met colleagues. I'm guessing at this point.
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:00
I'm just guessing, but I would say that they're probably a 1,000 really high quality programs, and in some way deal with men's health.
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:11
That if we could bring these programs together, if we could, you know, let each other know what we're doing.
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:18
If we could share our finding, and around that I I would say there are millions, maybe hundreds, of millions of men and their families and women who are saying, Yes, if we could do this, this is something I could get behind this isn't a a division between a left and the right or the this or the that this is something I
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:44
think we can all agree on potentially, this would be a good thing.
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:51
And so I brought together a a small group of colleagues, who I knew personally, who are doing good work.
[Jed Diamond] 11:44:58
We've been meeting for a year, and we have put together this idea, the the actual book that you mentioned that this is it.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:07
I'll just hold it up. It's actually called Long live men that this is the or just my copy.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:13
It'll be out later this year. The subtitle is The Moonshot Mission to heal men close the lifespan Gap right, and offer hope to humanity, so that that'll be out later.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:26
This year is part of this larger movement that we're hope to develop where we can get the the 1,000 organizations together under hopefully a collective umbrella.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:39
We can do some training which is why I approached you, because I think if we're really going to help, you know millions of men and their families.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:48
And this is you can't separate out men's healing from women's ceiling.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:53
So women are part of this, my original group that I put together have women, not just guys.
[Jed Diamond] 11:45:59
So there's women and women who believe in this are part of this.
[Jed Diamond] 11:46:04
So, men and women coming together. So we want to train people and I'm hoping, you know, we can get a training program together so that we could start it this year.
[Jed Diamond] 11:46:15
And really share a lot of the not only the data, but the the stories, the the heartfelt stories that we know.
[Jed Diamond] 11:46:25
If we could get in touch with them in our own hearts and our own souls and our own lives, we could, in fact, transform the planet.
[Jed Diamond] 11:46:36
We can change the dialogue, we can change the beliefs we can change the stories that really animate either a partnership future or a domination for.
[Jed Diamond] 11:46:50
And I think we have the the the knowledge, and hopefully, as we spread that knowledge, the skills and the actions that can move us collectively together towards the partnership future, that we all we all want, nobody wants to be beaten each other up blowing each other up killing each other but we have systems that make that
[Jed Diamond] 11:47:13
More likely. And those are the systems that we can change. Starting within each of us, going to the level of our relationships and going to the level of planetary healing of the systems that either support a partnership future or a domination future.
[Jed Diamond] 11:47:33
And we all want to do partnership. And now we know how to do that.
[Jed Diamond] 11:47:37
More places like you're you're ubiquitous, university and humanity rising, and a 1,000 others are doing this.
[Jed Diamond] 11:47:46
Let's come together
[Jim Garrison] 11:47:47
Beautiful, brilliant, and we'll be working a lot with Jed.
[Jim Garrison] 11:47:54
Everyone over the next several months, and and the year 2 is we craft this global conversation supporting Jed and this moonshot mission for men simply to live as long as women and ask the fundamental questions around, how do men do that?
[Jim Garrison] 11:48:18
What do they have to understand about themselves? What do they have to change about themselves?
[Jim Garrison] 11:48:24
What can they learn from women? Because the world women are already naturally doing it?
[Jim Garrison] 11:48:31
And so we man, in addition to supporting the liberation of women, I think I've got to come to the point where we see women as our mentors and our our leaders in some fundamental way, because they're they're living live.
[Jim Garrison] 11:48:47
They're doing life better than than we men are. And so this is one of the reasons why I've been so passionate about supporting what Jed is doing, because I think he's onto something with this moonshot.
[Jim Garrison] 11:48:59
And mission, that if the world could really seize it, is one of those rare things that could change everything, because men all over the world are suffering in similar ways, and women all over the world are doing something fundamentally better than men that men at this moment could really learn from so jets ass say a little bit more about the
[Jim Garrison] 11:49:27
Kind of training program that you envision for something of this audacity.
[Jim Garrison] 11:49:32
Because this is this is indeed a moonshot, my friend.
[Jed Diamond] 11:49:34
Well it is indeed! And again I I sum it up. They're, you know, they're people who kind of capture the essence of something.
[Jed Diamond] 11:49:42
And sometimes it's not the scientist. It's not the researchers.
[Jed Diamond] 11:49:46
It can be, you know, can be a a poet, a comedian.
[Jed Diamond] 11:49:52
Elaine Boozler is a comedian, and she she offered a quote.
[Jed Diamond] 11:49:56
Obviously somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think it captures both.
[Jed Diamond] 11:50:01
A, a, an essence of the problem, and within it part of the solution.
[Jed Diamond] 11:50:06
So Elaine said, talking about women first of all, she said, when when women get depressed they eat or go shopping, men invade another country, it's a whole different way of thinking, and obviously you can apply that many many places in the world you can apply it to Ukraine and one of
[Jed Diamond] 11:50:32
the things, and this ties into the the training about Ukraine.
[Jed Diamond] 11:50:37
Is that what people I think are don't recognize, and certainly it isn't in the mainstream media that there is a a peace movement that is going on in Ukraine and all over the world that says you know there's a different way.
[Jed Diamond] 11:50:52
We can solve the problem. Then you know the fighting and what we read about is the fighting and the defending and the you know, inevitable invasion, and so on.
[Jed Diamond] 11:51:04
But one aspect that again hasn't been talked about is the peace movement.
[Jed Diamond] 11:51:11
People in Ukraine and other parts of the world, saying, We need to find a way to stop the killing and stop the fighting and stop the violence even in the face of you know a an acting out, you know, dictator, that I think we all recognize but understanding the causes are important and
[Jed Diamond] 11:51:34
A men's health reality. And I think we all have to pay attention to is we have a a family here in in Willets, where I live, who their daughter had been connected on an exchange student relationship with another family in Ukraine and now grew up and years later there in
[Jed Diamond] 11:51:57
Ukraine, wanting to get out, and so the the mother and her children are going to be arriving here, and Willets shortly, and a local family will be taken in.
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:07
The father wants to come, wanted to leave Ukraine, but because he's a man he cannot leave because there's a requirement that all men must stay in the country.
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:22
Women have a choice. Some women want to stay in the country. What a fight!
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:26
Want to get in. The army. Want to take up arms. Some want to be part of the peace movement, but the men don't have a choice, so I think part of the violets that we we see part of it is again, the system.
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:40
That says men must stay. They don't have a choice.
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:46
We recognize choice when we talk about females often, and reproductive.
[Jed Diamond] 11:52:50
Rights of Female choice being important. But we need to recognize that there are male counterparts to that, and one of them is the choice to say I don't want to fight.
[Jed Diamond] 11:53:03
I don't wanna take that choice away from me. I'd like to be able to choose.
[Jed Diamond] 11:53:09
So the training that that we're going to be doing really is going to start at some fundamental realities of difference between males and females.
[Jed Diamond] 11:53:26
And new research is saying. For instance, I you mentioned David Page is a a very high level researcher, biologist, medical doctor, and he has been doing genetic research for years, and he's found that he says there's 10 trillion cells in the human body.
[Jed Diamond] 11:53:50
And everyone is sex specific. And what does he mean by that?
[Jed Diamond] 11:53:56
We all kind of know. Basically, there's there's jeans.
[Jed Diamond] 11:54:00
There's, you know, 23 pairs, one of the pairs is the X and Y chromosome, and if you have an X Y chromosome, you have, you look like the males that are on camera at least here, and if you have xx chromosome, you or
[Jed Diamond] 11:54:21
Female, biological, female, regardless of whether you know your gender fluid, or you have different sensibilities, or the the the gender differences.
[Jed Diamond] 11:54:32
But by biologically, you are either male or female, and what he recognized is that there has been a belief worldwide that humans are 99.9 the same, and the idea was, you know, this nonsense about if you're this ethnic group or you're that if
[Jed Diamond] 11:54:56
You're different. You're inferior. You're no, we're 99.9% the same that had been the scientific understanding until they started doing actual genetic testing.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:09
And what Dr. Pages lab at Mit. That's where he works.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:14
In Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if found that, in fact, we are 99.9%.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:24
The same if you compare 2 main. So I'm looking at Jim on screen and myself.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:29
You and I, you genetically, are 99.9 the same.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:35
However, if you compare a man and a woman, we're only 98.5% the same.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:44
Same thing, 99.9% the same. If you check 2 women's genetics.
[Jed Diamond] 11:55:52
But male and female are 1.5% different, and that difference between point one and 1.5% is 15 times the difference.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:05
So genetically, males are different from females by 1.5%.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:11
I mentioned to Jim, I said, if that doesn't seem like a lot, we know that humans as a group are that different from chimpanzees.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:19
So Jim and I are as different from mail to chimpanzees as we are in our in our genetics.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:34
So the bottom line takeaway for me is that men and women not only are different genetically, but in Dr.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:43
Page's lab, and then there's the paper that Jim and I talked about, that I have which will be pulled on my website over the next probably month or so.
[Jed Diamond] 11:56:53
Shows that the difference in cells, so 10 to trillion cells, each one, if we're male, is different from females, they actually code for different proteins, that there's a whole host of diseases that we get more likely if we're female than male or vice versa, and
[Jed Diamond] 11:57:14
These are the things that we will help. People understand everything from the basic genetics to the biology, to the psychology, to relationships, to the larger issues that that are different and the things that we're the same as that we're not differed in cause we're the same in many ways so the
[Jed Diamond] 11:57:38
Goal of this is to help people understand themselves so that we're not having to pretend we're different.
[Jed Diamond] 11:57:50
There is a I forget, who, who made this simple and off the cuff quote.
[Jed Diamond] 11:57:57
He says, if if you're not who you is, if you hate who you is.
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:03
You, you, you you're not being yourself, if you be who you is, or you'd be who your 8.
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:11
You gotta be yourself. And the essence of our training is, how can you be who you are?
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:19
Biologically and part of being biologically male is to recognize that we're biologically weaker than females.
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:31
There's a biological reason why men die sooner and live sicker lot of that can be changed.
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:39
But Sharon. Morland, so you'll see in my paper is an Md.
[Jed Diamond] 11:58:46
Researcher who has done research on the X chromosome, and every woman has 2 x's and all 10 trillion cells of her body, and it turns out having 2 X chromosomes, allows females as a group to prevent a lot of illnesses because if there's a problem on
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:09
What x chromosome you have another X chromosome that may have a positive benefit for males.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:17
We only have one X chromosome, and we have a Y chromosome.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:20
So everything from the biology to the psychology, to the relationship we're going to train people.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:30
And what I do as a therapist is this translates into how we can help men and women have better relationships.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:38
It can help us deal with depression in different ways. It can help us recognize it.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:44
My vision is, we might go to a health clinic.
[Jed Diamond] 11:59:47
My wife and I. We go in the front door, and then she'd go one way and I'd go to the other way, and we'd each get gender specific health care, and then we'd come back together so that I could understand what she was getting so I could support that she could understand what I was
[Jed Diamond] 12:00:04
Getting to support that. And we could understand how we can both live long, healthy lives, so that we, you know, can age together healthy, and whatever our ultimate lifespan is, so I'll be 80 this year.
[Jed Diamond] 12:00:21
So I'm hoping, and I've got another 20 years.
[Jed Diamond] 12:00:24
So this is where I want to put my energy for the next 20 years is to continuing this study and to sharing what we've learned with the world
[Jim Garrison] 12:00:34
Brilliant, brilliant, you know, to your point that Jed, around the the X and Y chromosome differences, and reading your article just to give people an example and love to have you commented in terms of like rheumatoid arthritis it's 3 to
[Jim Garrison] 12:00:53
One. Women more than men have rheumatoid arthritis.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:00
On the other hand, autism is 5 to one, men over women and lupus, for example, same same thing.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:12
So as we explore more about these fundamental differentials between men and women we're really realizing that that 1.5 differential.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:27
And the fact that we carry the kind of the sex chromosomes in every single cell in our body that influences.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:34
Jed is saying the everything from what proteins to kind of what diseases were really beginning to realize.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:42
And this is what I find so fascinating because it wasn't until I was engaging with Jed that I even began to realize that this was even true.
[Jim Garrison] 12:01:50
I'd always thought I I think most of you, that men and women are basically the same, except for our reproductive mechanics or difference, and so forth and so on.
[Jim Garrison] 12:02:03
But if the the the difference between the male and female is a fundamental difference at at at every level, and that's what makes it so challenging.
[Jim Garrison] 12:02:13
But that's what makes it so exuberantly wonderful.
[Jim Garrison] 12:02:18
As well, so that to have the the men and women truly begin to understand the women are to week or sex, as has been thought for, you know, 6,000 years.
[Jed Diamond] 12:02:33
Well, and that's been part of the problem with men is that we've had to pretend, because we've had trouble acknowledging our businesses.
[Jim Garrison] 12:02:34
Just think of what that will change in our high end.
[Jim Garrison] 12:02:41
Yes.
[Jed Diamond] 12:02:44
So we have to pretend to be strong, and that pretending is what in external within a dominator, culture ends up with strong men dictators, you know such prevalent, you know, throughout the world. And that's what we need to change so you're right on with that Jeff.
[Jim Garrison] 12:03:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so your book comes out in in, is it? May
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:10
Probably be Mayor June. We're gonna probably have a big release around father's day weekend, and the the week before father's day.
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:21
So the the book will be available there'll be classes.
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:25
The whole moonshot group that I've been organizing will will have some information you and I talked about of having some some introduction to the training that we'll be doing later this year, so people can learn about it sign up for it that'd be part of it because it's
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:44
It's for all of us. It isn't just me training.
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:48
This is gonna be. I will have guest experts that will be coming in who have been working with so it won't just be me.
[Jed Diamond] 12:03:55
They'll be the the best people in the world will be sharing their own experiences and together, because we are gonna learn from each other.
[Jed Diamond] 12:04:05
We will be focused on. How can we learn? And how can we heal?
[Jed Diamond] 12:04:12
And how can we create the world that we know? We we all want and want for our children and grandchildren, and my 2 great grandchildren that I have now?
[Jed Diamond] 12:04:21
And hopefully will have more of that lineage. Is the the children that grandchildren continue to do their part, to, to do their lives together.
[Jim Garrison] 12:04:33
Well, thank you. Jed. This has been an amazing dialogue, and we'll keep everything posted on the developments, because we believe tackling the issue of being a man in you know, the twenty-first century is a critical critical challenge.
[Jim Garrison] 12:04:53
And we have to tackle it at the level of a moonshot, and we know it can be done.
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:00
We just have to be able to think big enough and work collaboratively, globally enough to bring in.
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:09
You know those 1,000 organizations and a whole new transformation of global consciousness.
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:16
So thank you, Jad, and as we close what would just give us from your life nearly 80 years old.
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:25
Now, what would you say to men that are listening to this broadcast about who they need to be?
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:35
And what kind of challenges they need to take on, and how they can begin to participate in this moonshot
[Jed Diamond] 12:05:43
Well, I think, as I said, the the core is being able to acknowledge our vulnerability.
[Jim Garrison] 12:05:52
Hmm.
[Jed Diamond] 12:05:53
Acknowledge our weakness, you know, acknowledge that we we don't want to keep having to carry the the demand that we be something other than who we are, and I think part of the whole women's movement has been that for women to say you know the there there's more
[Jed Diamond] 12:06:15
To life than the roles that the Society has told us is who we are, and I think men are starting to recognize that.
[Jed Diamond] 12:06:22
But it means we need to be in a safe place to talk about
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