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"A Quiet Corner of The Web"

This is the title of David Kundtz's acclaimed book on male emotions which was published in January 2004 by Conari Press, Boston. Below are reviewer's comments, followed by the entire Introduction of the book.


Here are a few comments by authors and reviewers:

"In an age of feel-good books, Kundtz knows that many men must take a crucial first step -- knowing how to feel at all. His three-part approach to freeing men from entrenched stoicism is simple and workable, and his explanation of why we need to do it is compelling." -- Eric Robbins, Apple Valley Books, Winthrop, ME

“Nothing's Wrong is simple, short, straightforward, easy-to-read and very perceptive. Kundtz's ‘three steps’ give men and boys a clear guide to emotional fitness. I think this book is really going to change lives.”
—Michael Gurian, author of What Could He Be Thinking? and The Wonder of Boys

“In this book, David Kundtz tackles the single most important social issue of our age, and does it, as always, with incredible skill, integrity and humor. Even those of us who damn well know something significant is missing in our lives but have never approached a self-help book without gloves on, will appreciate, understand and benefit greatly from this book. If you have to, put a plain brown cover on it, but for your sake and for the sake of all the people you love in this world, read it.”
—Will Glennon, author of The Collected Wisdom of Fathers and founder of The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

“David Kundtz’s Nothing’s Wrong is a thoroughly feeling work itself. In unvarnished, deceptively simple language, the enormously under-acknowledged wilderness of men’s feelings is explored in a most welcoming way. This is a fine and helpful book.”
—Richard A. Hawley, author of Boys Will Be Men: Masculinity in Troubled Times

"The advice and insights within these pages are neither 'mushy' nor intended to in any way discourage the worthy and traditionally masculine goals of protector, provider, and role model, but rather will substantively help men of all faiths and cultures lead happier and healthier lives, and less likely to be struck down by stress-related ills. A practical and easy-to-understand assessment, Nothing's Wrong is very highly recommended reading. --A reader from Oregon on amazon.com

Introduction to Nothing's Wrong

Saving Half Your Life

This Book is for Men

You are reading the first words of the first sentence of the book that could save your life. Well, half your life.

Too many guys of all ages do not have about half the information we need in order to achieve success in life. The part that we actually get is the thinking half. That's the part that deals with facts, figures, procedures, and information. For the most part, we men do really well when we're dealing with this kind of factual stuff–really well.

The part we don't get is the emotional half. How do all the things that happen to us make us feel? You could say that we lost this half before we ever got it. Something in us–something urgently important–never gets life at all. It remains asleep, as good as dead. There are reasons for this–we'll name a few later on–but whatever the reasons, the smart, successful guys will get this information. And the sooner you get it, the easier your life.

Don't get the wrong idea. This is not touchy-feely stuff. Many of us don't much like that. This is about learning a skill and developing a process that most of us never got a chance to do. I have no power nor any interest in telling you what to feel, but rather to help you identify and express whatever you feel in a healthy way, and to be comfortable with the feelings of others.

Nothing’s Wrong is intended simply to serve as a guide to men in understanding how to deal with your feelings.

Women are warmly welcomed, but this book is written for males, from teenagers to grandfathers. The basic ideas presented here apply to everyone, but they are specifically designed for guys who never got a map for navigating the highways and byways of the emotional realm.


“What’s wrong?”

How many times we have heard that question! It generally comes when we are feeling something fairly strongly. Our response to the question invariably is, “Nothing’s Wrong” which always seems to be the wrong answer, at least not the answer that was expected or desired. The questioner is often–not always–a woman.

But our answer of "Nothing’s wrong" is actually a true answer. In other words, There’s nothing wrong with us. And that’s true.

However, time and again we are unable to get to the next part; we get stuck with "Nothing’s wrong." After we say what we know in our gut to be true–there’s nothing wrong with us–too often we stand there puzzled and unable to proceed. What comes next is only our unspoken question, Now what?

Nothing’s wrong with us. We are not deficient in some essential way, faulty from birth, somehow damaged goods, even though we are often perceived that way, by others as well as by ourselves. Our problem comes not from some essential flaw, but from a lack of recognition of our particular way to do feelings and our lack of training and encouragement in the way that is natural for us.

The lack of recognition and encouragement of a man’s way to do feelings is deeply ingrained in our cultural assumptions, so much so that the “unfeeling male” is a stereotype, a cultural joke, often accepted by both men and women.

The title of the book, Nothing’s Wrong, is intended to say that there is nothing at all wrong with the way men do feelings, if–and it’s a big “if”–we are given the chance to know and affirm the way that is natural to us, the way nature has equipped us to do feelings, which, as we will see, is often not the way women do feelings.


Guts

I mentioned that we know the truth of the title in our guts. I believe that “guts” is a good word for the way men do emotions. While women often “feel from the heart,” we “feel from the gut.” For many of us the source of our feelings seems to be, more than anywhere else, in the pit of our stomachs. It is often the place where we carry our tension and feel the effects of stress.

When we give an emotional response to some event or situation, it is often a “gut response,” something from a source that is deep, visceral, urgent, and primal.

I like the word too because takes courage–or guts–to take on the subject of this book. It takes a 21st Century kind of courage. The frontier we are exploring here is not an uncharted coast or interstellar space. We are exploring a personal and social process of the contemporary male. Our challenging frontiers are very different from our forebears', but the territory often feels the same: unknown and foreign.

The focus here is clear and specific: How men can become skilled and confident with the feeling part of life. Think of it as the course no one ever offered you: Feelings 101. I have tried to keep the journey short and sweet, the work light, and the payoff huge.

Welcome.