No Amateurs Allowed: The Duty of Total Fitness

The Greek Concept of Arete

Aristotle concentrated a large portion of his writings on virtue and the good. The thread that connected many of these ideas is purpose. The Greek word for this is "arete," meaning "excellence" or "to fulfill one's purpose."f For most things, the arete is obvious. A cup fulfills its purpose by holding liquid. If it's cracked and leaks, then its purpose isn't fulfilled; it's no longer "good." We might even say, "That cup is no good," as we toss it in the garbage. A knife is defined by its ability to cut effectively. The more dull it becomes, the more its arete is diminished. In both cases, the cup and the knife, the arete can be restored by mending, sharpening, or otherwise restoring their abilities to fulfill their purpose.

This idea is not limited to objects; it extends to all things. An ox has arete insofar as it can pull a cart or plow. A horse has arete insofar as it can run. But a man is a more complex being. Man can participate in the physical world, unlike the cup. Man can reason, unlike the ox. Man forms groups, families, villages, and polities. Our arete is a synthesis of body, mind, and character. The ancient Greeks strove to balance these elements in order to become a complete person; to have arete. Further, they understood this to be a journey, not a destination. On the journey, they will have to build 5 pillars of fitness on which their arete can stand: physical fitness, intellectual fitness, emotional fitness, spiritual fitness, and financial fitness.

Physical Fitness: The Vessel

The ancient Greeks went to the gymnasiums and trained with a focus on function. Form, as depicted by ancient statues we still idealize today, was a byproduct of the ancient Greek training regimen. To the ancient Greeks, athleticism was tied to civic duty.⁶ To be in good shape was to be useful, disciplined, and a symbol of good character. In ancient society, this could be a matter of life and death when the citizen was called to arms.

The same holds true today. A man in good shape, who is strong, fast, and agile, has a greater capacity for action in all venues. He has greater strength when physical strength is needed. He has greater stamina and energy, a valuable trait in all aspects of life. Further, building these physical qualities takes discipline and consistency, another highly sought-after trait in all theaters a man may find himself.

The modern world, social media, and Hollywood have taught men to seek only the appearance of strength and vitality, not the substance of it. As seen in so many other aspects of modern life, fast fashion, disposable technology, cardboard and MDF furniture. A man's body is a durable thing, a perishable thing, a vessel that should carry him well throughout the stages of life. It requires care and maintenance, and without it, the body will sink into disrepair. Raising a sunken vessel is far more difficult than the maintenance required to keep it afloat.

Intellectual Fitness: The Navigation System

A man doesn't need to be a Ph.D. nor does he need to be so erudite that he can only communicate with Rhodes scholars. He should, however, be curious, informed enough to know that he is not as informed as he should be, and open to challenging his preconceived suppositions and assumptions. The modern world is full of people stuck in the initial stage of the Dunning-Kruger Effect where the lack of knowledge that causes one to make mistakes or terrible decisions is the same lack of knowledge that prevents one from recognizing the mistake in the first place.

The prescription here is simple though difficult for many in that it requires not only a good deal of work but the ability to stop and recognize when he is being dishonest with himself in order to protect his ego. Further, it requires a willingness to supplant dopamine-fueled scrolling and reactions to headlines and clips with deep thought and understanding. Nuance shall set you free. Maybe, click the link and read the article completely, then consider the source and read a contrary article to balance it out.

Instead of letting the siren song of modern base pleasures lure a man's intellect into the rocks, he should embrace curiosity and humility.

Emotional Fitness: The Rudder

A man who doesn't control his emotions, or worse has little to no awareness of them in the moment, is destined for disaster. He will act rashly, foolishly, childishly, or cowardly. His capacity for courage is significantly diminished or nonexistent. Even at a more basic level, man is a political animal; translated into modern parlance, man is a social animal. It's no wonder that exclusion from a community is such a powerful punishment.

People who exhibit emotional instability quickly find themselves with smaller communities, smaller networks, and less advantage in personal and professional endeavors. Sometimes these individuals find new communities of like-minded emotionally unstable individuals. Together they march into dark places wearing victimhood, oppression, and lack of ability as badges of honor. What's more, the inability of a man to regulate his emotions makes him a slave to the same. Thus emotional fitness is core to his ability to succeed and to be free, without which a man has no ability to reach down and help others.

Emotional fitness, like all things, takes some amount of work. For some, a great deal of work is required, and for others, simple self-awareness is enough. This is a skill that can be learned at any age, but the longer it persists, the more challenging it becomes. While there are many parts to a remedy for emotional fitness, the first and most powerful is to practice self-awareness. When a man feels a change, note it, identify it, and try to step back from it and see it objectively. Further, ask the following: "What is this emotion?" "What is driving this feeling?" "Is it external or internal?" "Is this emotion at risk of getting out of control?" Lastly, "Can I, should I, get some distance from the cause?"

Financial Fitness: The Fuel

Wealth has always been, and always will be, a means to an end. In the classical view, being wealthy was not a destination, but a journey. Furthermore, wealth was, and always will be, a tool; an instrument to be wielded for good or for evil. How it is used is entirely in the hands of those who possess it. This is a level of freedom that the poor or debtors do not have. A man cannot be generous if he has nothing to give. A man cannot participate in the republic if he is a slave to his debts. If being a debtor is to be a slave, then being wealthy is to be free, or at least to have options. "Old money" families know this well, often using their wealth for philanthropy, while the poor and the debtor have little to no ability to be charitable, at least not at scale.

More importantly, though less obvious, is the difference in the perception of time between the poor and the wealthy. As a man's resources become constrained, his ability to perceive time, hence plan for the future, contracts. The poor is concerned with immediate needs and immediate desires, in part because these matters are themselves imminent. Though the inverse is not always true, as resources grow, the perception of time increases concomitantly. If this were true, then the nouveau riche would seldom end up in bankruptcy. Countless are the stories of lottery winners who are right back in the poorhouse only a short time after winning, or the professional athlete who makes tens of millions only to end up penniless not long after their career ends. Thus a man has the chance to perceive time in increasing intervals as resources grow. However, few possess the ability, or even know such an ability is required.

Because character determines the use and longevity of wealth, it is important we lay out the fundamental and simple guidelines to build and keep it. First, a man must never take on debt unless that debt will generate money in the future; these are investments. Second, practice restraint in luxury goods; anything that is not necessary to sustain life is a luxury. Third, a man must sacrifice today for tomorrow; money and time invested today will pay dividends in the future. Fourth, a man must never purchase a lifestyle at the cost of his freedom. Financial freedom is a precursor of political liberty.

These fundamentals are not easy when the world around us is trying to sell the perception of wealth. To be successful, a man must be disciplined, aware, emotionally reserved in matters of wealth, and intellectually curious.

Spiritual Fitness: The Anchor

The ancients and the founders believed that liberty required morality, and morality requires faith; thus, liberty requires faith. Without an external anchor, a man's morality—and by extension his liberty—is a matter of whimsy, desire, or the endlessly shifting political and social landscape. But the ancients rightfully understood that mankind requires certain freedoms, and those freedoms must be granted and protected by an authority that is outside of, and more powerful than, humanity. The ancients might point to the Gods, the Universe, or simply GOD.

Modernity has tried to chip away at GOD. The modern view supplants GOD with science, technology, the self, political or social ideology, or generic deism. All are user-defined, and none is a replacement for GOD. The same modernist ideologues who reject GOD or claim to be atheists merely erect their own gods, religions, and orthodoxies in their place. The same people who reject religion as an institution, often claiming that it is an "oppressive institution," often oppress others to a greater degree than traditional religious institutions ever did in myth or reality. It seems, then, that belief in a power beyond one's self is a natural condition.

From a very practical perspective, if to be human is to believe, then it stands to reason that belief in something that has stood the test of time is preferable to something that is only anchored to my or someone else's desires. There is one religious institution, Christianity, that anchored the West, from which science and medicine were born; it inspired priceless art and stopped the Western slave trade.

The choice of where to weigh anchor seems clear.

Now What

If a man can master all of these, then he has built a ship that can take him anywhere he desires and weather any storm. The strong hull (physical) keeps him afloat, and the rudder (emotion) allows him to steer to calm seas. Without the navigation system (intellectual), he has no direction, and without fuel (finance), he is at the mercy of the tides and currents. With all of this, when the storms come, he can find safe harbor, drop anchor (spiritual), and weather the storm with the knowledge he won't be sent adrift or sunk completely.

The 5 pillars are not arete; rather, they are the foundation upon which it is built. Your ship, dear reader, is not meant to stay in the safety of harbor or on stilts in dry dock. The arete is found in the adventure that follows.