Be Magnanimous
Prioritize your body, not your mind. What does it mean to be magnanimous, and how can we acquire a great mind or soul?
The word magnanimous comes from the Latin magnanimus, which is a combination of two words: magnus meaning “great” and animus meaning “soul” or “mind.” Thus, the literal meaning of magnanimus is “great-souled.”
Have you ever felt anger, lust, or greed?
These are all very normal emotions and feelings that an individual will experience throughout their everyday lives. When you get angry, your face turns red, your blood rushes, your muscles tense up, and you may desire to scream, to raise your voice, and inevitably lose your temper. This is not a very good feeling, is it? The feeling of anger is not something that I personally desire, but when you feel anger, maybe it’s best to channel it into physically noble acts.
Our emotional response to stimuli ultimately creates a physical response within our bodies. Because of this, we must become extremely mindful of our bodies and how we respond to stimuli. Think of anger, and how you can channel this energy into something productive or positive. The simplest suggestion is to channel your anger into weightlifting, into increasing your physical strength and vitality.
I think that it is inevitable that a weak body will create a weak mind. This weak-minded person will succumb to these emotional responses, lashing out in embodied flesh, screaming, being hot-tempered, or reacting negatively to their emotional whims. I think this is why you see so many people in traffic, sitting in their cars, screaming behind their windshields, throwing up the middle finger at other people, and lashing out behind the driver’s seat. These people in these cars, when I see them, often look pretty weak, often fat, and kind of just sit back like a big baby in a stroller, whining, and complaining.
The Tragedy of Modern Life
The ultimate pitfall of modern society is our enslavement to technology. Whether it’s waking up to an alarm, driving in a car to the office, sitting down inside artificial environments with air conditioning, operating computers, responding to emails and text messages on time, being punctual, always on call—we are always ready to tend to the mind, prioritizing our minds over our physical bodies. This becomes a problem because this inevitably leads to a decline in our physiological needs, such as sun exposure, movement, and fresh air. By engaging ourselves in this enslaved way of life, we lose touch with our natural essence of what it means to be human. Humans are physical creatures, designed to roam freely, to stand upright, and to belong in an open space, not an enclosed environment. This is the ultimate tragedy, where we involuntarily cage ourselves, enslave ourselves. I blame high school and the public education system, where you are taught to be obedient, to listen to the bell ring, to memorize and pass the test, to always be on time, to achieve perfect attendance, etc. In my personal experience, we had security everywhere, entered the school through an x-ray machine and a metal detector, with all doors locked, and were not permitted to go outside for any breaks or lunch. This experience ultimately forms my perception of modern society and how we’ve all involuntarily agreed to find comfort in these enclosed systems. If you train the masses, they will inevitably succumb to this mind-numbing way of life.
Brain Rot?
Think about a lot of media and entertainment—they become brain rot. When I take public transportation in Philadelphia, the SEPTA bus, on my way home from the park, 99% of the people are engaged in playing some strange game that resembles gambling. What are these weird casino-style video games on the iPhone these days? They seem like they rot the brain, similar to that of TikTok, and the toxic information that’s constantly being bombarded on the screen.
Rise Above Pettiness
How can we rise above pettiness, drama, and the complexities of modern life?
I think it’s very simple, and it all derives from sleep. When you put your vitality first and foremost, everything else falls into place. Let’s stop sacrificing the body for our mind. These days, it seems virtuous to pull all-nighters, to stay up, to study for the test, to finish that project, and just work, work, work like a busy bee. However, with poor sleep comes decreased vitality, energy, and power. I think if we all just got really good sleep, went to bed earlier, we could fix a lot of modern society’s problems. I think when you have lower vitality, the first thing to consider is sleep itself. Maybe a lot of people aren’t getting good sleep, and that’s why you see so much chaos in the streets? This is why people easily succumb to their emotional whims with anger and rage on the road. They’re tired because they’re sitting down in the car, and most likely spent too much time in the evening watching stupid YouTube videos or TV shows on Netflix. Why do we design bedrooms with TVs in front of the beds these days? Super strange.
By prioritizing our sleep, we increase our vitality, strengthening our bodies and our minds. With this increased vigor throughout the day, nothing that stands in your way will disturb you. You become magnanimous through the physical practice of getting deep sleep, standing upright, and not caging yourself in like an animal in a zoo, sitting down for eight hours per day. Be physical, prioritize your body, your sleep, and you will create a magnanimous mind, one that transcends the pettiness and drama of everyday life.