The Necessity of Being a Consummate Individual

It isn’t a prerequisite to be a scholar of Aristotle’s philosophies, but I’ll begin by mentioning one of his concepts that is pertinent to this article. Aristotle was a teacher known for crafting the most brilliant minds in ancient Greece. However, one thing that may seem ostensibly peculiar to the reader is that Aristotle refused to offer his tutelage to those who claimed to be “intellectuals” or “thinkers.” Instead, Aristotle would only offer his sagacious teachings to those who were Olympians, athletes and physical specimens. Why eschew the thinker for the athlete? Because through a coalescence of his own musings and Eastern philosophy, Aristotle realized that those who have crafted their physical self have the highest potential for mental growth. The mind can only expand to the body’s limit. The athlete has already undergone a process of transcendence and improvement. Now the mind has a vast shell to occupy where mental and physical equilibrium is achieved.

Background

Nothing proves veracity more than a personal account. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, as nothing resembling an athletic prodigy. At the age of two, I came down with a debilitating case of asthma that had me sojourning in hospitals every few months. I grew into a lanky, languid, and mawkish youth who commanded no attention in a crowded room. I tried to drift through school and society as silently and sterility as I could. However, Brooklyn was a truculent and demanding borough. I reluctantly became involved in physical altercations. I wasn’t born strong, fast, explosive, muscular, or with any other athletic asset, so usually, if not always, the altercations would end poorly for me.

Despite not being intrinsically gifted with those aforementioned traits, I did seem to have two different qualities. I had a penchant for acquiring knowledge and an unrelenting will to work hard. So I began to feed my mind. I read everything I could grasp (literature, science, history, medicine, philosophy), and I began to creatively express myself (writing, painting, drawing). While this mental growth was occurring, my uncle simultaneously introduced me to boxing. I was still athletically dry, had my medical qualms, and had the same chalky, wiry frame. However, boxing began to come naturally, not due to any physical attributes but because I could intelligently dissect everything that was occurring in the ring. The opponents became predictable and I treated the entire experience like a chess game. This led me to a very successful amateur career.

Soon I moved from Brooklyn to the sunny and less aggressive city of Tampa, Florida. In high school, I continued excelling in academics and enlightening myself in my personal time. I began to attend wrestling practice/conditioning. It was brutal, but I urged myself to trudge forward. I was able to learn the technical aspect of wrestling with celerity. I could chain moves together with ease while simultaneously reacting very quickly to whatever the opponent attempted. I became one of the finest district wrestlers in my weight division.

I graduated high school with honors and was given an all-expenses paid academic scholarship to the University of South Florida. For the last few years, I have been writing and decided that I would become a creative writing major. Believe it or not, the following contrasting events occurred simultaneously. I decided I no longer wanted to be a wan six feet, two inches and 155 lbs hobbledehoy. Through a determined weightlifting program, I bulked up to 235 lbs. I began having my writing published in various literary magazines. I decided to compete in the sport of MMA, so I cut back down to a lean, fit 185 lbs. I went undefeated in my endeavor. I won various Editors’ Choice awards for my writing. I decided to continue in combat sports but as a superior athlete. I bulked back up to a lean 225 lbs by the means of attending Elite Strength & Conditioning in Tampa, Florida. I was now bigger, stronger, faster, quicker, and more explosive than I had ever been. And finally, I graduated with my bachelor’s degree.

People ask me how I am able succeed in such disparate fields. I answer that it is only because I test myself in such disparate fields. The relationship between the mind and the body is symbiotic. As one grows, the other is forced to do so also in order to compensate. For example, you can bench all you want; you won’t reach your full potential unless you do an equal volume of rowing.

During my collegiate studies, I became a bibliophile. It didn’t matter what the subject was—if it was new knowledge, I had to ingest it like some gormandizer. Reading books about strength and conditioning, programming, and technique came naturally. I absorbed it all and put it into application. Through a process of experimentation and edification, I was able to become the greatest athlete I could become.

With the acumen I had acquired, I realized that my greatest gratification came not from competing necessarily but rather from teaching others. I began to train clients, friends, and eager children. With whomever I trained, I has sure to stress the dichotomy of mental and physical, which creates the consummate being.

Iron

There is a certain ineffable feeling when you’re sitting in a classroom filled with writers and you know that later that day you will be throwing limbs with fury or lifting weights that they could only imagine in their fiction. And conversely, there’s a similar feeling when you’ve just finished a brutal training session with your partners and know that you will go home and immerse yourself in Joyce, Shakespeare, and Proust.

When you have a barbell prostrate before your feet equipped with more weight than you’ve seen, there is a certain mentally with which you must approach it. You must have a strong mind that will carry you through the labor before you, that will prepare you for the struggle that is to come, that will envision the lift already complete. If your mind falters and you question your ability, do yourself a favor and don’t even walk up to the bar. All events that enfold in the physical realm are perpetuations of a mental process. You realize that you are hungry, so you eat. You realize that you are tired, so you sleep. You realize that you need a career, an education, or a purpose, so you go out and act on these realizations.

I have had people come up to me and express their failure to achieve personal goals. They say, “Sameer, I can’t put on the quality mass I want to” or “Sameer, I can’t lose the weight and lean out.” They have the gall to say that they can’t. I immediately respond by telling them that universal laws have not suddenly suspended themselves in order to sabotage their goals. The goal they have has been accomplished elsewhere, thus it is in the realm of possibilities. So I flip the issue on to them. I ask, "Why won't you do what you want to do?"

PRs

If someone is having trouble hitting a certain PR in the gym, I tell them to go to the library, put a fresh sheet of paper in a typewriter, or grab a hold of a paintbrush. If someone is having trouble putting words on a page, I tell them to go to a gym, grab hold of the steel, feel their sinews work, and experience the feeling of lifting a weight that has the intention to stay inert. It’s easy to be a scholar when you’re an athlete. It’s easy to be an athlete when you’re a scholar.

Currently, I am working toward my master’s degree and staying active in combat sports and training others. I have people in each field say to me, "Why don’t you focus exclusively on one thing?" The answer I give to each person is the same—I won’t focus on only one field because I want to do the best I possibly could in each field.