What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?
Mens sana in corpore sano — a sound mind in a sound body.
I cannot remember when I first heard it. Possibly at Mowden Hall as a prep-school boy; certainly by the time I was at Sedbergh. Oddly, I don’t associate it particularly with a Latin lesson. What comes to mind instead is the Headmaster at Mowden holding forth during one of his General Studies classes.
Whatever Juvenal originally intended, I took it to mean something quite specific: a healthy, active intellect housed in a well-maintained, athletic body. That appealed to me enormously, and it still does.
I know now that the original is rather more nuanced. Juvenal is saying that if we are going to pray for anything, we should pray for a sound mind in a sound body — along with courage in the face of death and the strength of character to value virtue above wealth, status and luxury. It is less an instruction to get fit than a philosophy of what constitutes a life worth having.
But my teenage interpretation stuck.
I admired — and still admire — people who refuse the artificial separation between intellectual and physical achievement. The Oxford physicist who also rows for the University. The Olympic athlete who goes on to lead in business or public life. Sebastian Coe comes to mind. So does Nadia Comăneci: extraordinary physical discipline, concentration, courage and precision. I liked the idea that developing your mind and developing your body were not competing activities but parts of the same project.
Of course, taken literally, the proposition immediately falls apart. Stephen Hawking rather spectacularly demonstrates that intellectual greatness does not require an athletic body. Physical disability tells us nothing about the quality of a mind.
So perhaps my philosophy has matured with me. I no longer think mens sana in corpore sano means that you must be physically fit in order to be intellectually strong. Rather, where we have the choice, we should look after both. Read, question, learn, think — but also move. Swim. Walk. Ski. Use the body while you can.
For me, they have always fed each other. I think while I swim. I learn through doing. Physical exertion clears space in my head; intellectual curiosity gives purpose to what I do.
So after more than half a century, I still come back to those four Latin words.
Mens sana in corpore sano.
Keep the mind alive. Keep the body moving. Give both the chance to flourish.
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