Brawn

Want to Feel Like a Man? Then Act Like One

Several ancient cultures and religions taught the way to belief and personal identity was not through contemplation, but rather though action. They understood the power that our outward actions have on our inner psyche.

According to the Torah, when Moses stood atop Mount Sinai and presented his people the stone tablets with the Law of Jehovah inscribed upon them, the Hebrews spoke in unison “na’aseh v’nishma,” which means “We will do and we will understand.” Basically the Hebrews covenanted that they would live the Law first, in the hope that through living the law they would eventually come to understand it.  Today, this statement represents a Jewish person’s commitment to live all the Law of Moses even if they don’t fully understand the reasons behind each commandment. Modern rabbis teach that na’aseh v’nishma is how one comes to understand God and His laws for man. By living the outward ordinances, a change happens within...

...Aristotle believed that understanding wasn’t enough. To become virtuous, you had to act virtuous.

But the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g., men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Virtues don’t come through simply thinking about them. You have to “exercise them.” Aristotle’s promise is this: if you want a virtue, act as if you already have it and then it will be yours