From Species Survival to Self-Determined Living: Why Phitness Goes Beyond Biological Fitness
By Dr. Shyam, Founder of Philosophit™
Why Philosophit™?
I have been teaching philosophy for decades, and in that time I have had the good fortune to become a scholar of philosophy beyond the Western tradition, drawing at an expert level on the South Asian tradition and Yoga. In teaching this broad range of philosophy to my students, I noticed something remarkable: those who were exposed to the guiding ideas of the Yoga tradition experienced transformational shifts in how they negotiated their lives. There was always a clear “before” and “after”—where the “after” was a life informed by the insights of an ancient Yoga practice.
Now, I am drawing on this wealth of scholarship and teaching, and reconfiguring the delivery. Instead of teaching philosophy and only accidentally facilitating transformations, I am beginning with the shift itself and introducing philosophy as a training exercise. Students of Yoga will recognize many themes from ancient Yoga philosophy here—particularly the contrast between natural, external influences and personal autonomy. The difference is that this delivery does not assume any prior interest in Yoga. It’s for everyone.
Why Phitness?
Charles Darwin, in his revolutionary works, introduced the idea of the “survival of the fittest.” Darwin’s idea of “fitness” is famously simple: survive and produce viable offspring. In nature, being fit means you’re good at staying alive long enough to pass on your genes.
But here’s the catch—in evolutionary terms, this isn’t about you. It’s about the species as a group, not about any of its individual members. That means nature sees no other value in you. The corollary of this is that once we reach the age when we are old enough to have passed along our genes (say, around 12?) to offspring who can do the same (around 24?), nature no longer has any use for us. And it is at this point that, on average, various challenges start to pile up, including the physical challenges of biological health. The pile only gets higher with each subsequent decade.
The flip side is that you can be “fit” from nature’s perspective and still live in ways that diminish your freedom, waste your talents, or leave you unfulfilled—so long as your genetic line continues. Natural evolution rewards reproduction, not personal happiness, autonomy, or meaning.
Philosophit™, on the other hand, starts with the premise that survival matters—but survival alone isn’t enough. From nature’s point of view, you’re just a vessel for genes. From your point of view—and from Philosophit’s™ perspective—you’re a person with goals and the need to choose your own path.
At Philosophit™, we define phitness as the capacity to live with autonomy, personal power, and the strength to create your own success. Phitness is a philosophical skill—in other words, a skill in living that comes from loving wisdom and developing the muscle of independence. It’s about surviving and thriving—with quality of life and self-determination—well beyond the narrow goals that are pre-programmed for us. Where fitness serves the species, phitness serves you. It’s the mental, sensory, bodily—moral—conditioning that ensures you’re not just here to keep the species going, but to live a life that’s yours in purpose, vision, and freedom.
Because in the personal arena, victory has to mean something for you as a person. That’s why we created Philosophit™.
Phitness: Mind, Body, and Senses Integration
It is possible to focus on just one aspect of life, and it can have important and healthful outcomes. Focusing on bodily health can help our mental health and our ability to take in experiences. Focusing on mental health can improve bodily health and our experiences. And by shifting our experiences, we can encourage ourselves to make important steps for bodily and mental health.
Phitness, as a philosophical skill, combines all of these concerns into one. When we engage in phitness training, we are increasing our skill to live practically via moral and intellectual conditioning. And since the focus is practical, it opens up an increased arena for responsible choices—choices we need to engage in to care for our body, mind, and senses. Phitness provides an umbrella for self-care and personal success, leaving no aspect of our existence behind.
Why Isn’t Phitness Training Widely Available?
In a world obsessed with fitness as Darwin imagined it, people squander their energy and resources on protecting a very narrow sense of who they are. This narrow sense of identity often revolves around the kinds of experiences and beliefs we are evolutionarily encouraged to have—those that support operating as though our only purpose is to pass along our genes so that our group survives over time. This often depends on the group we feel we belong to—our ethnic group, linguistic group, religious group, racial group—wealth group. In this case, we feel like the world is a Social Darwinian competition: if we do not outdo others in other groups, we will lose our space.
Most humans act as though it is humanity as a whole that is the Darwinian group that must survive at all costs. This shows up in the ways that humans fail to see value in the survival of other beings of different species—animals, plants, and the Earth itself. Yet, this focus on the Darwinian survival of our narrow group misses out on the phitness interests we share with all beings that inhabit our solar system. Fitness, in the Darwinian sense, paradoxically undermines our individuality for the sake of the group, and as a result, it prevents us from connecting with other individuals who are different but with whom we share interests in being phit.
When we are phit, we can celebrate our own individuality—and other people’s too. Phitness is about doing something literally unnatural but good for us. Living past the age when we are “useful” to Darwinian fitness is not naturally supported. However, living past this point and thriving is right and good for us—and it is supported by the right training.
At Philosophit™, we draw from the ancient and timeless practices of philosophical athletes who understood the value of life beyond mere fitness. We train for the survival of the phittest because phitness is the only evolutionary advantage that matters for you.
The future belongs to the phittest.
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