I keep fit, I work out, I eat pretty damn well, I don't drink

Hear the words of Mick Fleetwood, spoken not with vanity but with the wisdom of long years: “I keep fit, I work out, I eat pretty damn well, I don’t drink like a fish, and all of those things are tempered with a holistic mind-set that you need to damn well respect the vehicle that you’re walking around in.” These words may sound plain, born of daily habit, yet they are profound, for they remind us of a truth older than empires: the body is the vehicle of the soul, and to dishonor it is to dishonor life itself.

The ancients taught this same lesson, though in other tongues. The Greeks proclaimed, “A sound mind in a sound body,” declaring that wisdom and strength flourish together. The yogis of India called the body the temple, wherein the spirit communes with the eternal. Fleetwood, through the lens of modern discipline, echoes their teaching: care for the vessel, not with obsession, but with reverence. For without the body’s strength, the spirit cannot manifest its highest powers in this world.

Consider the life of the philosopher Diogenes, who lived with little but demanded that the body be treated with respect. He scorned gluttony and drunkenness, not out of disdain for pleasure, but because they weakened the vehicle that carried the mind. Likewise, the Stoic Epictetus, though lame from slavery’s cruelty, declared that one must steward the body with prudence, for it is the servant through which virtue is enacted. Fleetwood’s words ring with the same conviction: respect the vehicle, lest it fail you when most needed.

His message is also a rebuke to indulgence. To drink like a fish, to gorge without thought, to live in sloth—these may bring fleeting delight, but they sow ruin in the long course of years. How many great men have fallen not from enemies without, but from decay within? Armies may be conquered by force, but countless souls have been conquered by their own negligence, their own failure to honor the body’s needs. Fleetwood teaches that discipline is not denial—it is liberation, the key to longevity and strength.

There is also a deeper meaning: the holistic mindset. To care for the body is not merely to lift weights or to eat sparingly, but to see the whole being—flesh, mind, and spirit—as one. The warrior who trains but feeds only hatred is unbalanced; the scholar who thinks greatly but lets his frame wither is diminished. True wholeness, Fleetwood says, is to balance the physical with the mental, the discipline of the flesh with the reverence of the heart. This harmony is what allows a man to walk his path with vigor and clarity.

The lesson for us is plain yet profound: cherish your body not as an ornament, but as your vehicle for life. Tend to it as you would a chariot bearing you into battle, or a ship carrying you across stormy seas. Feed it with wisdom, strengthen it with effort, temper it with moderation. And in doing so, you not only honor yourself, but also those who walk beside you, for a strong and steady companion uplifts the whole company.

What, then, shall we do? Let us practice daily acts of respect: rise and move the body, choose foods that nourish rather than corrupt, guard against excess in drink, and cultivate thoughts that heal rather than harm. Treat the body as a sacred gift, not an afterthought, and it will carry you with endurance into the later years. This is no call to vanity, but to stewardship. For the body, like the earth, is not ours to abuse—it is ours to respect, to use wisely, to pass on in dignity to the dust from which it came.

Therefore, O listener, take this truth to heart: your life is carried in a fragile yet wondrous vehicle. If you honor it, it will serve you; if you neglect it, it will betray you. Follow the wisdom of those who came before, and of Fleetwood who speaks today: respect the vehicle you walk in, and in so doing, you will walk farther, live stronger, and shine longer in the journey of existence.