Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like

Ernest Hemingway, warrior of words and wanderer of the earth, once declared with his sharp wit: “Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind, and I like to write standing up.” At first his words sound playful, almost crude, yet within them lies the wisdom of a man who lived fiercely, who saw the world not from a chair but from battlefields, bullrings, oceans, and taverns. He reminds us that life, like writing, demands not passivity but action, not sloth but engagement.

The first meaning he strikes is the danger of stagnation. Both writing and travel can become excuses for indulgence, for sitting idly while imagining one is learning or conquering. To “broaden the ass” is his way of mocking those who mistake the act of sitting for the act of growing. Many may write without passion, or journey without truly seeing, and in so doing, their bodies grow heavy but their spirits remain thin. Hemingway, who despised pretense, warns that true growth comes only when the mind is as active as the body, when both writing and travel demand struggle, risk, and reflection.

The second meaning is found in his love of writing standing up. This is not mere eccentricity. It is a creed. To stand is to be alert, to be ready for battle, to treat the act of creation as serious and alive. In standing, the body remains engaged, and the words become not just thoughts but movements, strikes, thrusts. It is as though Hemingway viewed writing not as gentle reflection but as combat with truth, requiring the stance of a fighter. He urges us to meet life upright, awake, ready to respond.

We see the origin of this spirit in Hemingway’s life. He was not a man who wrote from ivory towers. He drove ambulances in the Great War, reported from the Spanish Civil War, fished the waters of Cuba, hunted the plains of Africa, drank among the exiles of Paris. His travel was not leisure but apprenticeship in the school of experience. Every place he stood became part of his voice. Thus his words mock idleness: for to him, travel without learning and writing without living are empty pursuits.

History offers companions to this truth. Consider Herodotus, who earned the title “Father of History.” He did not remain in one place and imagine the world; he journeyed across Greece, Egypt, and Persia, gathering stories with his own ears, seeing with his own eyes. Or think of Marco Polo, who did not merely dream of Cathay but endured years of hardship to record what he had seen. Both knew, as Hemingway knew, that travel and writing become meaningful only when the mind grows along with the body.

The lesson is clear: do not mistake motion for meaning. To write without passion is to pile words like stones without building a temple. To travel without reflection is to move like cattle without knowing the field. Engage fully. Let your journeys sharpen your eyes, let your writing test your courage. And do not sit idly, waiting for truth to fall into your lap—stand up, wrestle with it, carve it into form.

Practical counsel follows: when you write, do not simply fill pages—write as if your life depended on it. When you travel, do not simply take photographs—seek to understand, to reflect, to change. And in all things, avoid the comfort of passivity. Rise to your feet, both in body and in spirit, for growth belongs to those who remain awake, alert, and alive.

Thus, Hemingway’s words, though wrapped in jest, carry a warrior’s creed: that both writing and travel demand more than time; they demand soul. They may broaden your body if you remain idle, but they will broaden your mind if you live them fiercely. And to live fiercely—standing, engaged, unafraid—that is the true art.