Not so long ago I discovered very good blog about serious literature where the author tries to give his own interpretations to the great works of literary classics, posts there are dense and try to uncover main ideas contained in literary works and what was possible meant by their authors. And more over each post accompanied with short YouTube video (on average 5 mins) where blog’s author speaks about the book in question with some presentation/graphic material. Here is the link to this blog: The Great Conversation
I should admit that the amount and quality of content in this blog is amazing, and personally I’m going to follow it 
Also if you a bit into great literature and on look out for thoughts and ideas which literature contains in abundance, you may be interested in this blog too.
Now to the topic of this post of mine. “Nietzsche & Bodybuilding”, where is connection you may ask? Well in the analysis of Nietzsche’s “On suffering” which you may find on aforementioned blog author draws some parallels between Nietzsche views on suffering and bodybuilding. Though it is a bit unclear to which particular work/works of Nietzsche this blog post corresponds to (looks like it is about Nietzsche views on suffering in general) I enjoyed it anyway.
Let me quote a bit from this post:
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Nietzsche claims that man is composed of two parts – a creative part and a part that is created – in other words, mind and body. According to him, the body is meant to suffer, and the mind is meant to fashion something beautiful out of the suffering of the body. “In man creature and creator are united: in man there is material, fragment, excess, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day – do you understand this contrast? The body must be fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, and refined – it is meant to suffer.”
An athlete, such as a bodybuilder, is the epitome of this idea. A bodybuilder subjects his body to the pain and suffering of training in order to create a physique that is aesthetically pleasing. The weightlifting adage, “No pain, no gain,” is an echo of Nietzsche’s ideas.
It is also somehow reminded me about one of the best essays on working with weights I read so far – Iron and the Soul by Henry Rollins. This one may interest you if you are avid gym goer or just thinking about what it gives or may give you.
As a person interested both in literature/ideas and sport I found these parallels interesting. Another interesting thing I learnt for this blog so far is the fact that Einstein once said that “Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist” (this is from the post DOSTOEVSKY: The Brothers Karamazov)
