Authors of the Ethos
“Live with strength. Strive with purpose. Leave a legacy worth remembering.”
About M.D. Shafer, Ph.D.
Mike (M.D.) Shafer is a researcher, author, and HCM professional whose work examines agency, self-regulation, embodiment, human performance, and character formation. He is the creator of Aevitas, an interdisciplinary philosophical system that brings philosophy into conversation with psychology, behavioral science, and exercise science.
Dr. Shafer earned his Ph.D. in Health and Human Performance from Concordia University Chicago, where his doctoral research examined relationships among resistance-training experience, training frequency, interoceptive awareness, and self-discipline. He writes essays and long-form work through The Living Ethos and is the author of Aevitas, Volume I — Agency Against Entropy.
“Time is the arena. Strike true under weight, and the form of your will will hold.”
About Sator
Marcus Domitius Sator is a literary creation of The Living Ethos, presented as a recovered Roman moralist in the spirit of Socrates. Within our tradition he stands as a proto-Aevitas forebear: a former centurion and teacher whose “Burned Path” doctrine joins Stoic rigor to embodied discipline.
His voice arrives through letters, discourses, parables, and life stories, preserved as if copied from lost codices.
Readers engage him as a historical presence while understanding his role as a crafted vessel for Aevitas ideals: present-tense realism, integrity under pressure, disciplined compassion, and courageous curiosity.