A man lay beside the pool at Bethesda for thirty-eight years. Before healing him, Jesus asked what sounds like an absurd question: do you want to be made well? It isn't absurd. It is the only honest question. To be well is to lose the life you built around not being well: the spot by the water, the explanation, the identity. Then the instruction. Rise, take up your bed. Carry the thing that carried you.

Knowing without embodying is the most dangerous illusion, because it feels like progress. Epictetus said the sheep don't vomit up their grass to show the shepherd how much they've eaten. They digest it, and produce wool. Marcus was blunter still: stop arguing about what a good man is. Be one.