This ruptured syllogism — If I understand myself, I’ll get better — made me question the way I’d come to worship self-awareness itself, a brand of secular humanism: Know thyself, and act accordingly. What if you reversed this? Act, and know thyself differently. Showing up for a meeting, for a ritual, for a conversation — this was an act that could be true no matter what you felt as you were doing it. Doing something without knowing if you believed it — that was proof of sincerity, rather than its absence.

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