This year, I will reflect on the four cardinal virtues through daily practice and meditation, intentionally focusing on one per season. After starting the year with prudence, I continued with temperance – or the capacity to contain appetites and moderate sensual pleasures.

This week, I reflected on temperance and the structure of our body.

Why tolerate mediocrity, when excellence is within reach. In Paris, this was my approach to bakeries. We feed ourselves three times a day: asking for good food is a way to respect our material selves. Temperance does demand a capacity to derive enjoyment from simple things – tolerating sloppy food is testing the devil.

Is temperance then no more than deep respect for the body – or better still, deep connection to the body? Monday, after concentrated hours of work, I said ‘it’s over’, respected my inner tiredness, and took rest. Tuesday, I rejoiced in a glass of Shiraz at a concert intermission – I responded to social cues, but respected advice from my Chinese doctor, that I needed ‘warming’ nourishment. I am bored of deliberately practicing temperance, yet my habits have changed over the last eleven weeks: I no longer crave for meat, alcohol, or a second coffee. I feel stronger. The culture of capitalism makes indulgence a default setting, so what if destruction follows; but I feel more willing and ready to resit

Engaging with temperance over three months has left me craving for activity – I look forward to no longer focusing on my body’s inner workings. Yet I do feel a deeper connection to my own weaknesses: appetites uncontrolled, ebbs and flows of energy, structural distraction. I know myself better, how fluid I am. I see potential in this. Solid is not the only state of strength. My body’s animated with constant currents and storms, cravings, passions, triggered by a chaotic environment, true; but if I can swiftly tie knots in the right places, and let the ropes loose in others, I can harness those inner gales, and sail onwards.