the shoulder-pull commandment: rising toward what you'd pull down

The whole theme's physics stated as gym-safety scripture: set the resistance heavier than yourself and the machine reverses — instead of hauling the weight down to you, the wanting hauls you up toward it. It is the exact mechanics of every addict in the book, the object of desire become the fixed point and the self the thing that gets lifted, helpless, off its own ground. The commandment names the one law the whole novel's cast is busy breaking.