Taking the fear apart. Twenty words, and the whole device lies in κατὰ μέρος, "piece by piece." The fear of death is usually presented whole and is therefore irrefutable; Marcus demands that it be broken up into its parts: death is dreadful because it will deprive me of — what exactly? And the asking is not general but ἐφ’ ἑκάστου ὧν ποιεῖς — "at each of the things you do," one at a time.

The same verb as at 10.18. ἐφιστάνων — "halting, dwelling upon": literally the device of 10.18, only turned not upon a thing but upon one's own occupation. There one halted over an object to see it dissolving; here over one's own business, to test whether it is worth the fear.

A question whose answer is not supplied. Marcus gives no answer — and that is how the device works. The answer must arise of itself in the running through: here I am hearing a complaint, here dictating a letter, here eating — and of each of these one has to say "no, not because of this." The fear is not refuted by an argument; it runs dry for want of an object (cf. 2.14 — a man loses only the life he is living; 9.3 — do not despise death but be content with it).

Why this is a discipline of assent. The work is done not on the event but on the judgement "death is dreadful": the judgement is broken into checkable parts, and not one of them survives the check. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.