A tautology that is really a recipe. TERMἐὰν πρὸς τὰ ἀδιάφορά τις TERMἀδιαφορῇ — "if a man is indifferent toward the indifferents." The phrase sounds circular, but the circle is not there: the first ἀδιάφορα is the school's classification of things, the second ἀδιαφορεῖν a state of the person. The passage is precisely about the passage from the one to the other, which does not happen of itself.

How exactly. EXERCISEθεωρῇ EXERCISEδιῃρημένως καὶ ὁλικῶς — "looks at it taken apart and taken whole." Both adverbs at once: to divide into parts (the device of EXERCISEdefinition, cf. 11.2) and to see it within the whole. Rogovin renders this as "in division, and not in its whole shape" — an opposition the Greek does not have: there it is καὶ … καί, a conjunction.

The main argument is that of 11.11, but with a new image. οὐδὲν αὐτῶν TERMὑπόληψιν περὶ αὐτοῦ ἡμῖν ἐμποιεῖ — "not one of them puts into us an opinion about itself"; τὰ μὲν ἀτρεμεῖ — "they stay unquivering" (the same verb as at 11.11), ἡμεῖς δέ ἐσμεν οἱ … κρίσεις γεννῶντες — "and we are the ones who beget the verdicts about them."

The image of writing and erasure. καὶ οἷον γράφοντες ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, ἐξὸν μὲν μὴ γράφειν, ἐξὸν δέ, κἄν που λάθῃ, εὐθὺς ἐξαλεῖψαι — "as it were writing them inside ourselves; we may not write them, and we may, if one has slipped in unnoticed, rub it out at once." A wax tablet: a judgement is not an event in the world but an inscription made by your own hand, and therefore erasable. The concession κἄν που λάθῃ matters: Marcus allows that the writing appears without one's willing it, and demands not infallibility but speed of erasure.

A consolation drawn from time. ὀλίγου χρόνου ἔσται ἡ τοιαύτη EXERCISEπροσοχή — "such attention will not last long." The argument is an unexpected one: usually the brevity of life devalues the object of desire; here it devalues the difficulty of the work itself. The watch will not have to be kept for long.

A fork instead of a prohibition. DOGMAεἰ μὲν … κατὰ φύσιν ἐστί, DOGMAχαῖρεDOGMA αὐτοῖς … εἰ δὲ παρὰ φύσιν, DOGMAζήτειDOGMA τί ἐστί σοι κατὰ τὴν σὴν φύσιν — if according to nature, rejoice; if against it, seek what is your own. And the proviso κἂν ἄδοξον ᾖ — "even if it be without repute," with a justification rare in its mildness: παντὶ γὰρ συγγνώμη τὸ ἴδιον ἀγαθὸν ζητοῦντι — "for anyone seeking his own good is forgiven." The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.