Eight items and not one predicate. Like 12.7, the entry is built out of nouns: one infinitive, θεάσασθαι, at the head, and after it nothing but accusatives and indirect questions separated by stops. This is a table of contents, not an argument; each item is the heading of a topic the writer can expand for himself, and therefore does not expand.

The stripping is transferred from people to causes. γυμνὰ τῶν φλοιῶν repeats the word of 12.2, where the φλοιοί are the coverings of other men's ruling parts. Here the same operation is trained not on people but on τὰ αἰτιώδη, "the causal element in things": to look at a cause with everything grown over it taken off. The theological picture of 12.2 (God sees them bare) has become a working instrument.

Four τί's, and what stands behind them. πόνος, TERMἡδονή, θάνατος, δόξα — precisely the four things ordinary life revolves around: two that pull, two that drive. Marcus assigns them no valuations; he puts τί in front of each, "what is this": definition is itself the therapy, cf. 3.11, where one is told to make a ὅρος ἢ ὑπογραφή of every impression.

The turn to oneself — and it comes twice. After the four impersonal questions come two personal ones: τίς ὁ ἑαυτῷ ἀσχολίας αἴτιος ("who is the cause to himself of his being taken up") and πῶς οὐδεὶς ὑπ’ ἄλλου ἐμποδίζεται ("how no one is hindered by anyone"). The word ἀσχολία — "want of leisure, occupation" — is the very word on which 12.2 ended (ἀσχολήσεται): the two neighbouring entries are held together by one concern, what the mind is taken up with.

And the clasp. ὅτι πάντα TERMὑπόληψις — "that everything is opinion." The formula is placed last because it grounds every preceding item at once; and it will open 12.22, where the decisive addition is made: καὶ αὕτη ἐπὶ σοί, "and this is in your power." Cf. 4.7: take away the opinion and "I have been harmed" is taken away. The governing discipline is assent, the sustaining one desire.