Decomposing the "I." The passage is a brief diaeretic analysis: the "I" consists of a little body (σωμάτιον, a belittling diminutive — "paltry flesh") and a TERMsoul (here in the person of διάνοια, the thinking part). Then a double sorting into the TERMindifferent (ἀδιάφορον) and the non-indifferent. The governing discipline is assent (what lies in the mind's power); the sustaining one is desire (all else is indifferent, to be accepted).

Two domains of the indifferent. (1) To the body everything is indifferent — it "cannot register a difference" (οὐ δύναται διαφέρεσθαι) at all; it has no evaluating instance. (2) To the mind, indifferent is all that is not its own activity (ἐνέργημα): the external, the alien, the bodily — outside it. But its own activities — judgments, assents, impulses — DOGMAlie wholly in its power (ἐπ’ αὐτῇ). This is the exact formula of Epictetus' "what is up to us" (ἐφ’ ἡμῖν).

Contraction to the present. The final move narrows even the domain of "one's own" to a single instant: the mind deals only with the present TERM(τὸ παρόν) activity; its future and past activities are "already indifferent," since they cannot be disposed of now. Freedom and responsibility are drawn to the point "now": the only act that is really mine is the one performed this very moment.

Parallels. 06-08 (the ruling part moves and judges itself); the doctrine of the DOGMAdichotomy of control; the narrowing to the present — Med. 3.10; 8.36; 12.3 (to live only in the indivisible "now"). Cf. 06-02 (the indifference of outward conditions to "doing what is fitting").