Where are they now? Nowhere. The first move is against shock: at every event (ἐφ’ ἑκάστου συμβάματος) keep "before your eyes" (πρὸ ὀμμάτων) those to whom the same befell — and who "were vexed, astonished, complained" (ἤχθοντο, ἐξενίζοντο, ἐμέμφοντο, three verbs of murmuring). The pole-axe question: νῦν ἐκεῖνοι ποῦ; οὐδαμοῦ — "where are they now? Nowhere." Both the murmurers and the occasion of the murmur are equally swallowed up (cf. 04-32, 04-50 — the clinging of the long-lived; 7.19 — the Chrysippuses gulped down by eternity). ἐξενίζοντο — "took it for a strange thing": to be astonished at an event is to fail to grasp that all has happened before (7.1).

Others' turns to their owners. The second move is the DOGMAdichotomy in an unusual formulation: "the alien turns" (ἀλλοτρίας τροπάς — others' emotional swerves, the passions) leave to "those who turn and are turned" (τοῖς τρέπουσι καὶ τρεπομένοις — those who set them going and those who yield to them). Be yourself "wholly" (ὅλος) about something else — about how to make use of it (πῶς χρῆσθαι). The event is not in my power; the manner of dealing with it is entirely mine.

Material for the fire. The third move is the MOTIFturning of the obstacle into fuel: χρήσῃ καλῶς καὶ ὕλη σοι ἔσται — "you will use it well, and it will become material (ὕλη) for you." Any occurrence is raw stuff for a virtuous act, as everything thrown into a bright fire becomes its food (4.1; "the impediment is the way" — 05-20; 8.35 — the rational soul turns what opposes it into its own material). The closing reservation removes even the last temptation, to take pride in the material: διάφορον ἐφ’ οὗ ἡ πρᾶξις — "that on which the act works is indifferent"; the value is not in the stuff but in the quality of the working. The governing discipline is assent (to use the impression); the sustaining one, desire (not to murmur, like those who are "nowhere").