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. The text has διάφορον, "differing, not indifferent"; Rogovin renders it "the material of activity is something indifferent," as if the word were ἀδιάφορον, and Long breaks off his translation at "and remember…". The passage is probably corrupt, but the sense seems to be the same reservation: 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").