Enough of murmuring. A self-summons in the key of 9.26 ("but enough"): ἅλις — "enough" of the wretched life (ἄθλιος βίος), of DOGMAmurmuring (γογγυσμός) and "aping" (πιθηκισμός — the fidgety imitation of others). Three short questions open up the disturbance: what troubles you? what is new here? what unsettles you? — and none has a substantive answer, for you have seen it already.

Cause and matter — and that is all. Therapy by reduction: EXERCISEpart the disturbing thing into its cause (αἴτιον) and its matter (ὕλη) — "look at the one, look at the other; beyond them there is nothing" (cf. 9.25; 8.11). Hence two turns: toward the gods, become "simpler and kinder" (ἁπλούστερος καὶ χρηστότερος), and drain the span of observation of its weight — to study the same things "a hundred years or three" is all one. The governing discipline is desire.