Reading notes — Epictetus, Enchiridion — 2026-07-05

Ch. 1, the dichotomy of control. Some things are up to us: judgement, impulse,
desire, aversion. Some are not: the body, reputation, office. Suffering comes
from wanting what was never ours to govern in the first place.

The translator's introduction sets the Stoics against the Epicureans. Both ask
how to live. They disagree on what the good is: virtue for the Stoics, pleasure
for the Epicureans — though "pleasure" there means ataraxia, absence of
disturbance, not indulgence. The hedonism reputation is a later distortion.

Apatheia seems to be the Stoic goal — indifference to emotion. Ask Maria about
this one, it sounds harsher than the rest of the book.
