More generally, if we cannot resist pleasures, we will end up playing, Marcus says, the role of slave, “twitching puppetwise at every pull of self-interest,” and we will spend our life “ever grumbling at today or lamenting over tomorrow.” To avoid this fate, we must take care to prevent pains and pleasures from overwhelming our rational capacity. We must learn, as Marcus puts it, to “resist the murmurs of the flesh.”7
