Wisdom therefore consists in grasping external things objectively, as indifferent in this regard. Sometimes the Stoics describe this as staying with our initial impression of things before we impose value judgments. Epictetus gives many examples, such as when someone’s ship is lost at sea, we should say only “the ship is lost” and not add value judgments or complaints like “Why me? This is awful!”26 When someone bathes rather hastily, we should not react with disgust or even imply that he washed himself badly, but say only that he bathed quickly. When someone drinks a lot of wine, we should
...more
