Epictetus is attending a funeral for his closest and most sincere student, Arrian. Arrian had been a student of Epictetus in his youth and his sudden death is a shock to everyone. At the funeral, Epictetus, is, of course, unperturbed. Arrian's mother is upset at Epictetus for his lack of emotions and begin's berating Epictetus for being so stone faced.  

After listening to Arrian's mother until she finished, Epictetus responds to her, not only about her berating him, but about why his response to Arrian's death is appropriate. Please give both arguments as Epictetus would have given them be complete.

Answer:

Epictetus -

First of all, woman, what can we do about things that do not depend on us? Tell me: can you have control over the things that escape your domain? Will your despair diminish one gram your pain for the death of your child? Understand that we are free and we have a decision in what depends on us by its very nature. Can someone in their right mind forbid you to eat, or sleep, or smile? Of course not. It is your decision even how to feel. Hence your claim woman is a waste of time.

Second: do you have any guarantee that you will never get sick, including when and how you will die? Can you decide on an inevitable fact like death? Is it not precisely to such an inevitable fact that we should pay more attention in the sense of finally resigning ourselves to it? I certainly don't understand your despair at your son's death.

Does it seem unfair to you that I don't worry, that I don't feel disturbed by such a natural to inevitable reality? Well I tell you that fear it will not prevent its inevitable arrival. Everything we do to distract ourselves from its possibility will not prevent it. It is true that we would like it to come to the end of our existence, when our forces - far from serving to pretend to reject it, would only serve to embrace it with resignation.

But remember that many circumstances are beyond our control, and that undesirable events such as death will always catch us off guard. I assure you that our vision of the fact is more tragic than the fact itself. So, do not be disturbed by my serenity because nothing will remedy your pain; do not reproach me for my tranquility,

because I do nothing by pretending regret at an event as recurrent and natural as death. Its mere inevitability should free us from all worry and pain at the possibility of its arrival. I assure you that there is no greater madness than the pretense of escaping death.