1. I think the point Epictetus is making, is that the action the person is doing isn’t irritating, but the way you, yourself interprets/perceives the action is what irritates you. For example, my cousin told me a joke and we both were laughing. I shoved her shoulder because I agreed that the joke was funny. She got annoyed because I shoved her. It wasn’t the action of me shoving her that irritated her, but the way she interpreted the shove annoyed her because she thought of it as an aggressive shove. I think Epictetus is trying to say that it’s how you react to things that causes your annoyance. You can control how you react to things. If something annoys you it’s up to you on how you react to it.
2. I think Epictetus is trying to say that if someone speaks badly of you, and you act like it’s okay, the person is going to keep doing so because you’re not showing how you really feel. If you take it as a “joke” then the person sees that as a pass to keep going, but if you reacted differently and got mad about it, then the person might stop because they’d see that it upsets you. The stoic point he is trying to make is that we should accept and be okay with their attitude and behavior that annoys us
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If he never censures, praises, or blames anyone, that’s like keeping your mouth closed and not giving anyone feedback or saying anything to anyone. I think an advantage to that, is that if you never say anything then people won’t ever get mad at you because of the things you say. If his/her impulses towards everything is diminished, then they won’t act out of impulse which can be good depending on if what they want to do is bad. It can also be bad because if you want to do a good deed and you don’t do it because you’re trying not to act out of impulse then you’ve lost your chance. The advantage of this, according to Epictetus, is that if you keep off the desires, you can appreciate how things fall into place. You can see why things work out the way they do and be