[_osorin_]

As a fresh reader of Marcus Aurelius I'm glad I understand that this criticism is poor. "Stoics do not deny themselves pleasure per se, but by denying importance to things outside of their control, they make it easy to inadvertently do so." That's not true. It's clear in the writings that the stoics were completely empathetic but they always kept a logical point of view meaning they wouldn't rant in god for example and eventually accept the harsh reality.