[throwaw12]

IMO, its not dark.

How I perceived it, Epictetus wants to say: things happen and you are on a spectrum of emotions based on the context (in case of death, how close you were to the person), try to minimize the length of the spectrum.

[everdrive]

I agree in part. You could read Epictetus as saying "just try not caring about people," which I think is the incorrect reading. Instead, I think he's saying something like "take a step back and realize that your deep personal attachments don't look so important when you step outside your perspective. You can use this realization to help get past the deep emotional pain that is normal for people to feel."

However, the line about other's indifference I think can only be read as dark funny to a modern reader:

> has someone else's child or wife died? There's no one who wouldn't say 'So it goes.'

[alansaber]

Our environment is simply far less brutal. This is closely aligned to the mentality of people in war torn countries, to the present day.

[empiricus]

Actually when one is old enough, the lethality around becomes much more visible.

[GenerocUsername]

This is true and no one thinks about it until they reach 50-70

Either everyone you know dies 1 by 1, or you do.

[id]

The world being indifferent to your pain is not helping if you're in acute pain. Step outside your perspective, sure. I guarantee you this will not work if you have real issues like physical pain due to terminal cancer.

[matwood]

You should read "A Man's Search for Meaning" sometime. While not exactly Stoicism many of the ideas are similar/related. How a person views and responds to their situation, has a huge impact on them. No one is saying any of this will remove all of someone's acute pain, but as crazy as it sounds, accepting that suffering can lead maybe the pain not being quite so bad.