Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus, was banished by emperor Nero to Gyaros: the most feared place of exile in the empire, a nearly uninhabitable rock in the Aegean Sea with hardly any provisions. The banishment was meant as slow erasure. On Gyaros, Musonius did what he had done in Rome: he explored the island, found, according to tradition, a spring of fresh water that made life there more bearable, and taught. Students crossed the sea to study with him. The prison island became a school.
Sent to the barest place in the empire, with the unspoken message: your significance ends here.
The place belonged to the emperor; the profession did not. Teaching, it turned out, needs no colonnade, only a teacher and one student. Musonius sorted his work as belonging to himself rather than to his circumstances, and so he simply took it with him.
Which part of your work is bound to you, and which part to your circumstances: your position, your office, your title? What do you take with you if those fall away?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases