A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Apatheia

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A disciplined freedom from destructive passions, not emotional emptiness.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, apatheia names a composure that has passed through turmoil without becoming numb. A speaker practicing apatheia may still feel grief, desire, or anger, yet refuses to let those forces dictate judgment. The term, associated with Stoic and later Christian thought, can shape a poem whose calm surface contains strenuous ethical work. Its restrained diction may suggest not indifference, but a deliberate release from compulsive reaction.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Stoic-inflected poetry, apatheia names freedom from destructive passion, as in a speaker who observes grief without being ruled by it; A poem can present apatheia through still diction, balanced syntax, and emotional restraint; Shakespeare’s Prospero approaches apatheia when he chooses forgiveness over revenge in The Tempest; A contemporary poem may question apatheia by asking whether calm is wisdom or emotional withdrawal
Additional Notes
In Stoic philosophy, apatheia means freedom from passions understood as destructive, irrational impulses, not a lifeless absence of feeling. A person practicing it responds through judgment, self-command, and ethical purpose. It is related to ataraxia, or tranquility, but emphasizes disciplined action as well as calm.
Also Known As
Freedom from Passion Stoic Equanimity
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