The Modules
I have tried to order these modules in order of importance. Some of them have wide applicability and are applied on an almost daily basis. Some of them are for special use cases. All of them assume a natural attitude that runs on the lower layers of the brain, the mammalian and reptilian centers. These areas lack language and reasoning capacity and are therefore dumb. The rational center in the neocortex has limited capacity to influence them, so the optimal strategy is to go over them as a matter of daily practice. Read them, and consider reading them aloud. The idea here is that you will want the brain to process them through every available input port, because the eye processes differently than the ear, you are using every availble port to insert the patches and make them stickier. I don’t know if they ever become permanent; I think it is possible, but it hasn’t happened for me yet. A realistic goal, though, with the daily action to read them and re-read them is that they don’t slip out of working memory and are therefore available to be recalled easier. The natural attitude is the default software, and I suspect it has to be patched and re-patched, and that that is what the practice looks like in practice.
Trichotomy of control
Phenomena can be categorized in three ways: 1. Things over which we have no control. 2. Things over which we have complete control. 3. Things over which we have some, but not complete control. If something is outiside of our control, only a fool would spend time on it. Instead, Irvine notes, we should adjust our internals, which are somewhat within our control. I add this: That consciousness, the part of us that is intentional, that can be aimed, that part is within out control, but it is sometimes short-circuited by the underlying systems. The interface gives me and impression. I practice assent. Is this within my control? No? Then it is nothing to me. Is this within my control? Yes? Then, what is to be done about it? And one decides what to do about it by asking the question: Will this lead to tranquility? This way, we don’t spend time worrying about things we can change anyway. We say aloud to ourselves, This is nothing to me.
We practice this one all the time, many times a day. It never really ends. We run this triage process, and we talk to the lower systems about it once we’ve made a decision. Let me give an example: Let’s say I lose my job. That is almost certainly going to upset my tranquility if I agree with the first impression that losing my job is a bad thing. My mind my reel from it. My life is over. I’m totally screweed, in a sort of chain reaction. We don’t need to let it spiral, though, not necessarily, because by combining negative visualization and using our triage to place it in the correct category, and then by pronouncing the decision of the neocortex, “this is nothing to me,” we can perhaps cut this worry time down, and over time and with practice, maybe we can get it down quite a lot, and maybe, just maybe, our inner citadel becomes more and more resistant to the movements of externals. That’s the idea.
Assent Cluster
It is not the thing, but the judgment
“You are an appearance — hold on”
Refuse the second judgment
It has taken me a long time to truly understand this one and be able to apply it in any meaningful way, even though the basics are easy to grasp. The natural attitude, how one reacts and feels without thinking about it, composes all of the mammalian brain’s zombie processes. These include status-checking, lonliness, worry, the self-critical voice, and others (I keep meaning to attempt a more comprehensive list. Put a pin in that.) These are outside of one’s control. They come up naturally. Because they are outside of one’s control, they must be treated as nothing, as indifferents. This is hard to do. Exceedingly hard, because these come from inside the body, which gives them the veneer of feeling true, but to take one’s natural attitude as truth is a mistake.
The assent cluster gives us some useful tools to do this. When something happens, internally or externally, the natural attitude, the dumb mammalian brain, assigns it a crude qualitative value, good or bad, and it offers no real nuance. It isn’t the thing that gives us distress or pleasure, but the good or bad judgment about the thing, and these things are mere appearances, not even the thing itself. Apparitions. Use conscious brain to recognize this and refuse the second judgment. This thing has appeared to me. Stop there. Refuse the second judgment, and this thing is good or bad.
“Mental States”
Tightly related to the assent cluser described above is this two-word reminder that whatever I am feeling right now will feel differently tomorrow. If I am in a bad mood today, I will be in a different mood tomorrow.
Worrying is pointless
Seems self-explanatory. Mammalian brain has a worry process that is usually useless in our current context in which I know I’m going to find enough food, shelter, etc. Now it is just a zombie process. Remember, mammalian brian is dumb and cannot make qualitative distinctions.
The self-critical voice is also natural attitude
I, and many others I’ve spoken with about this, have a persistent mammalian thread that tells us we are bad, insufficient, failing, etc. Sometimes I call this the negative voice. It’s only purpose is self-criticism, and I imagine that it arises from the ancient need to stay within the good graces of the tribe. It is an indifferent, as explained above.
Be ashamed only of what is shameful
I read about a stoic, and I don’t remember which one, who wore clothes that were out of style to train himself to be ashamed of only that which is shameful, and that has resonated with me ever since. I’ve turned it over in my mind quite a lot. It connects with voluntary discomfort, that one ought to put himself through minor discomforts to get used to it, but there’s more going on, too. The natural attitude tells us to be ashamed quite a lot. It has to do with fitting in with the tribe, but that program is somewhat old and outdated in our contemporary context. In a stoical context, the only thing to be ashamed of is vice, of having little control over ourselves, and interesting to me is how vice is so celebrated in American hedonistic culture. From gambling, to promiscuous sex, drug abuse, and so many others, people don’t seem to feel shame about their vices, but they do feel shame when it comes to their careers, or their spouses, or the cars they drive, which is such an odd inversion. In this stoical context, one ought to drive a crappy car, just to train himself to give no fucks what anyone thinks about it, and he ought to feel deeply ashamed when he places a bet on a sportsball game.
Virtue is the only good
Discipline of Desire
You are allowed to want with full intensity only what is up to you: the quality of your judgments, intentions, character, and how you meet what happens. Desire aimed at externals is misplaced intensity. Redirect the same force onto the free domain.
Treat praise and blame as weather
Both praise and blame are externals, just like the weather.
People are talking apes
[People are just talking apes.]](https://jasonwester.com/stoicism/2022-11-26-yapping_dogs/) I mean that literally, but you don’t need to believe the literal-ness of it if you are inclined toward a more religious view of humanity. The point is to look at people from a more realistic perspective.
Women are not paramount
You can switch the sexes to suit yourself. The point of this one is to override the evolutionary default programming that one must have a mate to be happy. I’ve found very often the opposite to be true, but also it servers as a check on the status-sensitive mammalian brain.
Memento mori — live in harmony now
Amor fati
Want things to happen as they happen. Once cannot rewrite the past. One has only limited control over the future. Let it all go. Say to yourself, It happened as it happened, and it could not have happened any other way.
Challenges as Tests
Each challenge or inconviences is a stoic test to check on how far one has progressed.
View from above
Zoom out. What is bothering you right now you will scarcely even remember in a week or two. I sometimes refer to this as the Two-Week Rule
Reserve clause
I will be there at 6 pm, God willing. Just a sly reminder via turn of phrase that one isn’t in control of externals.