Oak Lawn Stoicism
Oak Lawn Stoicism
A complete philosophical system synthesized from Grant Sterling's Core Stoicism and I Receive Impressions
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Section One: The Fundamental Problem
**Th 1)** Everyone wants happiness.
**Th 2)** If you want happiness, it would be irrational to accept incomplete or imperfect happiness if you could get complete [continual, uninterrupted] happiness.
**2*)** Complete happiness is possible. [To be proven below.]
**Th 3)** All human unhappiness is caused by having a desire or emotional commitment to some outcome, and then that outcome does not result.
**4)** Ergo, if you desire something which is out of your control, you will be subject to possible unhappiness. If you desire many things out of your control, the possibility of complete happiness approaches zero.
**5)** By 4, 2*, and Th2, desiring things out of your control is irrational [if it is possible to control your desires].
Section Two: The Mechanism of Control
**Th 6)** The only things in our control are our beliefs, judgments, and will, and anything entailed by our beliefs, judgments, and will.
**Th 7)** Desires are caused by beliefs (judgments) about good and evil. [You desire what you judge to be good, and desire to avoid what you judge to be evil.]
**8)** Ergo, desires are in our control.
**Th 9)** All beliefs and judgments result from assent to impressions.
**10)** Ergo, assent to impressions is the fundamental act of control.
**Th 11)** Impressions constantly arise claiming that various propositions are true, including value propositions about externals being good, bad, or necessary for happiness.
**12)** Ergo, happiness depends entirely on giving assent only to true impressions and refusing assent to false impressions, particularly false value impressions about externals.
Section Three: The Practical Method
**Th 13)** I receive impressions. These impressions are cognitive, propositional—they are not uninterpreted raw data, but rather ideas that claim that the world is a certain way.
**14)** What is in my control is how I react to impressions. I can assent, or not assent.
**15)** If I refuse to assent to an impression, nothing happens. No emotion, no action, nothing.
**16)** If I assent to an impression with a value component, then a desire will result, and if externals are involved, possible unhappiness.
**17)** Ergo, everything critical to leading the best possible life is contained in the single act of assent to impressions.
Section Four: The Six-Step Process
What I should be striving for is:
**(a)** Don't assent to impressions that depict externals as either good, bad, or necessary for my happiness.
**(b)** If I fail 'a', don't assent to subsequent impressions that depict inappropriate responses to the supposed good or bad thing as being appropriate.
**(c)** Consciously formulate true propositions regarding the lack of value of external things. As far as possible, do this in advance.
**(d)** Consciously formulate true action propositions. By paying attention to preferred and dispreferred indifferents, and to the duties connected with my various roles in life, I can recognize what it would actually be correct for me to do in each situation.
**(e)** When I do act correctly, assent to the proposition that I have done a good thing—then I will experience appropriate positive feelings.
**(f)** Over time, my character will change such that I no longer have the false value impressions in 'a' and 'b', and 'c' and 'd' and 'e' become routine. This is the path toward the sage ideal.
Section Five: The Waiting Stance
**Th 18)** Since impressions arise constantly and automatically, and since my happiness depends entirely on my assent choices, I must maintain constant vigilance.
**19)** This vigilance takes the form of what Epictetus describes as keeping "guard against himself as though he were his own enemy lying in wait."
**20)** Ergo, I adopt the attitude and alertness of an enemy waiting to catch someone making a mistake, but I apply this predatory attention to catching myself in the moment before false assent occurs.
**21)** This creates a "waiting stance"—alert but relaxed readiness for the next impression, positioned to immediately apply the core diagnostic question.
Section Six: The Core Diagnostic Question
**Th 22)** The vast majority of false impressions that cause unhappiness involve making externals seem good, bad, or necessary for happiness.
**23)** Ergo, the single most important diagnostic question is: "Is this impression trying to make an external seem good, bad, or necessary for my happiness?"
**24)** If YES → refuse assent (this is the "target" spotted)
**25)** If NO → assent if the impression is otherwise true
Section Seven: Character Development
**Th 26)** While impressions themselves are not directly in my control, they are indirectly controllable through two mechanisms:
**(a)** My impressions are closely connected to my character. If I reject an impression, it makes that same type of impression less common and weaker. If I assent to it, it becomes more common and stronger.
**(b)** While my impressions are not in my control, I do have the ability to formulate new ideas. I can choose to formulate alternative impressions and assent to those instead.
**27)** Ergo, through repeated correct assents over time, I will have fewer false value impressions, not because I am suppressing them but because I am seeing reality more clearly.
**28)** The sage is simply someone who has controlled their assents so carefully for such a long period that they no longer receive false value impressions in the first place.
Section Eight: Continuous Practice
**Th 29)** This process must be continuous. Every waking moment presents new impressions requiring assent decisions.
**30)** The waiting stance must be maintained during all activities—external engagement proceeds normally while internal impression monitoring continues like background music.
**31)** When I lose the stance or make errors, I simply return to the waiting position without self-judgment, since self-attack is itself assent to a false value impression.
Summary
Someone who maintains the waiting stance, consistently applies the six-step method, and repeatedly chooses correct assent will never be unhappy, will in fact experience continual uninterrupted appropriate positive feelings, and will always act virtuously. Anyone would agree that someone who led a life like that was happy. Assent to impressions is in our control. Hence, not only is perfect continual happiness possible, it is actually in our control—we can guarantee it by maintaining vigilant awareness of our impressions and consistently choosing correct assent, particularly regarding the value of externals.
Final Warning
One final comment. Several people have suggested that they would extract only those elements of this system that appeal to them in combination with some other set of ideas. But there is a danger to Smorgasbord Stoicism. The core ideas interconnect in important ways. Denying one principle may undermine support for others. If one denies that emotions or desires are the result of judgments based on assent to impressions, then the entire system collapses. You lose the idea that it is possible to control your happiness, which means you lose the argument that happiness can be guaranteed through correct use of impressions. So if you wish to pick and choose among the principles, be very careful to look at what supports what.
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*This system represents the complete synthesis of Sterling's theoretical framework with his practical method, enhanced by the waiting stance and core diagnostic question that make continuous daily application possible.*