This morning, I’m sitting in my in-laws’ conservatory in Bristol, morning light filtering through glass while the rest of the house sleeps. Coffee steam rises between me and the quiet, and somewhere in this threshold between night and day, a question whispers itself awake. It’s one that’s been brewing in the back of my mind like this cup of joe:

What if philosophy wasn’t something you study but something you breathe?

I’ve been wandering around this idea of philosophy as a living path, though “path” feels too tidy for what we’re really entering. It’s more like stumbling into a clearing in the woods where ancient voices gather around a fire, sharing secrets about how to be human. The spark for all this comes from Pierre Hadot’s quietly revolutionary work, Philosophy as a Way of Life. It’s a book that has been changing how I see what wisdom actually is.

The radical truth Pierre Hadot discovered: For centuries, philosophy lived in bodies, not just books. The Stoics didn’t read about resilience. They practiced it in the marketplace, during heartbreak, while watching empires crumble. The Epicureans didn’t theorise about pleasure. They cultivated it in gardens, in friendship, and in the simple miracle of being alive.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot.

We turned wisdom into an academic performance and depth into data points. But what if philosophy is actually an ancient technology for transformation? It’s what Hadot called “spiritual exercises,” but I prefer to think of them as sacred experiments in being human.

Here’s what I’m learning: The Stoics, Epicureans, Platonists, and Cynics weren’t running philosophy departments. They were running schools of life. Each tradition offered a different experiment: How do we live when everything is uncertain? How do we love without attachment? How do we find freedom within constraint?

This journey isn’t about collecting philosophical concepts like spiritual trophies. It’s about discovering what happens when ancient practices meet your Tuesday morning setback, or your 3 AM worries, or your grocery store revelations.

There’s more to living than optimising. And maybe it has taken me to Act III to realise this, but it’s never too late, right? This is my invitation to slow wisdom. To begin where all real philosophy begins: in wonder.

Philosophy as something you do, not just something you know.

Breathe that in for a moment.

What wants to be discovered when you stop optimising your life and start living it philosophically?

This deep dive will give you some insight into where I’m headed: