Aloha, fellow PhiloSurfer!

How are you this week?

Good? Wanna feel even better?

Let’s get things moving:

Socrates is undoubtedly the father of self-development.

I repeat:

Undoubtedly.

The father of self-development.

The Cheapest Life Coach

I like to picture Socrates as a life coach.

The best of his kind. The real creator of his niche for one. The founder of the longest-living enterprise.

And he never charged a single drachma penny for his services.

Socrates was also very modest.

He thought he could not teach people.

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”

Instead, he believed that people knew more than what they believed.

Their knowledge only needed to be awakened.

Similarly, he believed that people had many things wrong.

Things they didn’t know they had.

Again, they only needed to be awakened.

For the former and the latter tasks, he used:

Questions.

A Questioning Machine Gun

He was thus the king of questioning.

He would make so many questions back to back that he makes the Toyota engineers that developed the Five-Whys Method look childish.

That’s how Socrates is depicted in the hilarious Existential Comics.

He questioned everyone he met.

On the market, on the square, sitting with him on the banquet table.

He posed questions as the farmer plants seeds. Implanting doubt on consciousness. Watering them with dialogue & structured reasoning.

The Socratic method.

A sort of philosophical permaculture.

A Birth Assistant

Socrates thought of himself as a midwife of wisdom.

Same job as his mom, but her with real babies.

You know, same same but different.

(He also believed to be a gadfly, but that’s another story).

He unpretentiously said:

“I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.”

(He never wrote a single line, so it’s his pupil Plato who was recording all his master’s maxims)

Largely thanks to Socrates, it is commonly accepted that Philosophy doesn’t give definitive answers.

Instead, it helps you make the best questions.

But, as I always tell my students, if you have the correct answer you’re half way into the solution of any problem.

No matter how nasty it might be.

The Non-Existent Combat:

Last Friday I posted this:

Ask yourself the following questions:

(𝟭 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝟯𝟬”)

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Why do I have to die?

Is there anything after death?

What’s the nature of the world?

Is there Truth to be found anywhere?

Is there absolute Good & Evil?

How can I be a good person?

What’s the meaning of life?

Is there a God above us?

What is real happiness?

Will there be waves?

Which board?

Wetsuit?

A man-made list. Self-made. Deep, philosophical & unsolvable questions.

Writing time: less than 5 minutes.

I thought, “Why not have AI (ChatGPT) philosophize and craft a similar list?”

Then, I thought, we could compare them on this week’s newsletter.

Wrooooong!

After wasting over 15 minutes with different prompts, I told the machine:

Those are silly questions, make them more philosophical!

Then, after some iterations, I realized that what washing on there was not a conversation.

Not a dialogue between a being with unexamined knowledge that only needed my questions to bring that wisdom to the surface.

Those were not silly questions. There was only one silly side of that failed attempt to apply the Socratic method. And, of course, it was not .

I was the silly one.

I admit it.

Proudly.

Socrates accepted it to:

“I only know the fact of my ignorance.”

And he was the smartest guy in Athens.

Oracle certified.

Actionable & Happy Ending

Philosophy is modest. No final answers. No dogmatic truths.

It may seem not enough for a time of thousands How to’s & How I’s.

But the biggest and most enduring questions seldom have an answer.

Although they still pose a big existential burden upon us.

On a more practical level, questions can help you in your professional career.

• If you make better questions, you think better.
• If you think better, you solve problems better.
• If you solve problems better, you’re more likely to get a promotion.

So next time you face a big challenge. One of those so big that you don’t know where to star. Think of Kipling’s 6 serving men:

I keep six honest serving-men

   (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When 

   And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

   I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me,

   I give them all a rest. 

Make the questions. Reflect on the answer. Draft your solution.

Question your solution.

Repeat.

Ad infinitum.

TL;DR

Curiosity, awe, research, knowledge, science, wisdom. 

All start with questions.

Love questioning.

Live better.

(And look in books not in AI if you’re looking for goos questions)

Alright?

See you next week.

Malako,