Journey of Becoming a Philosopher #1

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are all doing well!

Today I will be attempting to continue this blog and document my journey of becoming a philosopher. As some of you may know, I continually study, read and explore philosophy, however ever since I became a professional high school science teacher, philosophy has taken much less of my time. I will be trying to use this blog to continue my work in philosophy.

For this first post, I will be sharing some notes and ideas that I have run into while reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which is a work of stoic philosophy that Aurelius the Roman Emperor had written for himself. It is important to mention that to stay true to Marcus' writing style found within Meditations, what I will be writing today will resemble personal notes. I hope you can find some wisdom in this post, or at least begin the process of asking better and better questions about the nature of Reality, of human nature and the Nature of Nature itself. Let's get started:

1) As Meditations begins with Marcus listing everyone who he is indebted to, I find it equally important to spend time reflecting on who are the individuals that have shaped our personalities. My mother taught me manners, simple things like saying please and thank you, or excuse me when passing gas or other less-than-appropriate-actions. Who else has affected me? How? and in what ways do I continue to influence others?

2) From book 1, section 7, Aurelius writes "To read attentively - not to be satisfied with just getting the gist of it". Here I believe that Marcus is thanking one of his teachers or tutors and how he was taught literacy. To be able to read with a critical eye goes above and beyond the ability to pronounce the letters, words and phrases placed one after the other.

3) From Book 1, section 8, Aurelius writes " to be the same in all circumstances - intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness...from his example, that a man can show both strength and flexibility". This seems to be a recurring theme in Stoicism, to be able to NOT be affected by external factors and to continue to act with logic, reasoning, and proper ethics.

4) "His searching questions at meetings. A kind of single mindedness, almost, never content with first impressions, or breaking off the discussion prematurely". Philosophy seems to find its utility during meetings. It seems like I should explore this deeper, as I feel as if I am only getting the gist of this.

5) From Book 1, section 16, Marcus states " how to enjoy and abstain from things that most people find it hard to abstain from and all too easy to enjoy". As of late, I have been noticing more and more criticism of Capitalism, yet most seem to come from folks taking the easy way out. In other words, a critique of capitalism without knowledge (which is information and ability to act properly) of capitalism. It seems to be much more difficult to have a certain skill and ability to thrive in a capitalist system AND THEN to critique (as all things that require improvement must be critiqued) the system. Again, this must be further explored.

All lessons, skills, mindsets, abilities and victories find their origins from someone who has influenced me, either through direct instruction or indirectly, through let's say modelling of how to act. Or better yet, how to be...

Thanks for reading today's notes. Take care and stay safe!

-PJH, Patrick Hilario aka Dasein the Philosopher

Education and Wiggenstein

Hello, I hope your day is going well! In today’s blog post, I will be exploring Wiggenstein’s philosophy as well as its relationship with pedagogy, or the art and science of education. Firstly, we will take a look at Michael Peter’s work, titled Wiggenstein’s Styles of Thinking. Next, we will take a look at some of the connexions between this philosophical paper and the work that Dasein the Philosopher did while on his philosophy trip to Europe. Finally, we will finish by presenting some possible roads towards an answer to the following question: How can teaching techniques be used as a writing style? Let’s get started!

In Michael Peter’s work titled Wiggenstein’s Styles of Thinking, he states that Wiggenstein is ‘’not a philosopher who provides a method for analyzing educational concepts but rather as one who approaches philosophical questions from a pedagogical point of view.’’ It seems to me that what Peters is essentially introducing here is the idea that Wiggenstein’s style is that he is using an Educator’s lens to examine philosophical questions, and NOT using a philosopher’s point of view to analyze the Art and Science of Teaching. Peters also mentions that ‘’the aim of the great educator is to teach us to think for ourselves’’. I believe that this is true since, in my humble opinion, I believe that one of education’s goals is to create citizens that are able to critically think, and one is not critically thinking if they are simply copying another person’s way of thinking. Finally, in this work, Peters also begins describing Wiggenstein’s many writing styles as if it were a long list of teaching techniques, such as pictures, drawings, analogies, similes, jokes, equations, questions, and even wrong answers.

While examining Wiggenstein’s Styles of Thinking , I was reminded of my own philosophy trip to Europe where I began questioning my own teaching style. In one of my next books, titled Dasein’s Philosophical Thought: Post Europe, the young philosopher (Dasein) writes about his visit to Europe and how this trip became a catalyst to his Aesthetic questioning. I will have to admit that before reading Peter’s work on Wiggenstein, I never thought about teaching techniques as inspiration for different writing styles. However, while reading Peters paper, (which can be found by googling➡️Wittgenstein’s style of thinking), I used one of my favorite teaching techniques, which is drawing schematic notes so that I can better teach myself the content found in what I was reading. I have included these schematic notes further below in this post. This reflection has helped me become aware of how I use schematic notes before writing my own blog posts and/or books. This further makes me wonder how I can use other teaching techniques and transform them into different writing styles?

How can I use teaching techniques as writing styles? How and why? What is a style? These are a few more questions that I am left with since reading Wiggenstein’s Styles of Thinking. I believe that before I can begin using teaching techniques as writing styles, I will first have to sit down and reflect on what teaching techniques I find myself using most often in my own classroom. Once this list has been created, I think that a good starting point will be to reflect on the nature of each teaching technique and in what context can each be useful in clarifying knowledge for myself and others. For example, if I am teaching sciences and I find myself drawing pictures for my students to better understand their own biological systems, what is the point of drawing the organs instead of just creating a list and how can think technique be used as a writing style. This one seems a little straight forward since I could either include pictures and diagrams in my own philosophical writing or I can also attempt to ‘’paint a picture’’ in my readers mind so that they can draw out the pictures and diagrams that I will be using to explain a certain concept on their own. I can already see that I will be reflecting on this connection between teaching techniques and writing styles for a while…

In conclusion, I found that Wiggenstein’s Styles of Thinking was a great pedagogical read as it not only helped me reflect on my own practice, but it also gave me some questions to follow while I work on my next philosophy book. Also, this idea that teaching techniques can be used as writing styles is fascinating to me since there is now another link between the necessity of philosophy in pedagogy that has been revealed to me. Finally, I intend to continue reflecting on the following questions, in the hopes of clarifying my own philosophical thought: How can I use teaching techniques as writing styles? How and why? What is a style?

I hope your guys got some value out of this post!

See you again next week for more philosophy and pedagogy content!

Follow me on instagram @patrickjhilario for more philosophy photos like the one above! ( I also drew that picture of Wiggenstein haha) 

Have a great day!

-PJH 

PS: I will be starting a new semester and will be teaching more classes than the previous semester, meaning that I will most likely be slightly busier than usual. Hopefully, I can still keep up to date with this blog 😊

A difficulty of pedagogy and philosophy

Do you prefer to listen instead of read? Listen to the podcast version here:

Hey everyone, I hope the weekend is treating you guys well!

Today I would like to explore something that I noticed while working on my next book this past week, but first I will have to quickly discuss the method of research that I decided to use so that I may complete this year’s goals as an author/philosopher. After discussing the method that I have used, I will explain the phenomenon that I have noticed, as well as a few possible theories that I have that may help explain this new phenomenon, mostly with the goal of further refining my understanding of what is going on with my own understanding.

Firstly, in order to write my next book, I took a trip to Europe in the summer of 2018 to visit the graves of 24 different philosophers. These 24 philosophers have made some sort of impact on how I think, and I wanted to see where their lives ended and what kind of cultures could have surrounded them during the last few years of their lives (assuming that they were buried close to the last place where they lived). While traveling to 9 different countries, I kept a journal to keep track of my journey and the insights that I had while working in Europe. Before leaving for this trip, I also gathered philosophy articles that explored pedagogy, which is the art and science of teaching, and each philosopher’s own work, teaching style, and/or ideas around pedagogy.  However, once I started reading these articles, I noticed something that bothered me…

After reading a few academic articles for my own research in philosophy and pedagogy, what bothered me was that it was very apparent that I had almost no idea what each author was talking about in their articles (or at least that’s what it felt like), even after moving away from home to teach English, completing my formal training as a teacher, and teaching again before leaving for my trip. I noticed that while reading, I could not pull out central ideas from what I read, I could not vulgarise the content that was presented, nor could I create my own analogies and examples that could clarify the information that I was exploring. All that I could do while reading was notice essential questions found within each article.

I think that during times where I became uncomfortable due to a feeling of lack of understanding (whether it be in my studies of philosophy, education or investing), I become more aware of the limitations of my own abilities, since a similar situation has happened to me at least twice now; Once during my high school education and then again during my studies in university. Furthermore, I only started to understand the philosophy and education articles that I collected, AFTER returning from my trip to Europe and after teaching another semester. I think that this period of time where I could not understand the content in the articles that I was using for research, gave me more insights on how students can experience difficulty in understanding, but somehow later understand a subject, even if they were not reading on this subject. This makes me ask the following question: How is it possible to have trouble learning, leave the learning aside, to then be able to understand later? It seems that learning can benefit from a lack of conscious effort. Maybe this is what some educators mean when they say to “let what you just learned simmer in your mind”, after their students have just been presented with difficult content.

In conclusion, I know that as a philosopher and educator, there is much that I do not know and much more that I may never know. Now, I seem to have a lot less difficulty in reading the articles that I will be using for my research, so hopefully I can keep working towards making what I learn during his time in my life as accessible to others as possible. Maybe it is through struggling with what I am trying to accomplish, that I can offer value by guiding others so that they can avoid this feeling of confusion? Or maybe the opposite is needed, that I guide others right through the point of the most confusion?  

Until next time!

Have a great day!

-PJH 

Ps: Follow me through social media if you like!

Instagram: @patrickjhilario

twitter: @PhiloDasein

facebook page: Dasein the Philosopher

Anchor FM podcast: Philosophy with Dasein

Youtube: Pj Hilario

January 11th, 2019

Hey, I hope everyone is having a great day! Today I would like to talk to you guys about one of the goals that I have for this year, which is to write not just one book, but I intend to write and publish TWO books this year. In today’s post, I will quickly explore the general idea for each book, as well as my planned method for how I will be approaching this goal. I have written and published a book each year for the past 3 years, but this year I felt like seeing how much more I can accomplish, without necessary pushing myself too far, but to have an approach that this will be “easy” for me.

The first book that I will be writing this year will cover my philosophy tour when I left for Europe during the summer of 2018. This tour had a triple purpose: 1) to visit the graves of 24 philosophers and meditate on my own mortality as a philosopher, 2) to explore how these philosophers had an influence and different views in regard to Education and pedagogy and 3) to be a traveling philosopher and become more self-aware. For this 4th book, I had kept a journal that explored not only my ideas around mortality, pedagogy and my own Being, but also how each of the philosophers thought about these ideas. I will be using this journal written during my stay in Europe, coupled with research on each of the philosophers’ ideas around education.

The second book that I will be writing this year will be on the topic of Lucid dreaming. I am not certain if this will take on a more “How to” approach, or if I want to integrate this approach with some storytelling about my journey with Lucid dreaming. As for a method for how I will write this book, I will be doing a month or two of intensive immersion into lucid dreaming. In other words, I will be documenting every dream, lucid and not lucid, for those 2 months to gather data on my own dreams. I will then interpret these dreams as well as write about the process on how I became lucid in my dreams, in the hope that I will be able to show someone else the steps necessary so that they themselves can become proficient in lucid dreaming.

In conclusion, this year I will be attempting to write two books. To accomplish this, not only will I have to write very consistently, but I will also have to have a detailed game plan on how I will write and conduct my research so that I can accomplish these tasks. The first book to be written this year will cover my philosophy tour where I went to Europe to think, understand and question the Self, human mortality and pedagogy or the art and science of education. The second book to be written this year will explore lucid dreaming and how someone can become proficient in this skill, as well as a documentation of my own lucid dreams after putting myself through a period of immersion. I hope that by working on these two books, I will not only be able to offer some value to the world that I have been thrown into, but that I can also continue moving towards becoming more self-aware.

I hope you guys have a great day!

Talk soon!

-PJH

Ps: Follow me through social media if you like!
Instagram: @patrickjhilario
twitter: @PhiloDasein
facebook page: Dasein the Philosopher
Anchor FM podcast: Philosophy with Dasein
Youtube: Pj Hilario

You can also listen to this blog in audio format here:

January 3rd of 2019

January 5^th, 2019,

Hey, I hope you guys are doing well today!

Today I would like to talk to you guys about planning out a year and a few strategies that I use in teaching, my work in philosophy and my side businesses that help me in planning. Hopefully, you guys can find some value in this blog post!

You see the thing with planning is that I try to have a plan that is aligned with my life’s work, so that each day, week, month, quarter and year that passes, I know that I am moving towards my goals and towards becoming better at servicing others. I have 3 different styles of planning, each stemming from the 3 ways that I view myself and from my means of being in servitude to my times and the world that I have been thrown into. Hopefully, at least 1 of these styles is something that you can apply to your life.

The first style is one that stems from my background in philosophy, which is basically the concept of reverse engineering my whole life. I begin by asking myself what do I want to become during my life based on who I am right now? This forces me to meditate on my own identity and the ideal identity that I have for myself. With this planning technique, I borrowed a method that I learned from Jordan Peterson, where I essentially think of my ideal life and what that looks like, as well as my personal hell and what it would look like if I completely screwed my life up. Once I have point A (my personal hell) and point B (my personal heaven), I think of 3 actions or 3 practical steps that I can take to move from away from hell and towards my heaven. This is essentially an exercise so that I can establish what 3 habits I must have so that I can achieve the life that I dream of as well as avoid my own nightmares from happening.

For me, my personal hell is that I become sick and unhealthy to the point where I can no longer teach, write philosophy and that I become a burden to my family without first having created enough passive income to protect myself and my family. I am also terrified of losing my teacher’s license. I have come to terms that this is most likely a very irrational fear, as I am good at what I do and I intend to constantly improve, however teaching is something that I love, so this attachment may be a reason why I am so afraid of losing that which I love. My personal heaven is that I am able to teach and point people towards the truth for my whole life, write books that transcend my own existence, meaning that these works of philosophy will continue my work even after I have serviced my time here on Earth and that I have passed, and that one day I can have enough passive income so that I can teach for free, thus eliminating money from the equation of just doing what I love and that I can do this simply because I love doing it.

The next style of planning that I use stems from my formal training as a teacher. This method of planning takes place in three parts: 
1) long-term planning, which is general planning for the whole year,
2) mid-term planning, which is planning each quarter or term of the year, breaking down the general planning into more concrete, but still fairly general timelines and/or deadlines that must be met, and finally,
3)short-term planning, which is the day to day and the week to week planning that moves me towards hitting my midterm deadlines and also assures that I am able to accomplish that which needs to be done by the end of the year.
So, in short, I start by establishing general guidelines on what I need to do for the whole year, as well as inserting the specific dates into my year-long calendar. Once this is done, I break up the year into 4 quarters and see what needs to be done in each quarter to move me towards accomplishing my year-end goals. Finally, I break down each quarter week by week and then day by day so that I now have daily and weekly tasks and represent the journey of the whole upcoming year.

Finally, the third planning strategy that I use is one that I learned from running multiple side-businesses. This is like how I reverse engineer a year of teaching, but instead I of breaking things down for the year, the quarter, the weeks and the days, I am reverse engineering the year so that I can represent it in a weekly schedule of weekly tasks. For example, if I want to purchase 2 properties this year, I need to reverse engineer how much I need to save each week, how many properties I need to look at each week so that I can have enough leads to make offers on when that time comes. I also need to calculate how many times I am marketing for these leads as well as what day of the week will I decide to carve out some time so that I can focus on the long-term vision. This is long-term vision planning is another mini exercise that I acquired from running a small business. This is when I take an hour or so a week to reflect on what my business will look like not next quarter, but a quarter that will be ending 5 years from now. This exercise has forced me to think about how I can automate my business or even delegate certain tasks that would simply take away from my primary task when I am wearing my entrepreneur hat, which is operating the business machine that I am building.

In conclusion, I personally use 3 different planning strategies just so that I can have 3 different views on how I use my time based on the 3 different roles that I have been graced with. These seem to work for me as I can find a balance between work and play, as well as order and chaos. The funny thing is since I am a person that likes to plan heavily, I must plan in rest days (3 days every 3 months minimum) as well as blocks of time where I can freestyle and do whatever I please. I am intrigued in finding out what are you planning techniques and strategies? Do you guys like to plan, or do you prefer to freestyle how you use and allocate your time? I would love to hear your guys thoughts on this so comment below! 

Thanks again for reading! I hope I was able to offer some value or insights and I wish you guys a great Saturday!

Until next time!

-PJH

Ps: follow me on Instagram @patrickjhilario for more philosophy, pedagogy and investor content! 

Relfection on Morning Routines

Hey, I hope you guys are doing well! Today I would like to talk to you guys about morning routines!

One of the main reasons I use a morning routine is because it keeps me sharp in the morning and takes away the need to have to exert much mental energy since I know that I will be doing the same tasks every morning, which soon almost puts me into autopilot. Also, it is important to mention that my current morning routine is a mixture of what I have been doing for over 3 years as well as a few added exercises that I got from my business coaches. Let’s get into it!

First thing in my morning routine is that the moment I am awake, I immediately think of 5 things that I am grateful for. This starts the day off with thoughts of positivity and abundance and I do this even if I had a hard day before. It becomes very difficult for me to complain too much if I start each day off being grateful for my existence.

Next, this is something I learned from my coaches, is that I listen to a pre-recorded message of my affirmations. I used to read my affirmations every morning, but this would take a little bit too much time, so my coach suggested that I record it once and I can just listen to it once I am awake. My affirmations include some phrases such as ‘’ I am a great philosopher, I am a great teacher and I am a great investor’’, or ‘’ I bring massive value to the people around me’’ or I am not perfect, I am full of flaws, but I love myself. I will always step outside my comfort zone and grow, and I love myself’’. Writing down my affirmations became a lot easier once I had done the work to deeply root myself into my own identity and after I had cultivated a certain level of self-awareness.

Next, I write down all my goals for being a philosopher, teacher, and entrepreneur. Before I would just write down my goals for the year, but after meeting my coaches, I now write down my 1, 3, 5 and 10-year goals for each of my roles. Another exercise that I add to this on some mornings, usually on the weekends when I have a little bit more time, is that I will pick one of my goals and break them down into action steps. This makes it much easier to act on my goals on a day to day basis because I know exactly what I need to do and what is the timeline so that I can move forward on these goals.

Finally, the last part of my morning routine is that I do the usual getting ready and dressed, as well as make some coffee while I look at my schedule. While reviewing my schedule, I make sure to prioritize what needs to be done today, so that I can be the most efficient as possible. I found that if I were to not do this, I would quickly fall behind in my responsibilities in either one or multiple of my roles.

In conclusion, I find that having a morning routine not only wakes me up and starts my day off in a productive and positive manner but that it also helps create a foundation in my life. Most of my morning routines only require me to have my phone, my notebook, and a pencil and all this takes less than 45 minutes. So, do you have a morning routine? If so, what is it? If not, would you ever consider using one?

I hope this post gave you at least some value! Until next time!

-PJH

2019 Manifesto

January 2^nd of 2019

Hey, you, hope 2019 has been treating you well!

Today I would like to talk about this year’s manifesto, which is sort of my intentions, opinions, and dreams for this year.

So first, for the ones that know me well, this won’t be new, but it will be for the new people watching this. Basically, I can simplify my present life as having 3 roles or wearing 3 different hats, so to speak. These 3 hats are the following: I am a philosopher, I am a teacher and I am an entrepreneur.

Firstly, I am a philosopher because it is my passion and that without philosophy, there would be no education and I would not be as committed to building businesses that offer value to the world, give me and my family a living, which I can then use my free time to continue writing works of philosophy. You see I love asking fundamental questions, such as what is good and evil, what is beauty and what is ugliness, how do I know the things that I know and my all-time favorite what is being and time?

Next, I am a teacher. I believe this is my purpose since I self-actualize through educating. One of the few things that bring an unbelievable amount of joy and presence in my life is seeing someone learn something faster and more efficiently than It took me to learn. The same goes for seeing a student go from struggling with a concept to not only understanding it but seeing the utility of this concept in life in general. As being both a teacher and philosopher, I am also dedicated to being an eternal student, always trying to find different ways to help my students achieve their full potential.

Finally, I am an entrepreneur because I love the process of creating something (such as a product or service that offers massive value to others) out of nothing. This may be linked to my roots in the hip-hop culture which revolves around his ideas of creating something out of nothing. At first, I only started side hustles so that I could fund my dream of writing philosophy books and because I knew that during my 2 year formation as a teacher, it would be logistically impossible to work a regular job, yet if I cannot pay for food and drink, I would not be the best educator that I could be.

In conclusion, for 2019 onward, I hold 3 roles: philosopher, teacher, and entrepreneur. And my manifesto can be simplified as the following: I love philosophy, pedagogy (the art and science of education) and entrepreneurialism. I believe that by asking the big questions, by building a healthy relationship with students so that they learn how to learn and by creating businesses that offer massive value to the world, I am committing myself towards a path of self-actualization and service to the world that I have been thrown into.

Hope you have a great day!

-PJH

Ps: follow me on instagram @patrickjhilario for more content on Philosophy, Education and Investing, as well as just my life in general.