Welcome To The Micro Philosopher (2025 Update)

An Update On The Future Of This Publication

Happy New Year!

I wanted to update everyone on the future plans for this publication as we move further into 2025.

In this post, I will explain:

• Why I have decided to rebrand

• What this means moving forward

• And the concept of a micro-philosophy

Let’s dive in.

Rebranding

As you may have noticed, I have rebranded this publication from ‘The Art Of Living’ to ‘The Micro Philosopher’.

Part of the reason that I have taken a break from posting is that I have been working hard on an exciting new project called ‘Ousia OS’.

Ousia OS is a philosophical life operating system that helps people develop their own “micro-philosophy” (hence, The Micro Philosopher), and discover their true self or essence. In ancient greek, ousia means “essence”, “being”, “substance”, or “true self”.

Just as everyone needs a an operating system software to make their computer usable, everyone also needs a life operating system to structure and organize the information in their lives.

While there are many examples of this in the self-help world, most life operating systems are focused on productivity.

Ousia OS goes deeper by helping you develop your own philosophical worldview that can give meaning and purpose to your productive habits and actions.

I will be posting more information and details about Ousia OS in the coming months.

What To Expect In 2025

Moving into 2025, you will notice some changes to this substack.

First, I will be focusing on posting a weekly newsletter that is longer than my typical post and more substantial. I may write smaller posts in between, but my main focus is the weekly newsletter.

Second, although I will continue to write about the art of living as a human being, the human condition, happiness, meaning, and ethics, I will approach these topics from a new angle.

In the past, my posts were primarily observations and reflections on human life that contained a straightforward moral or lesson. Moving forward, the primary aim of my written content will be to help people figure out how philosophy can be applied to their life in a more specific way — in order to help them clarify and develop their own philosophical worldview (what I called a ‘micro-philosophy’ above).

The Two Insights That Led To These Changes

Why did I make these changes?

There are two general reasons.

Over the past few months, I realized that it is very easy to read and consume content without actually making any changes in your life.

The lessons go in your head, stay there for a few days, and then get replaced by more content, with nothing actually changing in your way of life (I know firsthand). Self-help can very easily become a form of entertainment, comfort, and procrastination.

One thing that has helped me overcome this trap is the idea that when you learn things with a specific practical goal or action in mind, the lessons tend to actually have an impact in your life. The reason is that there is a specific purpose which clarifies how they can be applied in the world.

I also realized that when studying philosophy, or pretty much anything, it is very easy for students (myself included) to become followers rather than independent thinkers.

For example, a lot of people want to learn about Stoicism in order to “live like a Stoic” or “be a Stoic”. This can often lead to a kind of passive engagement with a philosophical system. You spend all of your time and energy trying to understand a worldview that other people built and developed.

Unfortunately, this approach to learning becomes about understanding what other people think, rather than discovering and developing what you think.

Knowing a lot about other people’s ideas will never make an impact on your life unless you take those ideas and make them your own. When you approach learning with your own system of beliefs or point of view and integrate the ideas of someone else into your system, it is much more likely that the ideas will stick because you have made them your own.

These two insights eventually led me to the idea that my purpose as a writer and educator on the internet is not just to teach people about philosophy, but to teach them how to think philosophically for themselves.

The best way to learn how to think philosophically is to wrestle with the ideas of history’s greatest thinkers while also developing your own personal philosophy at the same time. If you do not have any skin in the game, then it is very hard to truly understand why the problems and puzzles of philosophy matter to your life.

This is where the concept of a micro-philosophy comes into the picture.

The Micro-Philosophy

A micro-philosophy is a simplified philosophical worldview —a personal system of beliefs, values, assumptions, definitions, principles, and actions that gives your life clarity and structure.

The history of philosophy contains many great macro-philosophies: Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Platonism, Kantianism, Marxism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc. These great macro-philosophies represent complete philosophical worldviews that provide ultimate explanations of life and reality.

The concept of a micro-philosophy is meant to give ordinary people something that they can realistically build to improve their lives. It is also meant to help people avoid the trap of thinking that their own ideas don’t matter in comparison to the great macro-philosophies that have been developed throughout history.

This is a dangerous assumption, because it destroys independent thinking.

One way in which this is harmful is that it leads people to become followers or disciples of the great masters, dedicating their lives to study someone else’s ideas with the hope that they can gain at least part of their wisdom. While serious scholarship and study is valuable, if you want to use philosophy to improve your life, you must also learn how to think for yourself and make ideas in philosophy relevant to the problems that shape your life experience.

After spending 15+ years studying and teaching philosophy to others, I have noticed that many people think their own ideas don’t matter in comparison to the ideas of great philosophers. “What could I possibly say in a conversation with Aristotle that has any value?”. This is something that I have struggled with throughout my entire academic career.

I have come to realize that this is the wrong way to think about philosophy.

To think this way would be like a musician thinking that they shouldn’t make music because it will never be as good as Bach or Beethoven.

Making music is not a competition, it is a deeply rewarding human activity.

Likewise, although academic philosophy is a field of research, philosophy is so much more than an academic discipline. Philosophy is a way of living. It is a creative activity.

Even if you cannot develop your own macro-philosophy, everyone can and should develop their own micro-philosophy. Just like everyone can and should do things like make music, create art, build things, and write.

The problem is that while there are lots of great tools and resources about how to do all sorts of creative activities, there is virtually nothing on the internet to help people make their own philosophy.

If people lack a philosophical worldview, or understanding of their own beliefs and values, it is not because they are incapable, it is because they are not empowered with the right tools to develop and understand their own ideas.

This is the purpose of Ousia OS and the concept of a micro-philosophy.

Ousia OS is a “software” that provides ordinary people with the tools and resources needed to understand themselves and build their own micro-philosophy in a step by step way.

Over the next few months, I will be publishing tons of free content about Ousia OS and the concept of a micro-philosophy. I hope you find it empowering.

Talk Soon.

-Paul