Cold Open: The Line Heard Around the Crisis Table

When Reality Hits and Someone Tries to Evict Philosophy

It usually starts when things get a little too real.

Maybe you’re mid-argument about leadership at work. Or someone’s venting about their life falling apart (again). Or you’re gently pointing out that “follow your heart” is not a viable business strategy. And just as you start to go deeper—drawing out the why behind the what, the structure behind the story—it drops:

“Look, I don’t want the philosophical response.”

Cue the dramatic pause. They’ve said it. As if they just cast a spell to ward off complexity. As if philosophy were some unnecessary garnish on the plate of real life. Like parsley. Or decency in politics.

What they mean is: This is the real world. This is about action, emotion, urgency, survival—not big words and abstract thinking. They imagine philosophy as a guy in a dusty robe stroking his beard, sipping Greek wine, whispering nonsense while Rome burns.

But here’s the twist they don’t see coming:
The very act of rejecting philosophy is philosophy.

It’s like shouting “I don’t believe in language” mid-sentence. Or holding a protest sign that says “Nothing Matters.” You’re in it, mate. The moment you open your mouth and declare what is or isn’t relevant, what should or shouldn’t be done, you’re engaging in ontology, ethics, epistemology. You’re doing the thing you claim to reject. Bless your heart.

We’re not mocking anyone’s frustration. Emotions are real. Instincts are valid. But we must not mistake immediacy for clarity, or urgency for coherence. The frameworks are still there, silently shaping what we say, do, and believe—even when we’re too annoyed to see them.

So when someone demands “no philosophy,” what they’re really asking is:
Can we keep pretending our assumptions are facts, our habits are truth, and our contradictions are normal?

Spoiler: No, we can’t.

Because in this article, we’re calling it out. The myth that “real life” sits over here and “philosophy” is floating somewhere over there in Plato’s man cave is about to get dismantled. With humour. With rigour. And with a gentle reminder that whether you like it or not, you’re already living your philosophy.

And if it sucks, we should probably talk about it.

The Irony: You Just Did a Philosophy

Saying “No Philosophy” Is a Philosophical Statement. Oops.

Let’s be honest: rejecting philosophy might feel powerful. Defiant. Practical, even. Like you’ve finally kicked all that abstract nonsense out the door so we can get on with the real business of living.

But here’s the awkward bit.

The moment you say, “I don’t want the philosophical answer,” you’ve just performed an impressively ironic philosophical act.

You’ve made a claim about what matters. About relevance. About how problems should be approached. You’ve declared a theory of knowledge (epistemology), defined the domain of what counts as real (ontology), and smuggled in a preference about values (axiology). You might as well have lit a candle and summoned Immanuel Kant.

You did a philosophy. And not even a subtle one.

It’s like walking into a gym and yelling, “I HATE FITNESS” while lifting a dumbbell. Or launching a YouTube video titled “Why Attention Doesn’t Matter.” If irony had a passport, it just got stamped.

This is the part where we’d like to welcome you—officially—to the world of unintentional philosophers. It’s a booming industry. Millions of people are doing philosophy badly, daily, while insisting they don’t want any. Kind of like people doing interpretive dance at weddings after two glasses of wine. It’s happening. It’s just not great.

But we’re not here to be smug. (Okay, maybe just a little.)

We’re here to point out something liberating:
If you’re already philosophising, wouldn’t it make sense to do it well?
With intention? With awareness? With a framework that doesn’t collapse the moment someone asks “why?”

Because at the end of the day, “no philosophy” doesn’t exist. Only unconscious philosophy does. And the world is full of it—accidental ideologies stitched together from TED Talks, sitcoms, and memes masquerading as wisdom.

So next time you catch someone rolling their eyes at “philosophical responses,” gently remind them:
You’re not avoiding philosophy. You’re just married to a bad one.

Everyday Philosophers in Denial

Let’s talk about the average philosopher.

They don’t wear robes. They’ve never heard of Wittgenstein. And they certainly don’t refer to themselves as “thinkers.” But you’ll find them absolutely everywhere: in traffic, on Instagram, at school pick-up, during awkward family dinners, and especially on LinkedIn.

They’re Not Avoiding Philosophy—They’re Just Doing It With a Terrible GPS

They say things like:

• “Everything happens for a reason.”

• “People are just energy.”

• “This is just my truth.”

• “Money is the root of all evil.”

• “You’ve got to manifest it.”

• “It’s the universe testing me.”

• “I’m just being realistic.”

Ah, yes, realism. That noble, often smug philosophy posing as the absence of philosophy. It's the beige cardigan of worldviews—boring, unexamined, and somehow everywhere.

The truth is, we are always interpreting. Always assigning meaning, weaving narratives, creating mental frameworks, deciding what’s real, what matters, and what to do next. That’s not just psychology. That’s philosophy with a day job.

The problem? Most people are doing it like they assemble IKEA furniture—without reading the manual and blaming the universe when the table wobbles.

They think they’re being practical. Grounded. “Just doing life.” But they’re actually executing a messy cocktail of metaphysics, ethics, and value systems they picked up from their parents, pop culture, a bit of astrology, and something they overheard in a café once, but never questioned.

It’s like driving using a GPS you found in a cereal box and wondering why you keep ending up in ditches.

Here’s the twist:
You don’t need to wear a toga to be a philosopher. You just need to breathe, interpret, choose, and justify, which you already do. Constantly.

The question isn’t whether you’re doing philosophy. The question is:
Is it coherent?
Does it actually work in real life?
Or are you unknowingly outsourcing your worldview to the “motivational” side of Pinterest?

Philosophy isn’t a niche hobby for the overeducated and underemployed. It’s the silent operating system of human life. And the folks who claim they “don’t do philosophy” are usually running the worst, buggiest version of it—completely unpatched, riddled with contradictions, and one emotional update away from a full meltdown.

But don’t worry. Help is on the way.

It’s called conscious philosophy—or as we call it, the Metacontent Discourse and Being Discourse—where you actually know how your worldview works, where it’s leading you, and whether it’s built on sand or something solid.

So, to all the accidental philosophers out there:
You’ve been philosophising all along.
It’s just time to upgrade your thinking from duct tape to design.

Enter the Greats: Hawking, The Ironist

When the Physicist Declares Philosophy Dead… in a Philosophy Book

Now, for a moment, let’s bring in the intellectual heavy artillery.

Stephen Hawking—brilliant mind, scientific legend, cosmological celebrity. The man redefined black holes, explored the nature of time, and sold more books than most influencers sell protein powder. We owe him a great deal. But even the greats occasionally step on a philosophical rake.

In his bestselling book The Grand Design, co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking made a headline-worthy declaration:

“Philosophy is dead.”

Boom. Mic drop. End of debate, right?

Well, not quite.

Because here’s what followed that declaration:
Chapter after chapter of ontological speculation, metaphysical positioning, epistemic posturing, and interpretive frameworks about what is, how we know, and why anything exists at all. In other words:
Philosophy. But with better fonts.

It’s like writing a cookbook and declaring: “Food is irrelevant.”
Or launching a fitness app with the slogan: “Exercise is overrated.”
Or holding a funeral for philosophy while stuffing its coffin with freshly printed philosophical arguments.

Even the very act of declaring philosophy dead is a philosophical stance. It assumes a theory of knowledge, value, and reality. It claims to know what disciplines matter. It picks sides in an age-old debate about science, truth, and meaning.

And that’s where things get deliciously ironic.

Because if Hawking and Mlodinow—two of the most analytically precise minds of their era—can accidentally write a book-length philosophical treatise while declaring philosophy obsolete, what hope does Chad from accounting have?

What’s more, The Grand Design wasn’t full of empirical discoveries. It was full of interpretations of empirical discoveries—how to think about the universe, how to reconcile quantum mechanics with determinism, what counts as “real.” All deeply philosophical questions dressed in scientific attire.

The lesson here?

Even the smartest folks in the room are doing philosophy, even when they think they’ve evolved past it. The question is never whether philosophy is present. It’s only whether it’s being done well, or in this case, done accidentally, like a cosmic photobomb.

So before we scoff at “theory,” let’s remember:
Even astrophysicists have philosophical skeletons in their wormholes.

What They’re Really Saying

“Don’t Threaten My Comfort With Coherence”

Let’s get honest for a second.

When someone says, “I don’t want the philosophical response,” they’re not bravely defending pragmatism. They’re not allergic to Plato. They’re not staging a rebellion against Socrates. What they’re really saying—beneath the words, under the exhale, behind the eye roll—is something far more human:

“Please don’t dismantle the shaky scaffolding that’s holding my worldview together right now.”

Or:

“Can we not touch that part of my psyche? It’s under renovation and held together with memes and sheer denial.”

Or:

“Don’t make me look at the fact that my decisions are being driven by unresolved trauma, a poorly understood childhood, and Instagram reels.”

We get it. Philosophy, when done right, is intrusive. It doesn’t care about your vibe. It doesn’t flatter your identity. It asks why, not to be annoying, but to reveal what you might not want to see. And unlike your friends or your echo chamber, philosophy doesn’t politely nod when you say “that’s just how I am.” It gently—sometimes rudely—asks, “But is that true? Is it working?”

That’s why people panic when a deeper framework enters the chat.

It’s like inviting a philosopher to your party and suddenly realising they’re rearranging your furniture because it “lacks existential alignment.”

What they’re really avoiding is the discomfort of cognitive dissonance—the painful recognition that the story they’ve been telling themselves might be stitched together from hope, habit, and a few convenient lies. Philosophy threatens to ask whether their principles can survive daylight.

So “no philosophy” often translates to:
“Please don’t collapse my coping strategy right now.”

And honestly? Fair.
Life’s hard. People are overwhelmed. Not everyone has the bandwidth to audit their ontology between coffee and existential dread. But let’s not pretend that asking real questions is the problem. The real problem is the fragility of systems that fall apart when we do.

So the next time someone says “don’t get philosophical,” what they might mean is:
“I’m scared that if we go deeper, I’ll have to change something.”
And they’re probably right.

But that’s also exactly where freedom begins.

The Framework That is Already Running (Poorly)

Welcome to the Operating System You Never Installed but Can’t Seem to Uninstall

Imagine waking up one day and realising you've been running an operating system your whole life.

You didn’t install it. You never agreed to the terms and conditions. No one gave you a manual. And yet—there it is. Making decisions for you. Drawing conclusions. Defining what's real, what's valuable, and what's possible. All in the background.

That’s your framework.

It’s not something philosophers “made up.” It’s the invisible software beneath every thought, every reaction, every “gut feeling” you’ve ever had. And here’s the kicker: you already have one.

Everyone does.

The question is:
Is it a conscious, structured, well-integrated framework?
Or is it something cobbled together from your uncle’s political rants, an ex-girlfriend’s yoga mantras, and three episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience?

Most people are philosophising on autopilot. They’re flying the plane of life with no instruments, minimal training, and a strong Wi-Fi signal for hot takes. Their metacontent is a mess—a patchwork of outdated narratives, internalised clichés, pop-psychology fragments, and whatever made them feel momentarily superior in an argument once.

And when things go wrong, they blame everything but the framework.

• Burned out? Must be the job.

• In five toxic relationships in a row? “I just attract intense people.”

• Life feels empty and chaotic? “It’s capitalism.”

(Sure, but maybe also: your metaphysics needs a firmware update.)

This is where the Metacontent Discourse and Being Discourse come in. Not to make life more complicated, but to actually reveal the hidden architecture of your worldview—and whether it’s functional, coherent, or just aesthetically pleasing in a Tumblr sort of way.

Because frameworks don’t stop running just because you ignore them. In fact, ignoring them is what gives them the most power. Like that shady background app draining your battery and sending all your data somewhere you never agreed to.

Want to talk “real world”? Great. But the real world is shaped by real-time interpretations, often derived from unconscious metaphysical garbage piles. The goal isn’t to stop philosophising. The goal is to stop doing it accidentally and badly.

If your internal framework is steering your life anyway,
why not actually take the wheel?

“No Philosophy” Is Still a Philosophy

Neglecting It Doesn’t Make You Neutral—It Just Makes You Ignorant

Let’s set the record straight once and for all:

Not caring about philosophy is still a philosophy.
Not caring about theory is a theory.
And dismissing things as “too philosophical” is—surprise!—a deeply philosophical stance.

Choosing to ignore philosophy doesn’t put you in some blessed realm of raw, pragmatic realness. It just means you’re being governed by a worldview you didn’t choose, don’t understand, and probably couldn’t articulate if your life depended on it. (And, spoiler alert: your life kind of does depend on it.)

It’s like refusing to learn how maps work and then proudly declaring you “navigate by vibe.” Sure, you’ll still get somewhere—just probably not where you wanted to go. And you’ll have no clue why you keep ending up in dead ends, toxic loops, or suspiciously similar romantic failures.

When someone says:

“This is too philosophical for me.”
What they often mean is:
“I’m uncomfortable with anything that makes me interrogate my own assumptions, let alone upgrade them.”

Because here’s the thing:
The moment you decide not to prioritise philosophy or theory, you’ve already made a philosophical decision—you’ve chosen immediacy over depth, sensation over structure, and relief over rigour. That’s a value judgment. That’s a theory of action. That’s metaphysics in casualwear.

Even the statement “I just want to do, not think” is loaded with unspoken beliefs about the nature of reality, the role of thought, and the hierarchy between instinct and reflection. It’s like saying, “I don’t need a skeleton—I’m all about soft tissue.”

Sorry, but bones are still there. Whether you like them or not.

Even neglect, avoidance, or mockery of philosophy is, in itself, a philosophy. Just a sloppy one. An unexamined one. One that often collapses the moment it’s questioned and screams, “Don’t overthink it!” right before everything falls apart.

So let’s be clear:
You don’t escape philosophy by ignoring it.
You just become its puppet.

You’re still acting on beliefs. You’re still following a worldview. You’re just doing it with zero accountability and a high risk of logical bankruptcy.

So next time someone shrugs and says,

“This is too deep for me…”
You can smile and reply,
“That’s okay. You’re still swimming in it. Might as well learn how to breathe.”

Academic Theatre and the Absurdity of “No Philosophy” in a PhD

When Philosophy Is Banned at the Temple of Philosophy

Now, allow me to share a little fieldwork—my own.

I was once conducting research at a highly regarded university, dutifully working toward my PhD. You’d think this would be the natural habitat of philosophers, theorists, questioners—the sacred ground of disciplined thought. But no. What I encountered was something closer to a bureaucratic belief system in a lab coat—Suprise! Not that I couldn't predict!

The moment I brought forward a philosophically grounded inquiry—deeply informed, structured, and rigorously built—they frowned. “This is too controversial.” “We only do science here.” “That’s not scientific enough.” One of them, eyes glimmering with stale certainty, actually said: “This is Macadamia—we do science, not philosophy.”

Yes, you read that right. At a university. In a Doctor of Philosophy program.

What they failed to grasp—bless their institutionally padded hearts—is that even their beloved “science” sits upon a philosophical skeleton. What do they think a literature review is if not a carefully structured philosophical comparison? Where do they think terms like thesis, antithesis, and synthesis originate? (Spoiler: it’s not the faculty kitchen. It’s the Hegelian dialectic, a process, designed by a philosopher—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel— to explore the evolution of thought.)

And let’s not even get started on the punchline: once you design your hyper-empirical, evidence-backed, statistically sound “scientific” research question—guess what?
You still have to pass it through an Ethics Committee.

Oh. So now we care about ethics?

We don’t “just do science” in academia. We do epistemology, metaphysics, axiology, moral philosophy—whether we admit it or not. We dress it up as neutrality, but underneath it all, we’re still entangled in the same existential questions humanity has been wrestling with since we realised fire was hot and people lie.

Meanwhile, entire departments are swimming in public funding to explore whether “rare frogs in urban environments vocalise more at dusk” while other researchers are examining the emotional labour dynamics in diversity-based skateboarding collectives. Yes, seriously. Those were real. And I, in contrast, was being side-eyed for exploring how Shared Mental Models—the simple idea that teams aligned in their processes, know-how, and coordination—lead to more effective outcomes. Radical, I know.

All while leveraging a deeply structured framework like the Being Framework, with a real-world track record and tangible impact on leadership, transformation, and human performance.

But they weren’t interested in impact. They were sitting in their ivory towers, defending their “methodologies” like holy relics. Professors paid by the public to overintellectualise lived experience, spinning abstract theories they themselves had no genuine intention of bringing to life. They weren’t in the business of discovery. They were in the optics of being knowledgeable. Fancy titles, hollow application.

And honestly, this is where some of the public’s disappointment with academia, philosophy, and thinkers may come from. Rightfully so. Many of us—yes, us, the so-called thinkers—got lost in our footnotes. We vanished into papers, prestige, and performative objectivity, forgetting that thought exists to serve life, not replace it.

But let me be fair. There are still true seekers among us. Academics and scholars who haven’t sold their curiosity for convenience. Thinkers who still dare to be useful. Philosophers whose work actually lands in the real world with weight and consequence. I’ve met them. I’ve worked with them. And I honour them.

As for me, no, I’m not here to overintellectualise the world.
I’m here to help us live in it better.
To help people deepen their eudaimonic well-being—to be well, with meaning, clarity, and prepared presence. That’s it. No ivory tower. No romanticism. Just the sincere commitment to support individuals and teams in becoming more intentional, more equipped, and more alive in the realities they face.

And this isn’t some lofty promise for the future. The body of work I’ve built—across leadership, effectiveness, transformation, and systemic change—already speaks for itself. The Being Framework. Metacontent. Nested sense-making. These aren’t academic daydreams. They’re used by coaches, founders, educators, executives, creatives, leaders and communities across cultures.

I didn’t walk away from academia because I couldn’t “fit in.”
I walked away because I refused to shrink into its shallowness. And I’m far from alone—this exodus is becoming a quiet norm of our time.

Philosophy is Not Outside Life—It Precedes It

Before You Act, Before You Feel, Before You Choose—There Was a Thought

Let’s kill a myth once and for all:

Philosophy is not some optional, intellectual hobby like bonsai trimming or learning the ukulele. It’s not something you “add on” to life once the serious stuff—like rent, taxes, and arguments about who left the milk out—has been handled.

No.

Philosophy is not downstream from life.
It’s upstream. It’s what you’re drinking before you realise you’re thirsty.

Before you take any action, you’ve already interpreted. Before you interpret, you’ve already filtered. Before you filter, you’ve already assumed. Those assumptions are sitting on a metaphysical foundation—one you didn’t build, but one that has been living in your psyche rent-free for decades.

You feel anxious? That feeling came through a belief.
You chose a career? That choice came through a value system.
You snapped at your partner? That reaction came through an internal map of justice, fairness, or your mum’s unresolved issues. (Hi, Mum.)

All of this is deeply, profoundly philosophical. You’re not just doing life. You’re interpreting it as you go, and that interpretation is shaped by a philosophy you may not even realise you have. But you do. And if you don’t claim authorship, the script you never wrote will write your story. In fact, some of the most dysfunctional behaviour on Earth is just bad philosophy with really good branding.

That’s why there’s no such thing as “real life” vs. “philosophy.” Life is philosophy.

• Your business strategy is metaphysics in a tie.

• Your parenting style is ethics with peanut butter on its shirt.

• Your relationship drama? A complex negotiation between two incompatible epistemologies who like each other’s bodies.

It’s all philosophical.

And when you start to see this, life doesn’t become abstract—it becomes clearer.
You stop flailing around in a fog of reaction and start asking:

• What am I really assuming here?

• Is this belief mine, or something I inherited from someone else’s unresolved nonsense?

• Is my definition of “success” actually… mine?

The answer to chaos isn’t to throw out philosophy.
It’s to do it better. To bring it into the light. To make it conscious.

Because even when you're ignoring it, it’s already shaping everything.

So no, philosophy is not an “extra.”
It’s the prequel to every decision you’ve ever made.

And unlike most prequels, this one’s is not only worth watching—it’s worth becoming intimate with. 

Final Word: Would You Like to Drive Now?

If You’re Already Philosophising, Might As Well Do It With the Lights On

So here we are.

We’ve laughed, we’ve nodded, we’ve politely roasted Stephen Hawking, and we’ve exposed the secret lives of accidental philosophers everywhere—from your dentist to your barista to your inner monologue at 3 AM.

And what have we learned?

That “I don’t want the philosophical answer” is not a mic-drop moment.
It’s more like yelling “I don’t believe in rain” while standing in a thunderstorm.

You’re already in it.
You’re already making sense of the world.
You’re already interpreting, judging, valuing, and acting based on assumptions that started forming before you could tie your shoelaces.

You can’t opt out of philosophy. But you can opt in to do it well.

The question is no longer whether you’re philosophising.
It’s whether you’re driving the process, or being driven by it—blindfolded, with the GPS screaming directions it downloaded from your high school gym teacher, two exes, and a TED Talk about grit.

So here’s your invitation:

Don’t just dismiss philosophy.
Wield it. Shape it. Challenge it.
Use it to unearth the real reason you keep repeating certain patterns, making certain decisions, tolerating certain dysfunctions, and calling it “just life.”

Because it’s not just life. It’s interpreted life, and interpretation is a choice.

So next time someone says, “Don’t give me the philosophical response,” feel free to smile gently and say:

“You’re right. Let’s make it a good one.”

Because whether you’re solving global problems, building a company, leading a family, or just trying to get through Tuesday without an existential breakdown,
philosophy is the vehicle.

The only question left is:
Would you like to drive now?