It’s March 2020. The news is that there’s a novel coronavirus that might be dangerous. Nothing is much known about it.
We are in the presence of a new pandemic. A respiratory one? No one knows. What to do in this case? Let’s go on lockdown.
What started as a two-week lockdown extended into eternal confinement with no signs that it would be over any time soon.
All university courses had to be taught virtually, via WebEx or Zoom.
I didn’t know what Zoom was, nor how to mute all students. But I adapted and managed to make a smooth landing into the digital world of education.
A few months before that, in October 2019 to be exact, a revolution was in order. The country is Lebanon, the city, Beirut.
Many people took to the streets clamoring for a new political order. For a few weeks, people from across Lebanon marched together hoping and calling for a better future.
As professors, we also had to adapt. Many of us joined the protests and had to find other ways to give our classes outside the classroom. We took the sessions to the streets.
As a philosophy professor, it was a great opportunity to create a space for discussion to get the students to reflect on classical philosophical writings in light of the events they were experiencing firsthand.
In between these two events that marked the transition from 2019 to 2020, an economic crisis crawled upon us to add insult to injury.
This was not a pandemic-induced crisis. Rather, it was the result of many, many years of corruption and mismanagement of those who were in office.
My salary by April 2020 devalued from 3000$ to only a few hundred bucks. I quit at the end of that semester.
The future did not seem to be promising at all.
Little did anyone of those living or working in Beirut know that a few months later, on August 4, the city would be rocked by a semi-nuclear explosion.
It was an event worse than anything I had experienced before, including war. I was one of the lucky ones who had their windows open on that hell summer day.
An hour and a half after the explosion, I had to give the first lecture of the Introduction to Philosophy course.
It was the craziest thing I ever did. However, I couldn’t let those who paid and signed up for my course down, especially because many of them were from other countries, and they might have not heard about what had just happened. Anthony, who was in that class, talks about it here.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Amidst all that was happening prior to the explosion, I had to quickly adapt. And adapt I did.
In March 2020 I knew I had to figure something out because I was at risk of losing my job due to the precarious situation.
After I sent the resignation email to the chairperson, in May 2020 I decided to take to Twitter in order to gauge people’s interest in a possible online philosophy course.
The gods of philosophy were on my side on that fine day, the tweet went semi-viral, and I soon found myself running and trying to grow an online business that consisted of me teaching philosophy online to people from all walks of life.
I’ve been doing this for a living since then. If you want an insight into my numbers, I’d be more than glad to respond to your questions. Feel free to ask me anything.
Who would’ve thought that I would make a relatively good living by simply teaching useless philosophy courses?
In order to keep it running, I of course had to learn a great deal about so many things, including marketing, sales, growing an audience on social media, copywriting, teaching philosophy for people with real-life experience. In short, I was a newbie, and I had to start from zero.
Stoicism and philosophy did help me navigate through adversity. Here I am two years later, still learning a lot on a daily basis in order to keep my small business running.
The above anecdotes are not there to add drama to my story. I just think they’re three events that helped shape who I am now.
This experience, I think, is a much better teacher than many a textbook. It’s also not something a resume could quite capture.
In addition to my course-teaching business, I am now also exploring other options in an attempt to diversify my portfolio — see Daniel Vassallo’s ‘A Portfolio of Small Bets’.
The less I focus on career goals and abstract ambitions, the more I am open to learning new skills that help me deal with concrete instances in my life.
If there’s one takeaway from this article for you it’s probably this. Take a step back, and think about your journey, and whether or not your life experiences and what you’re learning is helping you deal with, in addition to other things, particular situations relating to your own life.
You can find me on Twitter @decafquest.
Free ebook: Sardonically Speaking.