While reading yet another book by Pierre Hadot recently, I came across a fascinating passage from the ancient Greek writer Plutarch about philosophy as a way of life. Here's the crux of it, in my own translation:
Socrates indeed was a philosopher, even though he didn't set out benches for students or hold court in a special chair or observe set times for discoursing or walking around with pupils; instead, as chance may have it, he feasted with people, drank with them, served in the army with some of them, hung around in the marketplace with them, and in the end was locked up and drank the poison - yet he was the very first person who showed forth at all times, in all respects, in all experiences, in all activities that plainly and simply living is itself engaging in the love of wisdom.
The ancient Greeks were not the only ones to whom this idea occurred. Over 1500 years after the death of Socrates, the great Zen Buddhist thinker Dōgen formulated his conception of the unity of practice and fulfillment (shushō-ittō): if done with the right awareness and presence, anything we do - chopping wood, carrying water, cooking, cleaning, walking, sitting quietly - can count as a realization of the Way. We don't need to wait years and years to achieve enlightenment, because if we approach living in the right frame of mind then enlightenment is right here, right now, inside us and all around us.
Living wisdom is the highest form of loving wisdom.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)