A friend likes to tell the story of trailing two coeds across campus. One was explaining a vexing problem the whole way. As they started to enter a building, the other said,"Be philosophical about it. Don't think about it."
Philosophy is made of old words that combine to mean "love of wisdom." In the West, the most commonly mentioned name associated with philosophy is Socrates. You may know that Socrates is often compared to Jesus in that both were executed by a government and both are often said to have been the target of lethal slander, rumor and bad feeling.
So, if one wants to be philosophical, maybe for just a little while, how does one proceed? To me, the essence of philosophy in life, as opposed maybe to in a course, is questioning. In today's world, it can be difficult to separate science and scientific work from philosophical work. I think it can honestly be said that the ancients tended to skip the modern steps of gathering data. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you can still find plenty of simple assertions that are asserted without evidence or data.
Another major tool of philosophical thinking as Socrates is reported to have proceeded according to his pupil Plato, who could write and did, is group dialogue. Modern artificial intelligence researchers grasp the important difference between a single person thinking, pondering, questioning and a group doing so. Even if several men with similar backgrounds consider a question, maybe "What is justice?", it can be very impressive how quickly they can make the discussion evolve. Different minds, powered by relaxed but slightly oppositional and competitive thinking, employing their own opinions, experiences and backgrounds, can very rapidly develop an impressive array of ideas and extensions on just about any line of thought.
Modern scientific work often employs Socratic dialogue but researchers are usually trained not to go on "fishing trips", that is, have some ideas and some reasons for designing the experiments and tests you do. Don't just gather lots of measurements and hope that they will mean something. Have some sort of a plan and have that plan discussed and criticized before gathering your data.
