Her Approach
Gad's approach to philosophy is direct, pragmatic, and laced with humor. She uses pop culture references to explore deep ideas, because that's how most people actually think. Her facilitation style focuses on making assumptions visible and helping people get curious about ideas different from their own. She occasionally leads discussions, assesses what the community needs, suggests new classes and topics, and translates complex philosophy into plain talk for marketing and outreach.
Practicing philosophy has helped her realize she could be more powerful than she thought possible. She used to just get frustrated when encountering closed-minded thinking. Now she understands that her frustration was often a sign of her own disconnection. Real philosophical power comes through connection - meeting people where they are, not where she wishes they were.
Building Something That Lasts
After 15 years of making Philosofarian work behind the scenes, Gad now focuses on the strategic work of building sustainable infrastructure: writing organizational plans, developing the website, cultivating donor relationships, growing the board, and setting priorities for the organization's future. As Philosofarian grows, her role is transforming into that of Executive Director - building an organization that can serve the community for generations, not just years.
When She's Not Running Philosofarian
Gad designs and makes costumes, creates large-scale art installations, and gardens (outside only - she kills houseplants, except orchids, which mysteriously thrive). She thinks rocks might have consciousness, just on a timescale we can't comprehend. She finds determinism comforting but also believes in magic, and hasn't reconciled the two yet. She's working on it.
Gad Perez Tichenor
Co-founder & Executive Director, Philosofarian
Making Philosofarian Run
Gad handles everything that makes Philosofarian actually run - from securing venues to building donor relationships to translating Seth's philosophy-speak into language regular humans can understand. After 15 years of "taking care of logistics and adding levity," she's now focused on transforming Philosofarian into a financially sustainable organization that can serve the community for decades to come.
The Class She Failed
Her path to philosophy started with failure. As a business major at Linfield, most classes felt disappointingly easy - until she took Ancient Greek philosophy. That class blew her mind open. For the first time, she heard multiple reasoned definitions of "God." She didn't even know that was possible. It completely changed how she saw people. "I used to write off religious people as gullible," she admits. "After that class, I could hold different definitions in my mind and listen to religious people with actual curiosity."
She failed the class.
Not because she didn't understand it - she was wrestling with the ideas on such a big scale she couldn't bring herself to write papers that reduced them to assignments. (She also went to a Snoop Dogg concert instead of writing her midterm, which didn't help.) The institution wanted her to perform learning for a grade. She was actually doing philosophy - thinking so hard about the material she couldn't package it neatly for evaluation. She retook the class to graduate and aced it the second time, once she figured out how to translate genuine philosophical thinking into what the institution wanted.
What Philosophy Actually Does
That experience - failing the class that changed her life - crystallized everything wrong with how institutions approach education, and everything right about what philosophy can do when it's freed from grades and performance metrics. Philosophy gives people access to their own thinking. No other study does this. Everyone should understand why they think what they think, because understanding how ideas work prevents people from being tricked into acting against their own best interests.
Back then, Gad would get frustrated when she encountered closed-minded thinking or ideas that seemed small. She wanted to help people think clearly, but she didn't yet understand what that actually required.
Taking It on the Road
After college, frustrated with how little educational institutions actually helped people think clearly, Gad wanted to start her own school. When she and Seth (accidentally) fell in love, they discovered they shared the same frustration: institutions were more interested in metrics than actual learning. So they left the university system and hit the road to test a hypothesis: Do people actually want to talk about philosophy?
The answer, discovered through countless conversations with strangers in bars, breweries, and coffee shops across multiple cities, was yes. People everywhere wanted to think deeply - they just didn't know how to take conversations deeper, and they thought they were alone in being thoughtful. Everywhere they went, people would say, "I'm thoughtful, but the people across the street / in the next town over / in the bar next door aren't." So Gad and Seth would go there next. Turns out thoughtful people are everywhere. That road trip became Philosofarian.
"I love watching people's minds open up," she says. "And I love that thinking together connects people. I didn't know it had that power until we started doing this. I always wanted to help people think clearly - I didn't realize it had so much to do with connecting."