6.0.0 Personal Practice - Overview

Version 1.2 December 2013                                                        (Previous Version)

There are an almost overwhelming number of choices that we can make, based on our beliefs.

There is a lot of sound, general advice that helps us to decide what is best for ourselves and our communities.  We learn from our parents, teachers and community leaders.  We also learn as we age, not just as children but also as adults and elders.  We acquire rules of thumb about what we and our communities can do.  These are the best we have for “known knowns� in the personal sphere.

But there is a proviso: we must continually question our own standards, because, our personal lives (and those of our elders) are short, our experience and knowledge is limited, and a longer and wider perspective frequently helps.  Most of us are pitifully aware of the vast amount of things that we don't know.  These “known unknowns� hit us in the face on a daily basis.  But that’s not the worst of it.

For most of us, the biggest problem is that we don't know what we don't know.  We never will.  We can only do our best to be as informed as we can, and be tolerant of others who see the world differently – they may know something we don’t, or vice versa.  Our presentation of global beliefs is an attempt to identify at least the major things we should all know, to minimize the risk of “unknown unknowns� as best we can.  As individuals and societies we must remain humble, but at the same time be sufficiently confident of our analysis to be assertive about our value choices..

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The overview below covers the same conclusions as the introduction (see 0.3.6), but in more detail.