Recall that we set out with some broad explorations in mind — how can we create a better life? how can we improve? And our scale for improvement could be anything from personal to global.
At the core of this is learning, for individuals, groups, and societies, so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes, so that we can make progress
Layered on that are the ideas of how we create a sense of purpose for our lives:
– value – what’s good, what’s important, what’s worth doing
– prioritization – what’s most important, what’s most worth doing, how should we spend our time
– meaning – in the face of all the information and knowledge that we are bombarded with, and that we have available, how do we construct stories about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going and should be going individually and together
What will be the consequences of the goals we choose? How do we know where we should go if we don’t know how we got where we are? What happens once we get there? Getting there is a process – what does that process entail?
We’ve so far just meandered through a few related topics, and much more remains to be (re)visited. In the next set of posts I’ll take a more practical turn, related more directly to your improvement area, before returning to higher level ideas.
Exercise
1. Review your notes and exercises over the posts to date.
2. What questions do you have for yourself or others?
3. What would you want to explore further?
4. Do any of these exercises get you thinking about any possible changes you might want to make in your life?
5. How does what you’ve explored relate to your improvement area and the measurements you’ve made?
About Learning
Throughout this project, I am rarely suggesting what you should think. I am introducing a lot of questions and ideas, but mostly these will be about how, rather than what, to think, how to decide, how to evaluate, etc. This is an important difference.
While we all can and do disagree about many things, it is important for people to develop an understanding of some common methods about how to approach thinking. Different methods or combinations of methods may be most appropriate for different situations.
If we can develop skills in various methods, and get used to the idea that there are different methods, that we can combine them and learn or develop new ones, then we have a lot of powerful tools to address situations of various types, and to be able to work together with people of different perspectives and backgrounds.
If we don’t bring this awareness, then we will continually be confused, and swamped by misunderstanding and conflict.