“rules to live by”

I currently find myself thinking about the idea of rules for living. on one hand, there are the known constants of rules in society: laws, norms and conventions. all these could be subsumed under the idea of rules we live by (mainly focused on co-existence). on the other hand, there are individual behaviours that follow certain patterns, be it conscious or not:  f.ex. how I decide to react upon catcalls or compliments depending on who made them and in what situation I am. these patterns could also be subsumed into a complex rule system I live by, my operating system.

between these mostly social and mostly individual rules there is a third category that, in a way, includes both sides: religious rules/ ethics. f.ex. the ten commandements or the wiccan rede. they are less specific than laws, rather a rough and interpretable guidance and less personal than my operating system, but definitely knit closely to a certain way of living.

so I began collecting rules I live by on this level and found that they are surprisingly high in number, my list is not yet exhausted. during the next weeks, I want to polish this list and make it publisheable, so that it can be compared to others. in a way I think this could be a nice approach in thinking about different systems / utopias / societies that could emerge out of these “rules”.