The meaning of life in societies was typically determined by a culture, religion or community and is the simplest and most reasonable solution for anyone who has no problem conforming to the expectations set. Anyone can listen to their mother, pastor or other (spiritual) guide. It is the easiest way to become happy, as long as the given meaning seems suitable or can be made suitable with a little flexibility. This is particularly easy for those who want to believe firmly in ideas. In the Christian, Western world, the predetermined meaning means something like: Marriage, building society savings contract, children, working hard, not complaining, performing; but it means much more. Becoming happy in the process can happen, but is not a must.

Today, democratic and despotic societies that pay homage to the meaning of life are coming under increasing pressure from global megatrends: the climate crisis, the limits to growth, multiculturalism and crises of meaning are pushing democratic systems in particular to their limits. Not only the eternally yesterday and the eternally tomorrow are struggling for the meaning of life, but the middle of society is also beginning to struggle for the meaning of life. The self-generated (meaning) crises are bringing the democratic cauldron to the boil. Those who often hear: “Be reasonable!” develop a rather distanced relationship to reason. Those who believe that the truths of others depend on their position in a multicultural society may gain the impression that everyone constructs their own reality according to their firm beliefs. This is not a new position. Ever since the Catholic Church’s dispute with Galileo, doubting observation techniques and their ability to show the world as it is has been the most popular strategy for immunizing one’s own beliefs against other misconceptions and superstitions. Already in antiquity, Plato’s idealism laid the foundations for the immunization of faith through divine ideals and their shadows to be interpreted. Today, it is the postmodernists who are attacking the objectivity of truth, reason and our observation techniques with their media and communication theories.

Some people therefore look for the meaning in life, but the meaning in life is a comparatively difficult consideration. It’s not just about determining everything yourself, but also about taking care of everything yourself until everything turns out well in the end. This can take a long time, is not always nice, but always involves a lot of work. If you are looking for meaning in life, you can expect a lot. But anyone who keeps stumbling into new life crises because they don’t fit into the predetermined patterns should still consider looking for meaning in their life themselves. We can help you do this without replacing an old meaning of life with a new one. Our credo is help yourself, then not only God will help you, but we will help you too. The first step is always to make decisions. We have called the most difficult decisions context-forming decisions, because they permanently involve a task context and permanently change the architecture of your own life. Such decisions include, for example, training, studying and choosing a career. Or starting a family, having children and bringing them up. But the loss of a job, the loss of important people or the separation from a life partner can also permanently change the architecture of one’s life. In such a case, we cannot simply carry on as before, but are forced to realign our lives and add new meaningful tasks. And sometimes there is also a crisis of meaning before the realignment.

A complication for all those who seek meaning in life is that the social, cultural, artistic and humanities sciences still believe they have to exert a normative influence on personal decisions with value judgments, because exerting influence is in the nature of such sciences. They confront you with their scientific, social, cultural, artistic, communication and media theories, which – on closer inspection – only represent other ideals for the meaning of life or immunization strategies for their beliefs. Under the guise of science, they influence decisions that are your personal decisions. A further complication arises from the fact that in their good faith they do not provide you with scientific, social, cultural, artistic, communication and media apprenticeship (Lehre). Apprenticeships (Lehren) inform you about alternative social techniques, but leave you to make your personal choices by choosing alternatives.

For the task of determining the meaning of your life, you do not have to reinvent your entire universe. You can remove the influences from all the theories that are relevant to you and transform them into technological teachings. Experience shows that there can be big gaps if no one has taken care of the alternatives you are looking for. This explains the difficulties of filling your life with personal meaning, but shows realistic paths that promise you orientation without the name of influence. Our guide for smart avant-gardists shows you paths in the form of teachings and you decide where you want to go. This is not an easy path, but it is the easiest one we can offer you if we want to ensure that you can make your own decisions. Our way of providing you with easy to understand science, social, cultural, art, communication and media apprenticeships (Lehren) is through art, photography, film and our theatrum mundi 42 and is not against science, social, cultural, art, communication and media theories but towards their transformation into apprenticeships (Lehren). We find it amusing to present our art in the form of metalogues, because Plato has put almost his entire work into dialogues. Metalogues emphasize the meta-levels of the spiritual architecture of life, art, culture and, above all, learning. Neither in everyday language nor in deconstruction do we have sufficient possibilities at our disposal that would allow us to bring the cybernetic structure of the mind to life; our architecture, construction and implementation apprenticeships (Lehren) serve this purpose, and our metalogues are the narrative context that makes them easier to understand. Our hope is that you will even find it amusing.

Our art project takes place in the city of reason of lifelong learning; in the city in which we live. Our city’s declaration on living together in diversity gives us hope. In the reality of our city, as everywhere in the world and in real life, there is still a lot to do to organize peaceful coexistence, a coexistence that enables everyone to live their lives according to their own ideas.

Before you look around here, you should take the following advice: If you are not only unhappy with your life, but are currently so unwell that you may not be able to help yourself, then you need help from a doctor. Our life-crisis advice can only help you when you are ok enough to work on the meaning of your life with humor in order to heal completely. For those who are ready, there is much to understand, much to decide and much to gain.