So first of all I believe that there is a truth for a person at a certain moment, in a certain ambience and in a certain situation. Then life goes on, the world changes and we change worlds, we change the ambience, which affects our truths. So this truth we once settled on might change and at least in my life it does. What was wrong some years ago, is right today – and the other way around, what was right once is wrong now. Therefore the basis of my philosophy is: Homo Simplex does not mean to have the perfect answer but to be a human answer, with everything that makes us human – and this also means changing our truths. 

I for example was living in a monastery – having been convinced that the catholic or Christian religion could help. Now I am not even catholic any more.

I saw people running around that are ’thirsty‘ and I saw a faucet, a bottle of water, a lake – I saw so much water – and people really came to me and said that they are thirsty.

I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t just use what was there. When I saw so clear that there was water everywhere, I thought that everybody sees that clearly too. And when I asked them:

“Why wouldn’t you just take this water bottle?”

They would answer: “What water bottle? “

“The one that stands right here!”

And then they would see it and say: “That is amazing – how did you do that?”

“He is a magician, he is a master, and he created a water bottle.”

But no – it was there, the people just didn’t see it. It was always hard for me to imagine that people really don’t see it. I couldn’t imagine that people just rush around thirsty and they don’t drink.

Then I thought it is ridiculous to write a book about that or to create a therapy for it. And it seemed strange to explain to people how to find the reason for diseases or how they could cure diseases or how they could find content to their lives.

One day someone came to me, saying he was thirsty and I asked him “Why don’t you then drink this glass of water?”

And he said “What water? I always take this apple when I am thirsty.”

And I asked “what apple?”

“This apple!” he replied.

And like this I realized that there are things that I do not see, people use different kinds of solutions to satisfy their thirst. Sometimes satisfying their needs in ways that seemed indirect. But these indirect ways were essential to understand the “world” this person is living in. And these indirect ways were fascinating to me: What did they do with their thirst? What did they drink? What kind of needs did they have? How did they satisfy their hunger?

Through this understanding and bringing light into the reasons why a person does not see the things as I see, I started to collect different worlds and languages. I started to understand people, who all seem to have whole worlds with connections and their solutions for their problems.

So I studied the different worlds people live in and things that they create, things that they see and realized that my solutions might not be the right solutions for a person within his life.  And this is why I started to share – not to give the perfect answer – only to show that there are different ways to create life, and that a solution for one person is not the solution for another one. And therefore I realized that one philosophy can’t be the answer to all. I accepted just giving different philosophies or different points of view.

I also realized that it is a great help for others to get to know their own world. And sharing different worlds might help them to realize that they are not so wrong in their world. And it is not that they need to change their worlds and become better, become millionaires, to heal the world or what ever… First they could appreciate the world that they created and this already had amazing results.

This became a passion for me: I entered worlds, I was invited to different worlds, I conquered worlds and I shared worlds with different people, collecting a lot of experiences and appreciation to the perfection of being human.  

So I was looking for answers to questions like: Is it all right if I just hand the people a glass of water when they are thirsty? Is it all right to cure someone’s disease because they say they want to get rid of it? Or is there a reason why they don’t drink and why they would have a disease?

Is there a reason why they don’t see this glass of water? And is there a reason why people come to me? And maybe it is I who should show them alternatives – not only this glass of water but also something I experienced to be more satisfying? Helping them to see where they could fill this glass of water, and to show them that they could not only drink water, but also Coke, Kombucha or other refreshments… and that they could get the water from different sources – I could help them find the different sources. 

Also understanding that some people don’t need water. They might say they are thirsty and I would give them water but instead sometimes I found it was best to take time to understand what they are really thirsty for.

Then over the years, I realized that people really don’t see and don’t understand how to read themselves and others, to understand their own world and other worlds, and to use the right „language“, and I thought maybe it could be of some help to show what I understood about decoding. Because it is simple. Therefore, I called it Homo Simplex.

• ThomasHertlein-booklet.pdf