This and many of life’s other mysteries were answered, not by a therapist or divine entity, but by a stack of old televisions, speakers and a gramophone blaring in a mall.
The interactive art installation, The People’s Oracle, is set up in the city’s Golden Centre Mall this week for the Dunedin Arts Festival.
These short life lessons were recorded and fed through the "oracle".
Audiences were invited to then sit upon an armchair facing the oracle and ask it a life question — the answers they heard being one of the more than 80 randomised responses she had accumulated, played back through the audio equipment, Mrs Starke said.
"In effect, the community answers its own life questions with its own wisdoms.
"The oracle literally speaks in the voices of the people of Dunedin, to the people of Dunedin who are asking their questions."
Everyone had pearls of wisdom they had learned, which were each important to the way we lived our lives, but were not always shared with others outside of their immediate circles, Mrs Starke said.
The installation was a way to share these life lessons among people from all walks of life.
From the comical to the poetic, respondents had said "wildly different things" and the helpfulness of the oracle’s answers could vary.
While it was obviously not a real oracle, people had asked the installation personal questions about if they would find love again, or if they should change jobs.
Some had even cried in the chair during previous showings, while others had taken their own meaning away from seemingly vague answers.
She tried to keep the responses random, but would sometimes intervene when particularly meaningful questions arose, Mrs Starke said.
The Otago Daily Times visited the oracle yesterday and asked it two questions: "what is the secret to happiness", and "what is the meaning of life"?
It answered: "sleep is everything", and "it takes time, just wait it out", respectively.
Meanwhile, Dunedin Arts Festival director Charlie Unwin said the festival overall had been going really well.
Ticket sales were ahead of expectations and the shows had been attended by a diverse range of audiences.
He was looking forward to audiences experiencing An Evening Without Kate Bush and The Eastern during the finals days of this year’s festival.
The People’s Oracle is in the Golden Centre Mall today.
