Regarding Regretting

When running today, a chain of thoughts brought me to the concept of regret. I thought for a while if I had made any decisions that I regret today. I couldn't come up with any. This only confirmed a conviction I had developed about myself a while ago: You see - regret as a feeling never found much of a space in me. Neither envy.

I relate these two feelings to each other because to me, they are all consequences of some sort of discontentedness about one's self. I think I enjoy the luxury to be a contented person in general and I'm so grateful for that. Grateful - mostly to my parents I guess. For pushing me enough to realize at least some of my potential but never making me a puppet of their personal ambitions.

I have, however, allowed life to drift me along to places where I had to take few decisions which have caused a lot of sorrow - on my self and on others. I'm deeply sorry for these. And each of these decisions have left a scar in my soul. Some deeper than others, some even still bleeding sometimes. I love each of my scars. Because in their own cruel ways, they taught me means to appreciate life more. 

Sadly, there is little didactic value in happiness. Mostly because we don't take the effort to listen to that really quite music of life playing under the pile of daily struggles when things are in harmony. Only when discorded, we reach out for understanding more. 

New challenge in life; to develop there. I want to be in touch with life's music - even, no, especially when things are in harmony. 

Hugging

Next time you hug someone; think about this: Are you only hugging your not-loneliness or are you hugging another eternity? Physically it looks and feels the same - but to me there is a fundamental difference between the two where the latter is difficult to achieve and requires hard work.

Praying Poisoning Us?

I was never a religious person. What I was already finding awkward and suspicious as a child about religions, I could actually verify by reading about them and their history later on. Religions - especially the ones rooting from middle east - are to me clearly man made - or if I perhaps rephrase it more adequately it's basically a variety of human designed sets of rituals taking stage at different geographies to answer common substantial needs of human kind. 


On the other hand, I don't consider myself an atheist. I like the idea that I'm in connection with universe. I feel and want to believe that I'm the center of my own universe - just like anybody or anything else. To me, the biggest challenge in life is not lose this connection between me and the "anti-me" which together make up the universe. Because if I do, it means I imprison myself into a dull, shallow, entirely and only biochemical equation. 


In this wonderful blog entry, it is being mentioned about apparently renown astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Dyson's book and thoughts. In response to a question about the most astounding fact that he observed about universe, he gave this answer:

"...When I look up at the night sky and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than most of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up — many people feel small, because they’re small, the Universe is big — but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity — that’s really what you want in life. You want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant. You want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings on and activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive.”


Now, let's keep these thoughts in mind - because what I'm going to say from here on can rather be provoking.


I'm thinking - if it is possible by sending our prayers to a god that we place not in us but "somewhere high in the heavens", in other words somewhere else in a single universe we all share, we take the first steps towards violence? Is it possible by wanting something for us or for our beloved ones from something that is not us (something that is not  naturally part of us - quite in opposite, something we are subject of), we sow the seeds of destruction? 


If you think, "classical" praying as we know, I mean, asking god "to do this", or "to spare that", "in return of being good kids", is a quite childish state of mind. In real life, only when we are spoilt children (or maybe when really old), we would be able to ask for things so relentlessly.


To me, as soon as spiritualism touches the foreign, that is anything that is not us, it brings discrimination with itself. The middle eastern tradition of monoteist religions, by placing a single god in the heavens and us his subjects in his universe, brings substential estrangement from our "anti-me"'s into our lives. Moreover, the fact that we place the god into the center of a single universe, we naturally have to define how distant or close each and every of us are to the center. Therefore it brings discrimination. 


In a way, living in a single universe with a single god, things or beings that are not ourselves, are strangers. But if we came to believe that we all live in our own private universes, then things or beings that are not ourselves would be still part of our private universe, of our "anti-me".


That's why - I believe - this tradition's only solution to this problem is to unify people, to bring them together under one common god in order to stop this estrangement and discrimination. 


Unifying and bringing people together sounds fine - eh? Well let's have a quick look at our wonderful history to find out what's been done to reach this aim: Crusades, Jihad, Inquisition Courts, Countless Pogroms, Genocide, Discrimination, Racism. Not to mention, the desire to suppress which is different. 


But this desire, despite these countless flaws, functioned quite well so far; but with the rapid individualization of our societies, it is doomed to become weaker and weaker.


But if we could feel that we are living in union with universe, that we all are centers of our own personal universes, which is just one universe of billions of other universes, we could feel, rather than send to somewhere, our prayers in our hearts. We could then make praying a meditative state of mind and relate it with the peace of mind in ourselves. 


In short - in my understanding - as soon as we place "the god" anywhere else but in ourselves, we lose contact with ourselves. I think, the vicious cycle that will cause the end or substantial change of "monoteist" religions is starting right there. And when this happens, we will need to find new ways to build our social structures on.

Bonsai Tree Climbing

At first, the screen is dark.

Then slowly, out from the distances we start hearing sound of the quite murmuring and the occasional sniffing of people. Apparently it's crowded.

The screen is light now. You see me - standing in a courtyard of a worn out village house. With people all around me. Most of them are old - with extremely wrinkled faces and hands. They are farmers.

Why are they there? Why am I here?

A coffin near the coop. Its cover is open and there is a body of which we can only see an old woman's white, cold, little face. She is my grandmother who died the night before.

My grandfather is standing near me. As monumental as always. How can such a small man be of such charisma? His whole existence there radiates a sincere sadness to the courtyard; elegantly. Near him my father. With his red eyes. You can tell, he had cried. A childish expression on his face just like the other time I had seen him cry. Maybe no matter at what age, every man losing his mother is supposed to look childish.

When not handshaking with people to accept the condolences, I look at the house. At its poor walls. At its courtyard shadowed with grapevine leaves. At its simple and ugly wooden door. At my grandfather's tractor. At the sofa on its veranda. I'm amazed by their sizes, they are so small. They were all so mighty and big at the days where I would spend my summers in this village house as a city boy. As if my childhood shrank or as if I've walked away from it and now looking back.

Wind the clock back - only maybe 7 hours. Now stop.

It's me coming from some bar late in the night. I'm half smashed. Enter the apartment stumbling to find my phone blinking. Mom has called me maybe 10 times and then she left one of her famous short bad news messages. "your grandmother dead, call me." I call her to hear her protests that I'm not at easy reach when needed. We make an appointment to meet in the morning and drive to the village together then we hang up.

After the short hassle, I look at the walls. It's quite. I can hear the buzzing of the street light near my window. I feel guilty for a moment to have fun at the minutes when my grandmother was dying. But it quickly passes. I put myself onto the bed, set the alarm clock and close my eyes. With all the alcohol in my blood, the world is turning.

Only then I come to realize the feeling that captivated me as soon as I heard the news from my mother. And two tears find their way out of my closed eye lids and roll down to my ears. Before falling asleep I murmur: "It's so difficult to say goodbye to your childhood."

Now wind the clock further back - 5 years maybe. We are looking for a scene where we are eating with my father - without my mother being present drinking Raki - there aren't many such moments. So it should be easy to find. Now - stop.

I took you here because this is the day where I first saw my father cry. Over a woman - of course. Over my mother. It feels to me, the moment you see your father cry for the first time, is a turning point in your life. It's one of the clear indications that you are saying goodbye to your childhood. It is the moment where you realize you are about to enter a world without superheros, saviors and miracles. That is of course if you are not a religious person. There's always something childish about being religious.



Now at this courtyard, near my grandmother's dead body, feeling utterly lonesome in between people, my gaze sneaks away to the mulberry tree standing on its own in the backyard of the house. I let my eyes dance with the tree to share its remote peace.

I remember that some of my childhood's biggest adventures involved climbing on it, finding my way through its branches which seemed to be endless then. I would day-dream that I was an explorer trying to find his way through some jungle. Of course every once in a while, usually seconds before dropping dead because of starvation, the explorer would find a delicious fruit to find the energy to carry on.


Also the mulberry tree shrank. Strange - it looks almost like a bonsai tree to me now. From a distance, every tree looks like a bonsai tree if you walk away far enough from it in - be it distance, feeling or time.

I find myself secretly smiling thinking about the bonsai trees I'm climbing at the current stage of my life.

Little bit of humor, dead body of my grandmother, memories about my childhood. When they come together, you momentarily realize that there are very few things to take seriously in this life. And this blog entry isn't one.

YOU Killing YOUR Half

http://www.innerlocusart.com/comfort.html

You set out for a walk in the forest with your dwarfs. You find a little lake in between the trees. You lean to water surface with a narcissistic desire to see your image in the middle of leafs' vivid green reflecting.

Your reflection is looking at you with a childishly curious expression. You look back at it with a cold expression in your long face. Your eyes are bubbling with indifference - an indifference which could
quieten any sound.

You want it to be dead. Your reflection - you want it to be dead. Your other part - you want it to be dead. You are taken by the illusion that if you do so, you'll feel a wild pleasure which should be exclusive to sophisticated vandals; barbars of great taste. You feel like if you kill it, you'll become a piece of puzzle that will fit in perfectly.

You wait leaning to water. You look at your reflection. You wonder how long more it will take until your image in water finally drowns. You feel that a masochistic pleasure is starting to grow in you - almost something sexual. You keep looking at it. You keep looking until you once again realize you'll never be free of it. You say "fuck it" and turn away. So does it.

Haydarpaşa In Colors

Haydarpaşa, with all its all magnificence, is one of the most dominant buildings in Istanbul's soul. If Istanbul is a meeting point between east and west, then Haydarpaşa, being the main train station on the Asian side, is the very point where  these two symbolic poles touch each other perhaps in the most elegant manner. It's like an eagle head proudly standing at the edge of the Asian continent looking at the European shores of Istanbul with a confidence that it seems to take from the vast continent behind.

It was always depicted in the old Turkish movies as the first and rather shocking contact point between peasant Anatolian families and the "challenging" Istanbul with all its - to any foreign eye - intimidating skyline that can be observed right when stepping out the main hall. Perhaps it's this effect or surprise that it makes it "so Istanbul". 

In those movies, you would mostly observe these families observing this skyline - which seemingly is so much more different to what they have in their villages - with thoughtful eyes and maybe also hear the hero utter a word or two showing that he accepts the challenge he is being offered. That that challenge is still the major one going on in Turkey's politics today.

This show I came across by accident. Like many of the Cultural Capital - 2010 things, I didn't hear about this when it happened. Anyway, better than nothing, I'm putting it here.Nice one, indeed, done by these guys.

‘YEKPARE’ (monolithic) from nerdworking on Vimeo.

ArtActors Community Website Online

http://www.artactors.org/

Yet Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

...

Oscar Wilde


Thanks to the Flying Dutchman from Turkey.

David and Goliath

Here is the result of our new project with ArtActors. This time we worked on Caravaggio's David and Goliath. 

I'm starting a new category - ArtActors - under which I'll be collecting our work.

Blurry Picture of The Beautiful Day

The moment you realize you are facing with beauty is the moment where you feel like a new born into a different reality. Like a baby with instincts to breathe or reach out for mother, we open up ourselves to a momentary grasp of eternity.

It is like to have a slight and curious look into a train rapidly passing by - seeing inside but not having the means to understand what it's really like inside. The beauty is a window opening to eternity remaining open for just a tantalizing moment. But even that little dose of eternity you capture through it, makes you a little richer.

Pain - in this sense - can be beautiful, because the true beauty of a thing lies in the way it is capable to wound our souls. Like titches on faces or scars on hands, a soul with its new wounds obtains new meanings or depths. Every wound uncovers a new unknown to discover. The beauty of a thing lies in its capacity to make us feel lost but at home - at the same time.

A beautiful thing infects our beings and that infection never leaves us again. It circulates - in words we utter, in thoughts we create; traces of that infection will be evident.

When living the beautiful day, there is a point you realize you're being infected. You look around with a humble awe. There is no yearning, there is no missing; you are one with who are missing.

From behind the camera, the beautiful day is something to be documented sometimes at the expense of not experiencing it. Its rarity inflicts an unsuppressable inspiration to capture it. The desire is to imprison the feeling on a piece of paper in such a way that it radiates a feeling of completeness, to make the eye the witness of a state of unity. Unity through the empathy with the one who experienced it but also in the sense it makes the viewer feel the unity with life.

It is like taking the picture of that tantalizing short moment where window into eternity stays open and perhaps because of this very ambition, the photographer is doomed to fail when it comes to share it with others.

But sometimes the picture of the beautiful day becomes a personal beauty for the one who is taking it; a personal description that is inspired by the tension between the beauty and his alienated machine is born.


The beautiful thing is a like star in otherwise dark skies. So no matter how you look for it, the question maybe is this:

How bright will our skies be when we watch it in our last breath?

"...A true philosopher, Spinoza believed, would cultivate what he called intuitive knowledge, a flash of insight that fused all the information he had acquired discursively and which was an experience of what Spinoza believed to be God. He called this experience "beatitude"..."

from "The Battle for God" / Karen Armstrong

The Worst Man Speech

As mentioned in my previous post, I was in Italy for Idil and Axel's wedding. Nothing in the wedding was organized according to traditions - whatsoever.

So not surprisingly, there wasn't a Best Man for Axel; but I took the honour to be his Worst Man.

Here is my Worst Man speech upon his consent:

"About 18 Months ago, in the offices of the very same client I was providing my services to, a rather crazy looking guy started to appear. A foreigner; someone who wouldn't talk much but when he did, he did so loudly.

Soon through common friends we started to have occasional smoke breaks together. We would talk about stuff, discuss about intellectually enriching experiences such as women of South Africa or night life in Kazakhstan.

As much as he was open in the way he told about his experiences, he had a certain attitude of reservedness - something I at first attributed to his flaw of Scandinavian nature. But later on, I started to trace a familiar quality in his reservedness. And that feeling of familiarity might have led to a series of terrible consequences including our very existence here on this beautiful day.

The way I felt was that his reservedness was the kind that could only stem from a good and essentially innocent heart in an effort to protect itself from the evil world outside. In my humble observation though, at intelligent human beings, this kind of reservedness tends to usually couple with a strong and bitter sense of sarcasm which Axel interestingly doesn't have.

But as anyone else spending more than 10 minutes with him, you could realize why Axel didn't need to include any traces of sarcasm in his behaviour. Because his very existence in the universe is a sarcastic joke. He is sarcasm itself. Not bending concepts, phrases, meanings with irony but bending LIFE itself instead.

Luckily for our lives to bend, Axel likes' influence isn't necessary. In life's genes we have enough irony to feed countless life changing moments. At such a moment, I have decided to bring these two people together and still, even today, I'm surprised by this very decision, let alone its consequences.

OK - let's share some gossips:

At first, I mentioned about Axel to Idil. Upon her consent, I mentioned to Axel about this chick I have been knowing for such a long time. I showed him pictures of hers on Facebook and he said: "YEAH, IT WORKS FOR ME"

Axel, of course, didn't have a clue who he was talking about. I told him that her looks was just the start. Yes, she was very smart but what made her special was her misleadingly incurious, cheerful yet serious attitude towards life. I told him about the many cases at weddings where people were curious who that girl in her all the way cool dress dancing with all the grace was. Well - here we are at her wedding.

Anyway şekerler, they came together at Osman's birthday party for the first time in a dark little bar. I was with Idil when she first saw him from the distance. Axel was buying a drink probably knowing that he was being observed. Then those words spilled out of Idil's mouth: "HE LOOKS LIKE A BANDIT!".

Yes - Axel has tough face. Especially with his new titches on his forehead which he wants us to believe to be gained in heroic action where he saved a poor woman from some savage man - which - of course - we don't buy. Because it would be much more Axelish for him to get drunk in some shitty little bar in France to hit his head at the doorstep when leaving; right after to lose his laptop, wallet and not to mention his one shoe of course.

But yes, even without those titches that time, we agreed with Idil that he looked bit like Klaus Kinkski.

And all this talk gave me a chill for a moment. Because I was introducing a guy - a bandit like looking buy - to one of my best friends in this world, on the sole basis of my belief he had a good heart? I kept silent.

Today - after more than a year - I don't anymore believe that Axel has a good heart. Because I had the privilege to experience the means to know how warm, loving and welcoming he is.

A good friend of mine once said that she believed that everyone deserves a pair. Yes, I believe that too. But I further believe that everyone deserves a home.

So, what is home? Is it just an apartment? Is it a city? Is it a culture? Is it the perfect drag of smoke you have in bright sunlight on a cool day? Or is it a feeling of warmth fed by love we give to and receive from our families and friends that we carry everywhere?

I'd like to toast to these two beautiful people now. For literally creating a home for themselves, but also for making my home and each and every one of your homes and OUR HOME bigger, warmer and more colorful with their love.

Axel - welcome home, baby. And I know - by definition - I'm always welcome too. Because I'm your worst man.

I love you, guys."

Art Actors

Last weekend I was in Italy for my good friends' - Idil and Axel's wedding. There is no way for me to describe how much at home I felt in that creepy castle in the middle of beautiful Tuscany. About 30 people - most of them knowing each other since a very long time - became a great family under the same roof. Everywhere we turned we found friendship and care. It was a weekend filled with joy of life.

Result of one of our many little night time activities we organiszd during our stay; reenactment of Da Vinci's "Last Supper":

First with men;

and then with women;

Idil at this one just became the perfect Jesus.

There is a tendency in the group to turn it into a collective hobby where we would re-enact masterpieces like this one. 

Let's see how it develops. Hope to share further results here soon.

Speaking of Istanbul

Here is what an Istanbullu is like...

Oven Baked Dried White Beans

I've tried to cook some dried white beans using slow cooking methods. The results tasted quite good to me. One thing to mention is the use of cast iron pot - which gives better results in slow cooking.

1. Place the beans in a bowl and pour over with cold water - make sure it covers the beans by about two centimeters. Let this sit overnight in your fridge.
2. Heat your oven to 100-120 Centigrade degrees.
3. Boil two glasses of water.
4. Take two mid sized onions, chop them.
5. Take about half a kilo tomatoes, peel and slice them into half a centimeter cubes.
6. Take two fresh green peppers and slice them.
7. Take a clove of garlic and crush it slightly.
8. Take half a kilo chicken ham meat without bones. Slice it into roughly 2 - 3 cm pieces.
9. Heat half a glass of olive oil. Roast the garlic first for couple of minutes. Then add in the onions and roast it on medium heat until the onion pieces turn pinkish.
10. Add the chicken and roast on slightly for about 1-2 minutes.
11. Add tomatoes, green peppers, some salt and two pinches of dried oregano and cook on for couple of minutes.
12. Drain and add your beans. Add some boiled water. Make sure it covers the beans by about two centimeters. Stir and cook it until it starts to bubble.
13. Cover the pot and put it into the oven. Keep it there for 2-3 hours depending on the type of your beans.

Afiyet olsun.

Monochrome From Yann Tiersen

Another nice song from Tiersen - this time with its video. I was thinking... Does liking the idea of this clip confirm I'm an engineer?

IF

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is." 

How Istanbul Feels To An Istanbullu Man

I think for a man, there is a strong sense of wisdom in kissing a not spotlessly beautiful woman. How life wears a woman's body, the faults and even more, how she handles these; her fragility makes a woman attractive.


If Istanbul is the chubby, middle aged next door woman with large breasts, then -say- Paris is the photo-shopped beauty on the cover of Sports Illustrated - in a continuous state of narcissistic masturbation.

If there is no other woman in the world when you're making love, then you know you are in love and probably being loved - this way or another. And at some point, as irrational as it is, if the city you live in is the most beautiful city in the world to you; then you know you truly live in that city and that city, I assure you, is and will be breathing with you - wherever you are.

Picture from Ara Güler.

IG Nobel Prizes

IG Nobel Prizes is an actual scientific award that was designed around a very interesting concept.

Wikipedia's definition is:
"The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". 

... Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research. With the exception of three prizes in the first year (Administratium, Josiah Carberry, and Paul DeFanti), the Ig Nobel Prizes are for genuine achievements."

I think this approach - I mean - bringing humor into the area of science is something we deeply need. Because somewhere I think, without humor, we tend to decay; things where humor isn't involved tend to become inhumane.

And here is my favorite research topic that was awarded in 2008:

ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.

Makes sense - eh?

Not Being Able to Present The Turkish Identity In Eurovision

(This discussion on Eksi Sozluk was opened to criticize Turkey's entry selection for Eurovision.)

Assuming that Eurovision is really a place to present an identity - an interesting thought though I must say -, right away, the question that comes to one's mind is what Turkish identity that is not well presented in Eurovision is like. We, as a nation, love to live at the peaks of a reactionary attitude. But, don't you think that slowly we need to start to understand that this land we live in has a history and that we didn't land here from space or even more absurdly from Central Asia? Our essence is a mixture. Only 7% of our genetic pool is originated from Central Asia while around 30% is from Middle East and another around 30% is from Europe.

We have made ourselves so deeply condition that we Turks have to be the center of the world, that we are a very special race crowned by the contemporary fact that we are a Muslim nation, we tend not to understand or see that we are owners of this also in terms of civilizations highly fertile land . Being cut from history other than the official one, we tend to forget what really matters is the LAND. Cultures flourishing on it don't vanish but only change form by interacting with each other. Have no illusions: We are Urartu, we are Hittite, we are Sumer, we are Persia, we are Antic Greece, we are Troi, we are Byzantine, we are Armenia, we are Seldjuk and we are Ottoman.

With this certain stupid idea what a real Turk is like (encoded by official and still too nationalistically oriented education system) in our head, we struggle to find whether we fit into that image. But the minute we try to fit ourselves into something is the actual moment where we put a distance to our true selves.

Manga, Mor ve Ötesi, Hadise, Kenan Dogulu - all of these artists are rooted from this land. They grew up here and they were loved here.They are PART of this land. They reflect this land. Without any complexes they should be accepted.

And if really needed - I don't see why we should it need it though - we shouldn't refrain from looking directly into the eyes of our sarcastic foreign friends and say "hey - we are this, I don't fucking care about the rest, really."

Don't think we are pure. Nobody actually is. But living up to the idea that we are mixture can be really nice - creative, passionate, joyful. And we have an opportunity where we could realize this state of mind more easily than most of the other nation states.

Armenians Killed 519.000 Turks

A sentence designed to continue like this: "... therefore incidents where 1.5 Million Armenians were killed cannot be called a genocide."

Numbers quoted might be correct or not. Incidents that happened could be called a genocide or not - this actually isn't the point. Far from it. But the claim that the suffering party has to be 100% the victim like in the Holocaust to call it a genocide is utterly foolish to me.

In the end, while until only 100 years ago, "Kurds, Armenians, Turks etc." lived in this land, now "Kurds, Turks etc." live. Find the difference between the two pictures.