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.

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."

After Pancho's Death

When  I think of Pancho, the most predominant feeling that comes to my mind is patience. Patience I would preach myself seated in bed whenever he would cry in the middle of the night for maybe fourth time because he had diarrhea and wanted to go out. Or patience I would preach myself whenever he would want to spend more than 10 minutes sniffing at the very same tree on our walks. (later on I developed a very cunning strategy where I was actually able to read my morning paper while walking him.)


I'm not sure if he loved me. I  wasn't maybe the ideal care giver for him. But I loved him. Not only for his cute nose but also for things I have learnt from him. I think, thanks to him, I'll struggle less about being a father if I ever come to that point.


Enjoy the winds and sunshine there. The cookie pool too, of course.

Lively Atoms Coming From The Sun

The title is direct translation of the rather bizarre name of (probably) first vegetarian and raw food restaurant in Turkey that was owned by my grandfather.

Today, as an act of great surprise, my grandmother gave this to me which she found in an old box; a menu used in that restaurant for which I had been looking for quite a long time. This piece of paper dating back to 1956 is a precious artifact of my family's history.

Restaurant of Lively Atoms Coming From The Sun
List of Dishes
Owner: Ejder Akısan
Beyoğlu - Kurabiye Street 24.


Next challenge; to locate exact the spot where it operated.

My Answer to Life

After a year, which wasn't particularly good, I thought I could treat myself with bit of self spoilage. Ladies and Gentlemen, here is my new view at 5 in the morning with that magic orange tree in my block's garden; with its oranges making me remember about life's beauty - with its ups and downs.

Vacuum of Non-Existence - 2

What made me try to imagine and write about my grandfather, Ejder’s death, was a series of important developments in my family and particularly an interesting anecdote that got refreshed on my memory after a recent family meeting. I don’t know why but most of the thoughts on my mind nowadays are about “The Family”.

I was only 40 days old when he died. Now looking back, during my early childhood that I spent in his apartment with my mother, aunts and widowed grandmother, they seemed to be living in a state of sad harmony with a continuous sense of supporting each other as if they were navigating through some crisis. Only I didn’t know what the crisis was all about by then apart from the very evident feeling of that emptiness that seemed to be sharing the apartment with us. It was like an invisible creature that would first provoke generation of emotions and then suck them all in like a black hole in an urge of survival of the family universe. It was the vacuum of his non-existence that he left behind in the family and the vacuum alone became my grandfather.

At first he was like a mystical myth. Stories told about him had left an impression of perfection on me and as my limited life experience by then wasn’t rich enough to allow me to question the hero concept, he became my hero. A clever intellectual who had marginal/mystical interests (namely, claiming to be a medium, an enthusiast of telekinesis and member of some esoteric organization), someone who wasn’t afraid to stand out. Growing more powerful on me with the help of this charismatic image, this emotion vacuum I grew up around, became something due to be filled in me during my teenage years.

Objects have helped a great deal in this quest. When I was 16, I started to smoke his pipe that I had found in his dusty closet of books to be still filled with the ashes of his last smoke. And when I was 18, I was given his watch which I’m still keeping today.

As I grew on though, stories told about him started to change. Perhaps it was only the length of time that had passed since his death. Or the urge the three sisters and their mother felt to come into peace with their past. But they started to dig out most private things even in our, their children’s presence. I always liked this openness in my greater family which I attribute to the female dominance in it. His weak sides started to appear as well among the ones of my grandmother.

As his perfect image started to decay, I started to feel even more connected to him. And perhaps most ironically, something else started to happen. Even though we didn't have much in common in the way we look, more and more cases started to occur, where older relatives would catch odd things like a look, a comment I would make upon a little thing, where they would say that they caught Ejder in me.

His vacuum became a teacher – a mentor if you will – for me, showing we are not supposed to be perfect and if we try to be perfect, we are doomed to lead a crippled life.

About 10 years ago, I came back from school to find a little red agenda lying on our dining table. It looked like as if it was beamed there from outer space. Its binding was quite worn but intact. With a great curiosity, I started to page through. It was more like a diary written by someone with a hard to read hand writing. Owner's name wasn't written.

I called my mother in awe to ask where it came from. She was still excited about the story: Apparently a week before, it was found in a second-hand bookstore by one of my aunt's rather strange friends who was into old books and diaries. He immediately recognized it to be my grandfather’s diary for by then his wife in future's, my now grandmother's name, Süverce, which was frequently mentioned in the diary is a really rare name. We don't believe there are more than a handful people with this name in Turkey. So thinking that she must be that Süverce, he brought it to my aunt which was then relayed to my mother.

"Ask for your grandmother's permission if you want to read" my mother said. I didn't listen to her. I perceived it to be a crucial document to understand my roots, not a document of privacy. I also felt that learning about private matters about my grandmother from 50 years ago wouldn't harm anyone or anything. Besides, even if she had allowed me to read it, she still could have felt bad about it. So without having the slightest bit of bad conscience I started to read.

I read about this young man who was about the same age as me when this encounter happened. He was apparently in love with his fiancée, Süverce, that was the most frequently mentioned figure in his diary. I read about their almost daily routine where he would pick up his sweetheart in the evening to go to movies together at Istiklal street - a street where 40 years later I would spend my high school days. Movie names, actors and actresses’ names were exclusively recorded. I read about his depression about working at his father's publishing house and his protest yet submissive style when describing his father's trips to strange places. Then about their moderate wedding and some other interesting details I won't disclose here.

At last, this was a direct contact to the owner of the vacuum.

The taste remained after that reading is still very vivid today. There are not many things in the world that is as fulfilling as to learn more about someone whose vacuum you have been used to. 


I believe to get to know someone is not strictly dependent on the amount of time we spend together. It is more like related to the depth of bondage you were able to build. In Ejder's case, I grew up around the vacuum of his non-existence which actually turned out to be as effective as his very existence. After all, the persons you love are not necessarily the ones you see most but the ones with whom you could connect and maintain that bondage.

Vacuum of Non-Existence - 1

February in Istanbul can be strikingly cold. Temperatures rarely hit below zero, dominant northern winds and humidity swept from seas surrounding the city however make it nothing but painful to be outside especially at night time. It is such nights where you would rather stay at home to make some tea and appreciate the warmth of your home, perhaps watch TV, read a book or look through your window at deserted, wet streets, listening to sounds of a car or a rushing pedestrian rarely passing by.

It was a such cold night in 1978, when Ejder, a bald, chubby man at his mid 50's, was woken by a depressing feeling in his chest. He opened his eyes in the dark with an urge to put his point and middle fingers on his neck to feel his artery. The heart seemed to be beating fine. He checked with his hand on his wife sleeping by, seated himself in bed and listened to the cold silence of the sleeping apartment for a while. Then with a naughty hope that his restlessness might soothe if he grabbed a late night snack from the kitchen, he slowly stood up.

Trying to be as silent as possible, with clumsy steps he found his way to the hallway of the apartment which he found being bleakly illuminated by the reddish, heavy light that was oozing out of her eldest daughter's room. “Poor Mine” he thought to himself smiling and knocked on the door and opened it to find his daughter afoot trying to convince her newly born baby to sleep.

The young mother, Mine, was only 22 and it had been less than 6 months since she came back with a surprise baby in her womb along with a surprise fiancee holding her hand from Ankara where she actually was supposed to be studying engineering and not making babies.

Ejder remembered it very clearly the day they showed up in his apartment. He at first was shocked but then quite quickly he grew to like the imposed groom, a charming young man coming from a little, poor village in Thrace who was smart enough to make his way to the primary engineering school in the country despite his economical disadvantages. But why he liked his new son in law was mostly because he could convince himself he wasn’t class conscious, one of the many features in his character that he had developed as a passive aggressive reaction to his own father. He didn’t resist his father much openly when he had the chance but chose to be the opposite person instead to disappoint him. This was the way he was dealing with his dominant, highly individual, selfish, eccentric father.

The young lovers got married in a Blitz fashion before the belly became too visible and only one month after their surprising appearance, his daughter had to send her husband back to Ankara to finish his school.

Ejder walked in to caress Mine's tired head. He wanted to provide but also find some comfort. She however in all of her frustration, tiredness and loneliness in the absence of her husband wasn’t in a state to cope with such warmth. All she could think about was to put her son to sleep. She asked his father to leave her alone in an almost impudent, plaintive manner without even looking at him. Something she was going to regret for the rest of her life.

In slight disappointment, Ejder left her room and moved on through the dark hallway to kitchen. He opened the fridge door and stood in front of it for a while scratching his big belly in a sweet state of indecision. Then he took butter and jam out to prepare a slice of bread for himself. He quickly smeared the butter on the bread, spread the jam on it and took an impatient bite right there in the kitchen with a childish joy. There he felt it. The restlessness in his chest started to take shape of a sharp pain and grow to the point it felt suddenly as if something was trying to rip his ribcage open from inside.

Feeling utterly helpless, with the great pain, he tried to grab his heart, knelt down onto the kitchen floor first, then he laid down on his side. His eyes got fixed at the dust pile under the fridge he could see now. He made a last effort to scream her daughter’s name which was followed by another big blow coming out of his chest.

           

The panic air initiated by Mine invaded quickly the night in the house. All of his three daughters and his wife rushed into the kitchen waking up each other. All the screams, cries, efforts couldn't help and touch him anymore. Nevertheless, it was better not to be alone. He realized what was happening. A great fear coupled with a sadness captured his existence. “It is such an inappropriate time” he thought before giving in to pain that was pulling him away from his body.

 It all ended quickly. When the three young women and their mother realized they lost the father of the house, the loud panic melted into a silent grief that could only be caused by a deep shock. They just stayed in the kitchen, looking at his body with wet eyes. It felt like they were part of an imaginative death cult ritual for a while.

The baby crying from the back of the house brought them back to life. Sisters looked at each other with confused eyes. Mine left the kitchen to check on her son leaving her sisters, mother and death behind in the cold kitchen.

Invitation for Ejder Gulen Akisan's remembrance service to be conducted in Tesvikiye Mosque on March 18th. 1978, 40th. day after this death.

The Glass Cage

I started running when I was 15. I don't remember what exactly brought me to the idea. All I remember is first time I felt like doing it was when I was on a holiday trip with my parents on the Gallipoli peninsula. We were staying in a little hotel nearby the beach and the atmosphere with all the old retired people around me started to become a bit depressing. One day, I took a walk to the main gate of the hotel which was opening to the side of nearby country road. I looked at the quite road that was shining so beautifully in the light of evening sun, watched the cars passing by every few minutes disappearing in the hilly horizon. Then all of a sudden, I started to run.

On that particular day, I ran for kilometers. My legs took me to a great trip through now with pine forests covered battlefields that witnessed one of the many horrible battles of WW1 where roughly 250000 young men lost their lives. I imagined to be hearing their sad voices through the twilight of the forest. Occasionally blue of the sea was shining from between the trees in distance providing a feeling of comfort.

Then it happened; I found myself in the glass cage and as ironically as it sounds, when I came back to the hotel well after darkness fell, I instinctively knew I had discovered what freedom must have been all about.

In the following years, I searched for the same kind of feeling in different kind of activities including photography; but even though I'm not much of a runner anymore, I found myself comparing the feeling I got doing these to the wonderful mindset I find myself in when running.

When you are about to start to run, the world doesn't like you. The road doesn't like you, the air doesn't like you, the sun doesn't like you, the forest doesn't like you, even your own shoes don't like you. You feel being rejected. But despite all of these you start to move in protest. You take hesitant, very slow steps. It doesn't feel right at all but you keep running patiently, getting slowly faster and faster until you suddenly find yourself under the feeling's spell.

Now you realize that everything around you is sliding by your existence in a pleasant manner. Branches of trees above your head, lane markers under your feet, beams of sun light on your face; they all are sliding. Wind caresses your hair. Everything becomes quieter. You forget about your breath pace. You feel your pulse has become one with the earth's as if you are one giant metronome to the ultimate music. You become the lazy dog sitting at the corner of the street. The fish in the sea. You let go thinking. You are at a place where there is no need for answers. Without the need for words, you become a true voice in the universe.

You are a tiger in the glass cage now.

Mind Cancer

Mother - her name is Mine - has been fighting with cancer. One of her breasts was removed and she had her first chemo session about a month ago. The first session caused a collapse in her immune system imprisoning her in the hospital for four days. Her doctor had said he would wait until the next session to allow her body to gain strength a bit; next one will be tomorrow.

When I paid a surprise visit to her last Sunday at my parents' house, they were spending a lazy Sunday in their bleak apartment. Father greeted me over his computer screen where he was playing online chess. Mother was lying in the living room conducting one of her self consuming, long, dull TV sessions.

Be it in her academical, professional or private lives, she was always known to be an extremely intelligent person. That's why it is more heart breaking for me to witness her consuming herself on meaningless things - a retirement habit of her - than seeing her fighting with cancer.

I went into the room, gave her a kiss, asked how she was doing. She was all sleepy and thoughtful. Then in boredom, I started my usual little walk in the apartment as if it was a museum of our family history. Artifacts such as a broken, old toy of my brother or an old book of mine in some shelf.

Sometimes visiting the house you grew in or houses you spent time in long time ago can turn out to be the best museum experiences. To witness that what an object means to you can change vastly as you get older keeps the experience ever fresh and personal.

I came across the picture above in a far corner of the apartment. The picture was taken some 20 years ago in a sunflower field where she was holding my apparently bored brother. Even though I knew the picture very well, I couldn't help to become amazed about the way she looked in it. The way hope, intelligence, beauty and optimism was radiated through her eyes.

Avoid the cancer. Especially the mind cancer.

I'm Not Immortal Anymore

Another good swimming exercise at the pool. On the way out, couple of new emails, 2 missed calls and two text messages on the phone. Missed calls; one from my wife, the other one from my mother; an unusual combination.

I get into the car; my friend is driving. Check the emails - usual daily issues about the business; write some emails in response drinking water. Then check the text messages - one from some bank promoting something. Delete immediately. The next one is from my mother: "yarin memem aliniyor." "my breast will be removed tomorrow". I look around in the moving car. I look at the cars and buildings around to capture a reflection of what I have just read. No reflection whatsoever; the universe is still alive - there is no tragedy.

Quick call to mother; collect some soothing facts. The cancer hasn't spread anywhere yet and as she is only 55, there is a really good chance that it will not go too bad. Feel the fear in her dignified voice. There will be chemotherapy she says hating what she's vocalizing. Learn about the location and time of the operation and let her know that I'll be there. She seems to be prepared not to have me there with her. But she likes the fact that I seem to be eager about it.

"Do I seem to be that distant?" A quick thought that comes to my mind that should be stored and kept away until the ever postponed parent - son confrontation that will be done one day. (but of course)



We hang up; I look around, chat with my friend. Slightly feeling guilty for having fun. The "tragedizer" in me keeps needling me to remind me that I should feel worse. No; I don't. Maybe it's because I don't perceive it to be very serious.

The concept of death is not very alien to me. Couple of friends had died, couple of remote relatives as well. People died in the hospital I used to volunteer for. In other areas, I have been in cases where I came very close to death myself. But none of these experiences, or similar experiences confronted by other people, not even the fact that my mother in law had to go through the very same thing couple of years ago, could shake me the way this news shook me. In a subtle but powerful way. Despite all these experiences, I realized I didn't feel prone to death until I read that text message yesterday.

I am lucky; both of my parents are alive. So are other really close people in my life. Having the deadly word "cancer" touching my closest circle, it feels like death touches me for the very first time. No matter how serious this case actually is.

I'm not immortal. Not anymore.

Life Engineering

In the last two - three weeks I have been busy taking actions to shape my next few years. Ironically all of these actions required heavy dealing with bureaucracy. So heavy that it gave me the impression that our lives are frozen to their shapes in molds of bureaucracy, that the borders of our comfort zones coincide with potential struggling with rules and procedures.

First thing I did was to set up a base camp in the living room, totally occupying the little, red dining table by bringing my LCD screen, printer, files from my little corner study upstairs .



Then I started to work: First issue was that I had to deal with military service issues for which I went to my home town to declare why I didn't report myself in the last year as the law was entitling me to do so after receiving my master's degree. Eventually because of the legal procedures, my case was decided to be taken to the court. So I had to attain a lawyer to deal with this case. Let's see how things will develop there.

Then only to support my case, as decided earlier, I applied for a PhD program. I can't tell how much I resented to write statements of purpose about things which aren't actually my purposes. It felt as if my life was being raped by being entrapped in a situation where I had to show fake enthusiasm about something I didn't like. Too bad that you can't simply write in your statement of purpose that you want to do PhD because it's the only way to avoid military service in the bloody country.

My problem regarding the military service is not very ideological by the way. Neither is the reason that I'm a comfort maniac. It seems to be more like related to an intellectual snobbishness. I just don't want to give my six precious months to a system that I perceive to be uttermost stupid. I don't want to easily hand my contributions to a world where killing and to be killed heroically under a uniform is the perfect norm. Spineless as it is, I will eventually do the service as I wouldn't go to prison for the "cause". But I don't want to ease things for the state by volunteering either. So I stick with this light defense mode I guess.

Then when the PhD application was over I have applied for a work permit to be able to start a subsidiary in the UK of our company in Turkey. It was also hell a lot of paper work but managed to finish that at last.

Sleepless nights under piles of paper. Depending on their results and how the business shapes, in June 2009, I might be;

a- A soldier
b- Ripping my ass in the UK enduring all the complexities to set up a company from scratch again and this time in a new country.
c- Continuing working for my company and attend a PhD program that I totally dislike.

Let's see how my life will be molded this time.