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Hi. I am writing to those who have an adequate English proficiency. I know this sounds like a very snobby entrance sentence to write to a public whose mother tongue is Turkish, though sometimes I cannot resist the fact that there is a little American girl inside me who sometimes just expresses herself better in English. (I passed my childhood in the US.) Ok, I actually do not care about social attitudes at the moment. I want to write about an unbearable sensation that I get when I am outdoors on a silent, calm, peaceful night.
I actually went to youtube and searched for ‘silent night’.. I don’t believe in religion. But this carol is worth listening to just to remember it again.. (*) Edit : 10.04.2010 - During the last two months, I have started feeling much more closer to Islam. Note that prejudice against it made me misunderstand this religion, and I think my own prejudice has been broken. I hope I will understand it better within time and wish that every person who made me feel so awkward and far away from it somehow understands how they have misunderstood this religion. Also please note that most probably there are so little amount of people that understand how this religion integrates science and soul, and for the first time in my life I understand why I was born a Turk.
To get to my point, when we are outside, I think we are better. I think the limitations we brought to ourselves for shelter purposes are completely necessary. Though, indoors we are limiting our minds too. Sometimes when I am outside and I am in notion and in motion, if I don’t have much distraction, I get the feeling that this world is not real. I look at the constructions man made, I look at the trees and I feel another connection that I cannot describe easily. It’s like my mind is getting to a depth that is so peaceful. It feels like nothing matters, no death, no birth is actually real. It’s just like our Turkish coach Fatih Terim once said ‘everything is something happens, it’s the football, that’s the football.’ Yea, that’s it. And it’s almost like the song from Pink Floyd, comfortably numb.
I am feeling a bit renewed actually. It’s been ten years since I lost my grandmother and I feel as if I have had no complete control of my life ever since, and I noticed tonight, while I was outside leaning on my car watching my neighborhood, I noticed that my education is complete. I’ve reached a point in life that nothing actually is worth caring too much. All we need is an environment that helps you not care. So, if you live in a good country, your government should help you not care about how to earn money or help you out with that person you believe you should have become and not think about losing time on something that is not worth it. The system should help you not care about illnesses instead of panicking you with unreal illnesses etc. Now, that’s a country worth living. There should be no morals that limit you or make you feel bad. You should be proud to show skin.
But when you are indoors and when you stay indoors too much, you are obliged to serve your anxious brain keeping you from getting outdoors and free your soul. It’s not healthy. A couple days ago I was stressed out about turning in my thesis and graduating from school, I was so stressed that I couldn’t get outdoors. And all the harsh, tough moments I experienced in my life came back to me. I thought about all the cruel people I came across and all the inequities I had to tolerate and I was about to lose my mind. Because since a long time, I don’t give a shit about any shit people I came across who did me wrong – and believe me I have come across many, many bad intentions. I still am fucking able to laugh with my whole heart. I still can enjoy life way too better than a lot of people, without even trying hard. And I owe that ability simply to being outdoors. Not in crowded places, not in a chic café or restaurant, of course I enjoy a nice restaurant or a bar that plays good music or a concert but, I would prefer to have that dish offered to me in my private garden preferably overlooking the Bosphorus =) Oh, yea I live at the heart of the world and you all know that I am not exaggerating. It’s not just the beauty of the city, it’s the soul. Istanbul has a very old soul and the fact that it connects two continents, well, that’s a duty not most cities get to have. The Maldives are islands who parted away from the continent and I call those islands heaven, but they aren’t the heart of the world. Or most cities in Europe are just beautiful because of human constructed buildings and I have great respect for those cities. So you should have great respect to a city in which Europe is at one coast and Asia at another.
The point is to heal, and to feel peace and to forgive and forget all at the same time, listen to the night when it calls on you. It has a dense voice and dense feeling, so much that you do not want to move. If you have the opportunity, go to into the woods and lay on the hammock. Last summer I spent a very very fast vacation on the south of turkey for 1 month and a half and when I went back home to Istanbul, I was exhausted. A couple weeks after we went to my friends house at Sapanca (a little village in the woods) for a couple hours and we ate, drank, swam and finally by night I lay on that hammock, all my thoughts, all my anxieties just whirling out of my brain, I slept for 1 hour and when I woke up, I had had a summers rest.
All Im saying is dont believe any of the bullshit writers like paulo coelho tell you, he is a wise man who knows how to earn his money, by using nice little sentences that make you feel special. Or dont believe the personal development books etc either, you do not need them. Dont even believe Yoga. Do it for sports and nothing more. You just need to be outdoors on a silent peaceful place to get yourself together, and preferably, have a hobby. The best investment that always has a return is the one you invest in yourself.
I’d like anyone who gets that the peace, the completeness that we seek all our lifetime is just there without us thinking much and spending much or sacrificing much, to find me. I want these people to surround me. I want people who know when to go and live fast, and know how to live fast, but who always come back home to that peace and lives that sound of silence.
I hereby demand those souls to find me, and find me fast.
