

### Beyond the Garden

by Fatih Canıtez

Copyright 2019 Fatih Canıtez

Smashwords Edition

### PART 1- THE DISTANT PAST

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was the Word. There was harmony. There was beauty. Everything was in its place. Unity was not scattered. The plains, the wilderness, the oceans, the mountains and the birds were truly plains, wilderness, oceans, mountains and birds. Everything was floating in the happiness and tranquility of truly being that exact thing it was supposed to be. In the distance there was a garden. And everything was in that garden. Nothing ever happened outside of that garden. The garden reached into eternity in its splendor, housing everything in its existence. The trees, their leaves and fruits radiated a true light. There was no Sun, everything was illuminated with a natural light. The sky was lost in an eternal blueness. A gentle blueness that surrounded everything.

Yes, in the beginning there was the Word, but it had not divided into _words_ and scattered around the realm. The Word surrounded itself in an eternal happiness, unity, goodness and light. The garden and the Word had not yet been separated, because the serpent had not yet entered the garden. The apple tree was yet to be seen, too. The only things in sight were the tranquil radiance of light, the delightful chirping of birds and a calming gentle breeze. Neither the seer nor the seen, nor the hearer and the heard, nor the feeler and the felt were divided. Everything continued its existence in an eternal unity. The squirrels played with the rabbits, even wild animals seemed tame and peaceful.

It would seem difficult to speak of a beginning. Everything consisted of a moment that neither started nor ended. Birds sang an eternal song, plains spread out over an eternal wilderness, and the trees would reach into the endless depths of the sky. The infinite musical rhythm never tired its listeners, on the contrary it evoked an ecstasy that vibrated and cherished everything, rejuvenating everything. Life, vitality and joy surrounded all that existed.

Separation? That was a word yet to be heard. Even the knower and known were one, the winds sang a song of unity. There was no separation nor sadness, so the song of worry and pain were yet to be heard. Think of the happy ending of a film, don't you ever wonder what happens after the end? Doesn't anything ever happen? Don't people ever go their own ways? Does nobody cry? At the end of fairy tales, when the three apples fall form the sky, when the prince finds his princess, when all the characters in the tale overcome their hardships, there is a deep silence because everything is the way as it should be. They all live happily ever after. The garden was in that sort of state, but this silence carried with its vitality and movement. It had escaped its past and future. Maybe it was some sort of calm before the storm.

In the garden, I saw people on top of a hill. They seemed more real than everything else. You could tell how happy they were just by looking at their faces. They were all happily busy with something. I asked one of them about death, I think at first, he didn't understand the question, as he stared at me for a long time. Then he just went back to work. Whoever I saw seemed like they were lost in the excitement and joy of an ever-repeating eternal game. Their childish inquisitiveness and sense of victory was written all over their faces. I approached someone else and asked her where her home was and what her job was. She replied that her home was everything I could see, and that her job was the same. Then she started talking to her friends, consumed by a sense of deep joy and cheeriness. It was as though nobody had to explain themselves, that everything they said was understood and were all laughing in utter joy. It felt like there was no separation between the sky and the people. The sky was so close, you could almost reach it and touch it. Every now and then a gentle breeze would entrance the people, renew their sense of joy in their "work" and conversation. It wasn't just the people that were talking to each other, it felt like everything was in deep conversation. As the people weren't distant from each other, and the proximity with everything else was close, this deep conversation flowed naturally without any effort. Everything was in a constant state of convergence and unity. Man and woman, lover and beloved were still one.

How and why it happened, I can't remember but suddenly all hell broke loose. It started with a faint sound of rumbling, that turned into violent shaking. I saw the heavens being ripped from the earth, animals running around, people separated in a state of terror. While everything was becoming separated from its counterpart, the sweet sound of eternal music stopped and turned into an alarming noise. Much later, people were going to say that unity was replaced with multiplicity that day. Everyone was suddenly only accountable of themselves, those peaceful days seemed like a distant memory. Day and night had become separated, the natural radiance of light emitting from the garden had been replaced by something called the Sun, that would show itself at day then disappear at night. Well, what about the garden? Well, the garden had completely disappeared. The storm had ripped all the trees out of the earth, not even one was left to cast a comforting shadow; all the rivers that flowed stopped flowing, too. The rosy pink hue of the realm was replaced by black and white gloominess. Experts still haven't been able to shed light on what caused this catastrophe, but they suspect two people eating an apple, or something along those lines.

Witnesses saw the people coming down that hill in groups. The sweet talks they had turned into bitter and suspicious discussions, they even started to blame each other for what had happened. It was as though everyone turned into a stranger. The skies were overcast with dark shadows, and the earths bore plants of nettled leaves. The groups started to fight, with sticks and stones and mortal enemies began to sprout here and there. Among the fighting crowds, I saw someone walking down the hill with his head bent down and tears streaming down his face. It was as though this person was dragging his feet and was only walking down because he simply had to. I approached this person and asked: What's the explanation of all of this? Why did the skies suddenly turn black and why were the people kicked out of the garden? The person responded that he didn't really know and didn't want to talk about it. I looked at this person's face and I could see regret and suffering, which was followed by a deep silence. It was as though this deep silence gave birth to curiosity and hope, replacing regret and suffering. The person then said he wanted to return to the garden no matter what, and that he would find a way up to that garden, and that nobody should doubt that. I was told to leave him alone, that he had plans for the future. It was as though this person was an immigrant forced to leave his home country, a prisoner in exile... and the skies were crying...

Birth and the World

I can barely remember the following days, it felt like centuries had passed. The garden had been long forgotten, and only a vague memory of it was left. I had found myself in a world whose people and nature seemed vastly foreign.

In this foreign land I felt excruciating loneliness. This loneliness was accompanied by an extreme coldness. Then the shaking, and sobbing and crying. I might have cried for hours, only to cry and cry again. When I finally woke up, I found myself in the arms of the woman whom I was to call my mother. It felt as though I could feel the warmth of the garden again. The doctors I talked to, they all told me I calmed down a bit after this. I had drifted off into a deep sleep. I had seen that angel in my dreams, and then a vast whiteness. At first, the angel said welcome, and we hugged and wept. I suddenly saw a feeling of hope and fear on the angel's face. I asked "What is the meaning of all of this?" the angel replied "You are going to see beautiful things." and talked about wonderful houses, golden-hearted people, clouds, adventures and successes, that beautiful girl I would see and love, poems, scenes of reunion from old Turkish films, my mother's meals and interesting people from faraway lands. Then the angel looked away, I patiently waited. The angel turned to me, grabbed my arms and then let go, and said "You look like an intelligent and patient person. Listen to me, and don't interrupt. I don't know the meaning of this too, but you're going to see everything anyway." and the angel talked about separation, wars, struggles, losses, doubt, of bad people, disappointment, loneliness, illness, poverty, fear and death. The angel smiled every now and then, it was as though it was trying to hide something from me. I was just about to ask the angel why it was smiling when it said "Well, that's all. Good-bye! I won't be seeing you for quite a while." and just disappeared. I was struck aghast. The rain had stopped, and the sun started to shine into the room. I slept a bit more.

The Game

When I had awoken, I found myself in an orchard full of trees, playing games with my friends. Each game seemed like it was preparing us for something. We ran about, aimlessly trying to catch each other, and then learn to chase one another again. While playing this never-ending game, we felt lost and purposeless. Then we'd grow tired of it and switch to another game. Puss-in the corner; probably the game that best describes our lives. Constantly restless in our corners, we learn to try to find a better spot and not feel sorry for those stuck in the middle. We'd learn how to jump over each other while playing leapfrog and understand how important luck and intelligence is while playing backgammon. We'd then grow tired of backgammon and play chess only to find out all we needed was intelligence to beat our opponent. But the endless hours of calculating our next move would bore us too, and we'd all end up playing street football. The weakest among us would be the goalie, and we'd assume to position of striker. We used to think that we'd impress all the girls with the goals we scored, but of course none of those individual goals mattered when our opponents scored against us as a team. That's how we learned that playing as a team was very important. We, of course, quickly forgot this invaluable lesson; it always seemed more attractive to be in the limelight. Playing card games taught us that, even though we can't choose the cards we're dealt, we can choose how to play these cards. As the years went on, I realized how important being born into a rich or poor family is when it comes to wealth, and I always remembered those card games. How the game started was very important, but anything could happen in life. Worse comes to worst, you would just have to wait to be dealt a new hand. Those who could never be satisfied with their hand were the ones that always complained, other who got dealt a joker just knew how to find their way. Some of my friends were quite crafty, and early on figured out the importance of a friend at court thanks to that joker card. Well, what about truth or dare? We'd get anxious when the bottle pointed at us, too afraid to let everyone in on our secrets. We'd surprise ourselves when we said "truth" at how courageous we actually were. Maybe someone would dare us to kiss that girl we had a crush on? Who knows, maybe it would've helped us shed our shyness? We learned how to win, how to lose, how to cheat, how to help each other, how to struggle, how to fight and how to make friends with these games. After play time, we'd all run home and eat our sandwiches our mother had prepared and go sound asleep. Life was all about games and fun.

Exams

Later on, I had to enter so many exams it felt as though they would never end, and life was all about exams. All those games we played in the school yard, all those friends we had suddenly became our arch-rivals when it came to exams. When we got our exam results, we'd ask our friend their mark; and if our mark was higher than theirs, our happiness would double. If we ever got a bad mark, we'd seek comfort in someone scoring even lower than ourselves. We'd feel a little less bad about our mark, knowing that we weren't alone. Each exam felt like a big race, and we'd sink a little more into the game of life. Those days of playful games in the school yard seemed like distant memories.

Sometimes, I'd grow so bored listening to my soulless teachers, I'd look out the window and daydream. It seemed as though somewhere in the world all kinds of exciting things were happening, but we were stuck in this classroom because there wasn't anything for us to do. I always wanted to ask if all these formulas meant anything, did the laws of physics point to some grand mystery? Was there any meaning in history? Which laws of biology could explain why we fell in love? Could geography tell us why the mountains were so mighty? These questions were of course extra-curricular; what's the point of learning if they weren't going to ask them in our exams? While we were trying to figure out if the poet was calling to the flag, the public or a grand leader, we lost all the magic hidden in the poem itself. It took me a long time to realize, that what we learned in those classrooms about life was only but a parody of it.

Books

I'd turn the pages of books so fast as though I was trying to find something I lost, on its pages. Maybe I'd find a few sentences about that garden? When I read about the caliphate in a Thousand and One Nights, walking among the people dressed as commoner, I wondered to myself if he had asked himself "what am I doing here?". The stories I read in these books were like a labyrinth, they all added themselves onto each other, which one was the one on top? I'm sure even the characters in the books weren't sure. These stories, who had neither beginning nor end, were much like the book of life. Everything was possible, and everything was strange, everything was surreal just like in these fairy tales and stories. Fate was inescapable, and things had a way of finding you, and not the other way around.

I would finish one book, and open the next one. One long summer, I came across a book called "Robinson Crusoe". The protagonist and the story were so different than a Thousand and One Nights whose characters were simple and obscure. Robinson could deal with all kinds of unexpected events, he knew how to be the master of his own destiny. He was able to start his life all over again on the island by himself, he was aware that it was him who was writing the story of his life. Characters from a Thousand and One Nights like Aladdin and Sinbad were drifted from left to right by their fates, but Robinson was different; even though he couldn't prevent his ship from sinking in the storm, he was able to start life over again on that desert island and commanded his own fate. Robinson wasn't a part of a fairy tale world where even the most absurd things could happen; he was in a world where he could overcome difficulties using his mind and reason.

I would continue to read many tales, novels, stories but no other two books could better express this ambiguous duality I felt deep inside of me. Most people think that this duality manifests itself as the East and West, and only exists in the outer world; but that summer evening I could feel it in the deepest parts of my mind and soul. Sometimes my "Robinson" side would dominate, as life could only be understood through reason. If I did what I needed to do, everything would eventually work itself out. All I had to do was study if I was at school, take care of business if I was at work; I was in command of my life. The book of life wasn't a pre-written text dictating how I would life; it was an empty book that I was going to write in though how I lived. And both life and the universe have its own laws. If I knew how to make use of these laws, I could be the master of the world. Everything could be explained logically. Why was there so much misery in the world? Why were there so many wars, deaths, starvation, and pain? Well, some people were evil, and others were fools. It was their own fault, and everything was as simple as that. In times like these I would study math, explore the world, plan new things and write scientific papers.

And then I would suddenly feel like I was in the middle of a Thousand and One Nights story; everything felt like a dream. Life was incomprehensible and everything in it was disconnected from each other. It felt as though mysterious forces were ruling the world; and no matter how much your tried to understand it was to no avail. There was no guarantee that good things would find my way simply because I did good. Actually, absolutely nothing was guaranteed. Even though the world and life had their laws, they seemed far away from me. The book of life had already been written and given to me to live my fate and see. The only thing I had to do was let myself go with the flow of things. Everything would end up the way it was meant to be; we were there not to play, but to watch. There was no reason to make plans, everything was either down to luck or fate. Who I was to marry, with whom I was to work with, all of these things _happened_ to me, not things that I _did_. There was no reason to worry about things. So why were there so many homeless children living on the street shivering in the cold? Why were there so many people whose houses were bombed and destroyed in wars, or people left penniless after working their whole lives, or people who did so many evil things but were never held accountable for their actions, and so many young people getting sick and dying? Nobody was responsible for any of this. Everything was as it was meant to be. It made no sense to question these things. Everything was complicated, ambiguous and dizzying. In these times I would read poetry, get lost in my imagination and try and figure out what that misty place in my dream meant.

The Big Rat Race

What was I going to be when I grew up? What profession was I going to do? What was the biggest responsibility of my life going to be? That troublesome wait that starts at high-school all the way until university. Actually, it was a wonderful time when we weren't labeled by our jobs; we hadn't entered the soul crushing cycle of the so called "business life". We hadn't chosen the little windows we would view life from yet. I felt like I was watching the world from a high hill, everything was about me and I was about everything. Life felt so free when I didn't have to stick to a daily routine. Daily work was _those_ people's work, and they took and that role with so much enthusiasm. I sometimes wondered if they truly weren't aware that they were playing a role. Later on, I'd find people who couldn't truly adopt their roles to be the most interesting characters because they knew they were playing a role. They viewed their work as though it was some sort of play they were casted in. These people knew how to tolerate things, they never got angry easily and were quite forgiving. I really liked these kinds of people, but there were few of them, and they'd get fewer in number as time went on. They were going to forget that they were a part of an eternal game, how they once lost themselves in pleasant engagement. And to the readers who are easy to forget, I'd suggest reading part one again, to remind them of the heavenly and tale-like days where working was an endless game and adventure.

And of course, there were the others. The ones who were quick to forget who they were. The ones that were quick to adopt their roles, who couldn't take off their masks and who were eager to attend that masked-ball we call the business life. They would first concoct an identity with their CV's, their biggest mistake was to think their titles reflected their true selves. Those who were to succumb to their egos predominantly come from this group of people. These people loved to play a game of faux happiness under the guise of their mortal masks and forgetting their eternal selves. They were quick to take offence and would find it hard to sleep at nights because of constantly fighting off imaginary threats to their titles. Yes, they were very hardworking, but they wouldn't live life for themselves but only for their titles. They had forgotten about their essence, living a life in an empty shell. With time I learned how to leave these people to their own devices. Their little lives seemed cuter when viewed from a distance. The way they'd go red in the face with shyness when they thought they found favor in the eye of their superiors, and how they'd hustle and bustle to climb the corporate ladder was so amusing to me. Yes, "good job, clever boy" but you've forgotten your eternal self, that you matter too, and that you have a real life and that your first duty is to live a life worth living and preserve it and defend it. Go on, run a little more, little child, that'll be your punishment for now. I'm sure we'll have a great time watching your folly as we eat some popcorn and sip on some coke.

Exile and Winter

Sometimes everything would feel terribly foreign. An old friend who was once close enough to use the same toothpick would suddenly become an old acquaintance we hadn't seen for years. The welcoming hand of our lover would suddenly become cold and distant. A colleague we'd bump into every morning would suddenly seem like they dropped down from another planet. It felt as though we didn't have a common past with people, and they were soulless ghosts that would say "hello" and "goodbye". We hadn't had the faintest idea of where we came from or where we were going. It felt as though we had already forgotten who we were, and we were increasing this sense of distance and alienation by addressing each other with "sir" and "madam". Maybe we were waiting for a piece of news from some foreign land but weren't certain it was going to ever arrive. Nothing was certain anyway, we'd get lost in the idea that we knew everything, and we had everything under control but this game of pretend would lose its realness and we would be left alone with a sense of boredom. Time that past by so quickly would suddenly slow down, the skyscrapers surrounding us would look like unfriendly giants and to add to the frustration we'd get soaked in mud by a car whizzing by. The endless amount of people walking down the streets, traveling by tram were constantly going to and fro from one place to another. If it were the day of judgment, we would at least have an idea of what was waiting for us. But here, in this crowded city, it felt as though the invisible rhythm in the depths of life was interrupted and nobody could hear its music.

"Exile" whispered a wizened old man, and walked on without saying anything else. I thought I heard a voice say "Far away", and in pain and terror I looked at the sun. The sun, which we'd draw with a smile and a twinkle in its eye as children, was not smiling and there was no twinkle in its eyes. The sun just went about its business behind those dark, bleary clouds. And the clouds, those clouds we thought looked like elephants, or turtles or some imaginary monster, as we lay on the grass and stared at the sky as children now seemed like lifeless tufts of black smoke drifting along the horizon, almost parodying our meager lives. I started to feel dizzy, I had to sit down on a dirty bench near the sidewalk. I almost couldn't see anything, my body felt cold and I began to shake. I tried lifting my head, but everything was blending into each other, objects were losing their definition and were circling themselves on a frenzy, it was as though I was lost in this hysteria. Then I heard a sharp scream. The whole world rang with it for a while. And then there was a deep silence. Everything slowly found its place again. Then I was told "winter will be felt for a while longer in a distant planet far, far away. The cold winds coming from the Balkans will continue for a while longer, and the wave of cold air will continue in our country for a while yet." these voices came from a distance but they were very clear, they also said that the winter would continue until a designated time, and that time was determined, even if we didn't know about it. And that was it. The voices stopped. I lifted my head up and saw a feather of black birds were flying towards the sun. I got up, wrapped my scarf around me, but on my cap, buttoned up my coat and started to walk home. "Winter is going to continue" I mumble to myself "it's going to continue yes, yes" as I walked home "winter, yes... yes."

### PART 2- THE PAST

University

I went to university at Bogazici University, department of Industrial Engineering. I had done really well in the university entrance exams and could enroll in any university I wanted. But what did I really want? To be honest, I didn't know. I had attended İstanbul Atatürk Science High School, so I could choose to study engineering or medicine. Even though my family wanted me to study medicine, I knew I wasn't going to pick that option. Having to constantly deal with hospitals, people and illnesses really wasn't suitable for my soul which preferred calm and peace. Yes, doctors did make a lot of money, but I wasn't really thinking about money at the time. I mean, I could always make money, but I really didn't want to be something just because it would make me a lot of money, or just because my parents wanted me to do it, or because people would respect it (another thing that I've never really cared about in life). So, I was left to choose from a selection of engineering degrees. I felt like most of them were very technical (I didn't know at the time- I was just choosing according to the names of the departments) so I thought that I wouldn't choose mechanical, computer, electrical or chemical engineering degrees. I was left with Industrial Engineering, and since it was close to business administration, and it was still difficult to get in to, I thought it would be easy to get a comfortable job if I studied it. I chose Bogazici University because only students who did well in their exams could attend it, it was a popular university, and it had a very nice campus located along the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey.

The first two years of my university life were spent in English prep school. I didn't have a background in the language, so I started from the bottom. I was a good student that attended class regularly and almost always scored the highest in my exams. I started to frequent the library after my second term and started reading history, philosophy, and religious books in English (my trusty Oxford Dictionary never left my side). When our lecturers gave us essays to write, I always tried to model the sentences I read in those books to impress them. The essays I wrote during that year became very popular among the students who wanted to pass their prep year in English. Since we were at the lowest level, our lecturers thought we wouldn't be able to pass the first exam in June and that we would have to stay for summer school. I didn't want to spend my summer holiday at university, so I studied hard and passed the exam with an A. It was almost impossible for a beginner student to pass the English Proficiency Exam, especially with an A. Another reason why I studied so hard was because I had a friend from high school who was in prep school but a level above me, and my friend constantly corrected my pronunciation and constantly pontificated me.

The education language at the university was in English (the lecturers even joked with us in English), so it was good to start the year with a good level of English. Even though I was good at reading and writing in English, I wasn't very good at speaking. There were students who had graduated from Robert College or Galatasaray High School who had learned English much earlier on, they were great at communicating with our lecturers and were very confident in their English-speaking skills. The rest of us were rather shy about speaking, we'd stammer when asking questions to our lecturers and had to study much harder than the others. I had a GPA of 3.89 in my first year of university, which meant I finished first among my peers. As time went on my GPA dropped to 3.35 because I lost interest in my classes. The only reason why I never failed a class was simply because I was in the mindset of finishing what I started. In my last year of university, I kept telling my friends I never wanted to see these classrooms or desks ever again. Feeling alone at university, alongside losing interest in my course was another contributing factor to this.

Even though I have always been a very sociable person, I never made any lasting friends at university. I had made some lasting friendships at high school, but not at university. I'm still surprised that almost all my close friends I've been in contact with over the years are from high-school, I don't even have one friend from university that I'm still in contact with. I think there are two reasons for this: first of all, I came from a more conservative and religious background, which played an important role in not adapting and getting into the more elite and liberal scene of my university. I didn't feel close to either my fellow students or my lecturers in many ways. In our class of 60, only 3 or 4 people would fast during Ramadan. Normally this wouldn't have been an issue for me, but it felt strange to witness my classmates to eat and drink during the day, and consume alcohol at night during Ramadan. When I first met a friend from my department the first question that person asked me was "Do you drink?" and when I responded with "No." he laughed and said that I would. Another example was when one of our lecturers asked us how important it was whether the person we would marry was a virgin or not, and to raise our hands if we thought "yes, it's important.". This caused me to feel there was an ideological element to all of this. Many of my friends would drink alcohol at high school, but this never affected our friendship and was never seen as something important. Even though I never felt conservative about these subjects, I tended to distance myself from people I felt obsessed about these ideological things, so I didn't have many close friends at university. The second reason, and I think this is the more important reason, was the competitive atmosphere and career obsessed students. The prevailing culture at one of the best universities in Turkey was a very Americanized, individualist, competitive and careerist one. The first things students would look at after finding out their grade was how much higher they scored from the curve. The only thing people thought about was their GPA and the international companies they were going to work for and earn buckets of money after they graduated from school. It's safe to say we didn't have much in common.

During my 3rd year at university I felt very alienated from my department and lectures as I felt the gap between what I _needed_ to learn and what my lecturers taught us had considerably widened. I think that a real university- and I still think like this- should help prepare its students for life, and lecturers shouldn't just function as "academicians" or "instructors" but as guides and advisors who form actual relationships with their students and help students them develop themselves spiritually. Those years we constantly asked ourselves how what we learned in class was going to help us in life. We had to find our own answers, or the lessons were going to feel nonsensical. I remember one time during his first lesson our Nonlinear Programming lecturer said "Alright, people. I don't want to hear about how and where you're going to use in life what you learn in this lesson. That's entirely up to you, and I don't want to hear any more of it." Students were worried about where they were going to use the information they learned, but the lecturers didn't care too much about that. The lecturers always hid behind the argument that "students should find their own paths, and that lecturers shouldn't intervene.". I believe there was a lot of indifference and elitism hidden in this so-called liberal attitude. It was difficult to understand why they expected us to approach our subjects purely in academic terms, as though it was a philosophy course, when one of the most important things for engineering students was "how to use" the information they had learned. Of course, we were all worried about how to find a job after graduating, what information would be useful to us, what we needed to learn etc. Our classes, other than the compulsory Turkish language and Turkish Revolution History classes, were all mathematical. There was nothing that satisfied the soul in these subjects; like differential equations, optimization methods, linear programming etc. These subjects didn't contain anything that would help me in terms of my future profession, nor did they provide any nourishment for the soul. Towards the end of my 3rd year, one time during Engineering Economy exam, I remember looking out the window and wondering if there was a life worth living far away, I was struggling with the idea of if there was something more important than the education I was pursuing and the silly exam I was taking, and then I made my decision. I decided that I would finish my degree and try and find a job so I could muddle along and never have to come back to these classrooms again.

The big library at the northern campus of the university, and the pool there were my favorite places to hangout. In my first year I mainly read poetry and novels. I'd pick a book from the shelves and go down to the music and film room at the bottom floor of the library when I had time from the endless amounts of homework, and I'd put on some headphones and listen to the record collection. My favorite Turkish writers were mainly Sait Faik, Necip Fazıl, Cahit Sıtkı, Peyami Safa, Orhan Pamuk, Ahmet Hamdi, Yahya Kemal and Orhan Veli. I really enjoyed Sait Faik's humane approach to everyday events. Necip Fazıl's poetry drenched in metaphysical quest and suspense left a deep impression on me. Cahit Sıtkı introduced me to lyrical joy, and I've always found something of myself in Peyami Safa's anti-modern fiction. I could have rewritten Safa's Fatih and Harbiye districts as Gaziosmanpaşa and Etiler. Orhan Pamuk's "the Black Book" and "the New Life" were among my favorite books addressing identity and seeking meaning in life. Ahmet Hamdi and Yahya Kemal have transformed my approach to history and Istanbul. The way Orhan Veli made light of everything reminded my me of my own take on life. Maybe it was the beautiful weather that ruined me. I had read Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" with great interest and had finished "the Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky while sitting at the far back of the classroom. Out of the characters in that book "Alyosha" seemed quite similar to me, with his faith and optimism.

Those years, I would take long walks down Istanbul's historical streets with my high school friend Metin. We would talk about everything from the meaning of life to philosophy, and to the daily issues we had. I didn't have many friends but the few friends I had with whom I could talk about deep things with were enough for me. Everything that had depth pulled me to it, and everything superficial pushed me away from it. It felt as though there was some hidden meaning in life, and if I conformed to the lifestyles of those around me, I would miss this hidden meaning and never find out what life was about. In my last year of university I wasn't thinking about what I would be doing after graduation, but I was thinking about important questions like what we were meant to do here on earth where we came from and where we were going, and if life and death had any meaning, the reason behind everything and what we had to do. These questions could have many different answers, that's not what was important. What was important that we realize that these questions were the most important questions and that we should at least try to answer them. The people around me were too busy trying to land a high paying job, or date some beautiful girl or get married, start a master's or doctorate program, trying to earn more and more money and all kinds of petty things that I decided I wasn't going to play the game they called "life". These goals might be important in and of themselves, but to base one's life around them without pondering the important questions seemed futile.

With these ideas in my mind, I started to read more philosophical and religious books in my last year of university. I started to read classical western philosophical texts, the Quran, texts of different religions, philosophy and intellectual history those days. The books I read were generally in English, and the more I read the more I needed to read. Finding texts written about real knowledge, where these ideas were discussed; it helped me from succumbing into a total darkness. It was a great relief that other people had thought about these questions, other than myself because it had felt like I would've drowned in a pool of meaninglessness. I was busy making plans about spending the rest of my life in search of knowledge worth knowing, researching and living it. And on the other hand, I was wrestling with endless exams, projects, homework and finals. I especially felt the need to read more during exam periods. I preferred to study by myself in the library than with a group of friends because the constant worry and panic my friends had before exams tired me. When I was studying by myself, I would read 20-30 pages of a book I picked from the shelves, and then quickly skim through the exam topics and then start reading again. This reading process continued with its high pace until the year 2010 when I did my military service. The two weeks before my military service I had read a 1500-page book on the history of philosophy. Reading about the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers, Western philosophers from the Middle Ages, and Modern Islamic Philosophers left me in a dizzy state. How did I not lose my sense of self during such intense reading? I believe the answer lies in my world view deeply attached to the Quran, and how much I had internalized it. That year, what I had read in the Quran about the existence of some scientific expressions and mathematical miracles that I thought could not be said 1400 years ago had convinced my scientific and rational mind. I think this gave me the confidence to start such a big project like reading the entire intellectual history of the world. I was very interested in how people throughout the ages have tried to answer these big questions, so naturally I gravitated towards reading philosophy, religion and intellectual history. It felt like diving into the ocean with an oxygen tank, otherwise it would have been very difficult to overcome nihilist and skeptic philosophical thoughts.

During this time, writers from the existentialist school such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre and Dostoevsky had greatly influenced me. I believe that the sincerest questions regarding the meaning and meaninglessness of life were asked by these thinkers. The idea that there could be no meaning or truth in a world without God or transcendence has tied me to religion more so than any religious book. These authors helped me understand certain basic questions such as freedom, anxiety, absurdity, authenticity, existence, the mortality of man etc. with seriousness and sincerity. Even though it's not a part of existentialist thought, Pascal's "Pensées" was one of the most important books in shaping my thoughts about the finiteness of life, man's role in the universe and God's existence.

The most important experiences in shaping my ideas about work life was the internships I did, and the job interview I had during my last term at university. I had to complete 70 days at an internship to be able to graduate, so I did my first internship in a software company during the winter break of my second year. I had a very hard time finding an internship since the university didn't provide any assistance and I didn't have any contacts. I sent lots of e-mails to the human resources departments of different companies but only a few responded and anyway, they had rejected me. I thought they said that if you went to Bogazici University it would be a piece of cake to get a job! Well, that simply wasn't the case. Regardless, I had sent my CV to a small software company in Perpa, they responded to my e-mail and I was invited for an interview. The interview went well, and I started my internship. I worked for 20 days with 3 computer engineers coding day and night in a tiny office, while I assisted in a minor project. The engineers were writing software for metal-cutting machinery used in large factories. They had asked me to develop an algorithm that would designate cutting points which would produce the least waste. The whole coding thing was very interesting, I even worked on some problems when I went home. The work environment was pretty good, too. Every few days they would have a video call with their boss at Zürich, and the rest of the time they would just huddle over their work. I got to talk a little with the engineers during lunch breaks, it felt strange to work all days in a tiny room without chatting with anyone. My already little excitement vanished towards the end of my first week there. I had already begun to gloomily think about how the next week would pass, then when I went there on Monday I was welcomed with a surprise. A classmate had started their internship at the company, too. It was nice to have someone I could chat with over a cup of coffee. The rest of my internship went by quickly thanks to having a friend there. That's how I completed my first internship, my first impression of work life was "how boring is this?". At the end of that year I did another internship at a risk and credit rating department at a large bank and had to leave on day 15 out of 20, due to extreme boredom. After that, I decided never to work at a bank again. I couldn't stand such "formal" settings. That summer I did an internship at Turkish Airlines with a classmate. That internship was a breeze, we only had to do minor work for 3 hours and then spent the rest of the day watching films or walking around different departments. It was good to have a friend who I could chat with and have heart-to-heart talks with, it helped pass the time. The next year I did an internship at a Mercedes factory, where I realized that factories are soulless gloomy places and that jumping into the business life was not something to look forward to. But time was passing, and I was going to graduate soon so that meant that I had to find a job and start earning money. On one hand my exams were really bugging me, and on the other hand these anxious thoughts were really stressing me out. Life shouldn't be spent coding day and night, or stuck in formal settings among insincere people, nor should life be wasted in soulless factory offices. The real thing that bothered me was the feeling of being dragged around by life. It felt as though I was living someone else's life, or I was a part of someone else's project. Maybe it was because I came from a large family, where people had their own little shops and worked for themselves, so it felt like working for someone else- no matter how much it payed- was not something to brag about or want to do. That's why I could never understand how my classmates were so anxious to land a job in a big international company.

During the last term of my last year at university, a friend of mine working part-time at Sabancı company told me that they were looking for someone to work part-time like himself, and maybe I could apply, and she could help me out. I only had 3 lessons, so I had lots of free time during the week, and I thought of it as an investment for after graduation. I went to the interview which was held at the twin towers in Levent. After passing through strict security, I began to wait at one of the meeting rooms in one of the top floors. When I looked out the window, I could see the whole of Istanbul beneath me. People looked like tiny ants walking around the streets. Then a man and woman, who were smartly dressed, entered the room. After briefly introducing themselves they asked me which school I went to, and I answered "Bogazici University- Department of Industrial Engineering". The woman then said that what school I finished didn't really matter when it came to work, and she started to talk about all the training and certificate programs she had finished. Then they asked me a few questions about statistics, what field I specialized in etc. I answered them all and told them I didn't have a lot of work experience but I could quickly learn whatever they showed me. They took a brief look at my CV, then told me that I didn't know how to market myself. I don't know why, but those words hit a nerve: why did I have to "market" myself? To me the phrase had bad connotations, so I couldn't keep my mouth shut and told them I didn't view myself as a commodity to "market". I guess they didn't like what I had to say, so they told me the chief of Human Resources would like to have a chat with me, too. I was led to a spacious and refreshing room. I briefly introduced myself to the manager, he then asked me some very strange questions. For example, he asked me how many tennis courts there were in Turkey, and I guessed a number. He then asked me if I was sure, and I told him of course I wasn't. He then gave me a marker and said I could try and figure out the answer on the board. I then divided Turkey into different regions, then gave him a different number. He asked me if I was sure or not, again. I told him I wasn't sure, but that was the best guess I could come up with. The meeting had been going on for at least 15 minutes, and the manager hadn't even smiled once. I would smile at the strangeness of the questions, expecting him to smile back to ease the atmosphere, but he had the face of a bulldog chewing a wasp. I felt like a primary school student in front of his teacher, and while I was trying to find an answer to the tennis court question I began to feel at unease. He _graciously_ told me to take all the time I needed. I gave him my answer and he asked me if I was sure, which I responded a little irritatedly by saying how could I be _sure_ of my answer. He then asked me a few more questions, and I answered them quickly since I was anxious to get out. Once the meeting was over, he shook my hand coldly. I felt relieved to leave that room and told myself I hope they didn't call me back. I began to question if the business world was full of people like this, who were so pretentious and condescending. I then decided again, that no matter what I wasn't going to market myself, no matter how much they were willing to pay me.

Graduation day was approaching, and I hadn't anything clear in my mind about what I would do after school. I had discarded the idea of doing a master's degree and joining academia, for the time being at least. I had applied for the Public Personnel Selection Examination, since a friend had suggested it to me. It had never occurred to me to work for the public sector, and it ended up just being an exam I took. I hadn't really studied for it anyway, I thought about doing my compulsory military service, to both get it out of the way and because it would give me more time to think about what I wanted to do with my life. I had to complete my papers until June if I wanted to start my service in August. Since my diploma wasn't going to be prepared in time, I got a certificate of graduation on the last day and went to the recruiting office in Halıcıoğlu. It was around half 3, the officer at the recruiting office said I needed to have a medical examination, so I was transferred to the Kasımpaşa Military Hospital. When I arrived there, I was told that the doctor had just left, and I had to come back on Monday. That means my military service would be postponed for another 4 months, which of course meant thinking about what I was to do during that time. I returned to the recruiting office, where I was told that I could try and see the doctor on Monday, but I probably wouldn't be able to start in August. I went back on Monday, and without even being examined I got my health report and returned to the recruiting office. The clerk there asked me if I want to do my military service as a short-term private for 6 months, or as a third lieutenant for 12 months. I wanted to get it over with as soon as I could, so I said I would like to do it for 6 months as a private. The clerk then asked me if I would like to be a commando or not, I responded with "No". At the time I thought I'd end up doing office work on some military base for 6 months, which would give me time to think about things. After the clerk finished gathering my documents, I entered the system via a computer, and was told that I had missed the application date by a day, but I should still try my luck. A few seconds past, and the system notified me that my application was accepted. "Congratulations" I was off to join the ranks in August.

Military Service

At the beginning of August 2010, it was clear where I was going to do my military service: I was going to spend the first 3 months at Isparta Eğirdir Mountain Commando School and would do my service as a third-lieutenant commando for 12 months. Even though I had opted to do a short-term service, and I had told them I didn't want to be a commando, I was chosen to be commando third-lieutenant. I remember my father crying when I found out the results online. I, on the other hand, didn't react at all since I had no idea what was waiting for me. 2 days later, my dad, uncle and I took the bus down to Eğirdir. That hot summer day, I said my goodbyes to my father and uncle in front of the barracks I was about to join, and then my life took a different turn.

The next day we were woken up early, and I found myself wearing a military uniform stiff as a board, and boots tight as a drum, in a place they called "the assembly area" with hundreds of my peers. We spent all day squatting and standing, squatting and standing. We would all line up immediately thanks to the commander cursing and barking orders at us. Nobody made a peep. If our commander ordered us to squat, and somebody missed the order by a mere second, he'd be subject to unimaginable verbal abuse. We would have to stand under the burning sun for hours, sometimes not doing anything but stand and run to the water fountains when told the break line. It wasn't much fun, I could tell you that. I didn't know what had hit me, only a couple of days ago I was reading philosophy books day and night, and now I was taking orders to squat, and stand for hours on end. The barracks were full of pictures of soldiers who had died in battle. There were only three destinations after completing basic training: Tunceli, Şırnak and Hakkari. These places are in the Southeast of Turkey, where there was and still is a lot of terrorist activity. Our commanders told us to fear not, that our training would provide us with everything we needed to know when fighting in the mountains. I, who had spent all his life reading books and passing exams, had no idea how I would survive all of this. I believed that, if I just kept to myself and showed respect to others that I could solve all my problems without hassle, but our commanders were expecting us to turn into third-lieutenants who would bark "short, abrupt and vicious" orders at our subordinates while chasing terrorists in the mountains. I had only one hope: to fail the medical check-up in five days and be one of the soldiers deemed "incapable" of being a commando. About 500 soldiers, out of 800 were going to be sent to Tuzla, Istanbul.

I will never be able to forget those five days in Eğirdir. Standing under the scorching heat, with blistered lips, not knowing what was expecting me... But despite all of the negativity, there was a sense of unity among us all, as we were all on the same boat. Most of my peers were between 22-25 years old, most of them were either teachers or engineers. It was simple to talk to people, all you had to do was ask "Where are you from? Which university did you go to? What department did you graduate from? Are you married? Got any kids?", which made the days pass quicker. A lot of the people I talked to said that their nationalist sentiments had hindered after joining the ranks. Our favorite topic of discussion was if the government would decrease the amount of time we had to spend in the army. And finally, the doctors arrived on the fifth day to do our medical screening. A lot of people showed up with their glasses with the hopes of being considered unsuitable. My first screening was with the military psychiatrist, he asked me if I had any health problems. "Of course, sir. I'm afraid of heights." I said, then the doctor told me to look into his eyes. I looked straight into his eyes, he then stamped my papers "Suitable to be a commando." I wasn't able to fool him. Next was the eye test. I failed that, too as well as several other categories. My last hope was the ear, nose and throat specialist. I told the doctor I couldn't run because there was something wrong with my nose. I mean, it was _technically_ true there was something wrong with my nose, but not about not being able to run. The doctor then checked my nose and said I had a deviated septum and stamped my papers "Not suitable to be a commando". I don't think I was ever that relieved in my life, handing in my university exam wasn't even comparable to how much relieved I had felt at that moment. The next day 500 of us were sent to Istanbul by train. We would hear stories from those who remained there, about having to hike 70 kilometers with 15 kg backpacks, having to stay in tents for days on end. We were all very grateful to be sent to Tuzla.

The situation in Tuzla was better than how things were in Eğirdir. At least there wasn't any grueling training, and those who were registered as residents of Istanbul could leave the base at the weekends. The first month was spent with preparing for the oath-taking ceremony. "Turn, LEFT! Turn, RIGHT! Eyes, RIGHT! ATTENTION! MARCH ONE TWO ONE TWO ONE TWO!" was all we did for that entire month. It was a surreal atmosphere, where those who couldn't salute their commanding officers properly were told to practice with a pole, or those who couldn't turn on their heels at the right time were told to lie on their sides on the boiling asphalt. I started to slowly not think about things and lost myself in the chain of command. All the things I had learned throughout my education, like critical thinking skills or a sense of individuality were slowly replaced with mindlessly taking orders without questioning them, and not responding back when scolded by the commanders.

The training we had in those barracks were all aimed at deindividualizing us, to stop us from thinking critically about anything and suppressing human emotion. The military life was for those who grew up in this setting, who were taught to accept this at a young age: but for those who went through an education, who were taught to think about things, it had a devastating effect. We knew that, people who had contacts in high places had a very comfortable military service, but people like me didn't. What did my education, or my personality matter? When these things were so expendable.

But of course I had found ways to preserve my sense of self and individuality. I tried to convince myself that everything was a play. I would think that every time an order was given to us, when we were told to turn left, or right, or run, to brake rank, or to file back, that it was a play. I felt like if I took all of this seriously that it would just crush my soul; it was simply a play we were all acting in. I mean, in what way could marching around all day or picking cigarette butts around the barracks be serious? Even though the team commander had a stern face, shouted orders at us all day and looked very serious, it was just his part; which he played with perfection. I mean, how could someone be so serious all the time anyway? This is one of the reasons why I would feel sorry for our commanders, we were only temporary actors, but they would have to act all their lives. That's why all the soldiers would count the days until their service was over, this gave us a sense of freedom. Another mental method I developed was based on the Cartesian mind-body dualism. Yes, the mind and body were separate. My mind was distinct from my body. Someone observing me from outside might think I was there, but my mind was somewhere else. Yes, my body was marching left and right, but my mind was completely somewhere else! It felt as though I was given the wrong role! "Straight AHEAD!" Sir, yes sir! "Turn LEFT!" Sir, yes sir! "Present yourself SOLDIER!" Sir, yes sir! "LOURDER SOLDIER!" SIR, YES SIR!

Despite the authoritarian conditions we were in, there were still plenty of people to shoot the breeze with, which helped a lot to pass time. We'd run to the canteen to buy food and soft drinks when we were given a break, or we would rush to the vending machine to get a nice cool drink. Mobile phones were not allowed, but some people had sneaked them in and would talk to their parents at night while hiding under their bed covers. I preferred using phone-cards at the pay-phone but that meant having to wait in a line. Other than that, there was a line for everything, to go to the bath, to go to the toilet, at the canteen etc. I would have to stand all days, either march or crawl, or run about, that when I entered my bed, I would instantly fall asleep. Wake-up time was 5:30 in the morning, of course if you didn't have to stand guard at night. Standing guard at the floor we were at or standing guard by the flag were the main duties we had at night. We would have to do this once a week.

I'll never forget standing guard by the flag. My friend would wake me up at half two, so I could get ready to stand guard from 3 at night until 4. We would walk together in lockstep to the entrance of the barracks, then I would stand guard for an hour without moving a muscle. It was absolute torture, after only 15 minutes had past, I'd either start to itch, or my leg would fall asleep. Sometimes I couldn't help myself, I'd look around and then I would scratch myself. Sometimes one of the officers on duty would come and ask me questions just to get a reaction out of me, and I had to stop myself from answering. They would tell us that the point of standing guard was to show respect to the flag. After the hour was up, another soldier would come and take my place. I'd go back to bed for another hour before having to wake up at half 5 again. Needless to say, I felt like a ghost the whole day.

By that time we had begun theoretical and field training. I remember one evening, while we were waiting the colonel to come and teach the class, we were given a military song to memorize which was about killing, bombing places and bloodshed, I turned to my friends and reminded the Surah Al-Baqarah [2:30] of the Quran: And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Yes, mankind did shed blood, but man also strived to justify the blood it had shed. Blood could be shed for grand ideals couldn't it? The Surah continues with: Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know." So, according to this there was a meaning to all of the death and misery that we couldn't understand. Maybe Allah was testing mankind by granting a time limit. When I told my friends that maybe it was better to be on the side of Abel, and not Cain, they agreed with me.

The rest of the 2 months we spent in Tuzla revolved around doing sports, shooting practice, and doing theoretical and classroom training. Those who lived in Istanbul had the opportunity to go home for the weekends, provided they could do 7 pull-ups. I was very good at sit-ups and push-ups but could barely even do one pull-up, so I couldn't go home that first weekend. Regardless, my parents and my siblings came to visit me that weekend. The following week during training, a soldier came and told me that one of the colonels wanted to see me. I of course ran to the colonel's quarters, he then told me that he found out I had graduated from Bogazici University, and that I could speak English pretty well. I told him that that was true. The colonel told me that he would give me some texts to translate, he needed them for a master's thesis he was writing at the time. I was very happy to hear this, as I thought it would give me the opportunity to skive off all the training we were supposed to do. He then said I could use the library and that he would explain the situation to our team commander. This of course didn't make our team commander happy, as he said I had to join in with the training. Well, let me rephrase that, he didn't say that I had to attend the training he ordered me to do so; but on the other hand, he couldn't disobey an order from his superiors so it was decided that I would do the translations in the evenings after training. This of course meant that the time I normally had to rest would be spent with doing translations for the colonel; but I got my revenge soon enough. I hadn't been able to go home at the weekends for the last two weeks because I couldn't do enough pull-ups, so I told the colonel that I could do the translations better at home on my computer. He immediately called our team commander and asked/ordered him to allow me to go home at the weekends (superiors don't ask their subordinates to do anything, they order them to do things). Our team commander had a bit of a grudge against me, but it was totally worth it to go home at the weekends. This meant that I could leave on Friday evening as long as I made it back to the count at 7 o'clock Sunday evening. It felt amazing to rest at home after a long week of training in the barracks, I'd drag my feet when it came time to back to the base.

After a long two-and-a-half months, it was time to draw the places we were going to as third-lieutenants. There was a lot of excitement in the air, we could've drawn anywhere from Şırnak, Cyprus to Istanbul. There were 120 people in our troop; those who made the cut in the top 10% in training or sports, which were 12 people, could pick wherever they wanted to go without having to enter the draw. I was towards the back of the line, since I never tried because I figured I wouldn't be able to make the cut anyway. The remaining 108 of us would first draw what number we would be in the queue and in the second draw we would randomly pick a piece of paper which said where we were supposed to go. When it came to drawing the places we were going to, most people had picked the dangerous areas, and the guy right in front of me had picked Şırnak (where there was a lot of terrorist activity) and I gave out a sigh of relief. I put my hand in the bag, then I picked out a piece of paper. I gave it to my commander, who passed it on to another commander standing next to him. He asked me "Have you ever seen the Selimiye Mosque?" to which I responded "No, sir!" he responded "Well, you're going to be seeing it a lot!" I had picked Edirne! I was to spend the remaining 9 months of my military service at the Karaağaç Mechanical Infantry Brigade Commandership. Normally we would have gotten a 15-day break before joining our new barracks, but thanks to the festival of sacrifice we got a total of 24 days off! I set off to Edirne towards the end of November.

I had arrived in Edirne on Saturday to get to know the barracks and the city a little bit. I entered the officer's club with my suitcase hand, when I told the soldiers there that I was a third-lieutenant and I was wondering where I was supposed to stay, they quickly took my suitcase and said "Sir, yes sir. Please follow us, sir." Sir, yes sir? Well, since we were going to be third-lieutenants we had found our place in the military hierarchy. Rank is everything in the military, we were quick to use this to our advantage. 8 out of the 17 of us who came to Edirne were in the same barracks, and I was in the same team as Çağdaş from Edirne, who was a food engineer. I shared the same room with Mustafa from Maraş, who was a teacher. I started to understand the difference between doing my military service as a long term third-lieutenant and a short-term private. The only advantage of being a private was doing your military service for 6 months, instead of 12. When you are a third-lieutenant the service bus would pick you up at the barracks and leave you off at the officer's club where you would stay. It was like being a civil servant. We could dine at the officer's club, where privates would serve us, and eat excellent food that would normally cost 7, maybe 8 times more at a civilian restaurant. Then we would walk around the streets of Edirne. We were paid on the 15th of every month, our wages were almost as much as what a teacher would get payed. The biggest advantage was nobody could mess with us when we were on the base, thanks to our ranks. The only people that could tell us off were commissioned officers, but they were few in number, so it was never really a problem. The biggest disadvantage of being third-lieutenant was the equipment registered to our name that was worth millions. We were responsible of equipment like night-vision goggles, guns, even electronic components of armored vehicles. If anything happened to this equipment, or it got lost, we as third-lieutenants would be liable and may even have to pay compensation for it. This was always a source of stress for us third-lieutenants. Another advantage was of course having the weekend off. If I didn't have guard duty, I'd take the bus on a Friday night to Istanbul.

I remember waiting at the door of the team commander of the platoon we were assigned to as platoon leaders, with my friend Çağdaş. We could hear the shouting and screaming of a private coming from the room and started to get worried. We later found out that this was routine for private Gökhan, who would get scolded by the company commander every morning. One of the defining characteristics of our barracks in Edirne was that it housed many people from lower class families who came to do their military service, who were either drug addicts or were self-harmers. Nothing was expected of these soldiers, other than form a wall of flesh on the western Turkish border. It was up to us newbie third-lieutenants to keep these men in check. I don't think there was a single soldier in my team that hadn't been to prison or hadn't used drugs. One of my most trusted corporals was Fahrettin, who had accidentally mortally stabbed his friend when he was only 17 and had spent some time in prison only to be let out because he was a minor when the crime had occurred. Although these soldiers respected us because of our ranks, it was only a matter of getting angry for them to take out the razors they had hidden in the uniforms and started cutting themselves right in front of us. The 9 months I had spent with these soldiers had taught me a lot, especially after spending 5 years in the sterile bourgeoisie environment of Bogazici University. There were so many different types of people here, from all kinds of social strata. Being responsible for 120 soldiers had taught me a lot, too. I don't think the best schools in the world could have provided such an education in leadership and management. I was excellent at keeping my cool under stress. Having to respond "Sir, yes sir!" to our commanders scolding us, provided with me the necessary sense of detachment and strength to deal with tough situations. Our commanders could shout and scream at us for any reason, and we didn't even get the chance to explain ourselves but could only respond by saying "Sir, yes sir!". This gave an amazing psychological strength. Even after my service had ended, I could keep my cool if someone were to shout at me.

Understanding certain behavioral norms in the army, was actually akin to understanding how the state functioned in our country. This information was going to be invaluable for me when I worked in the public sector in the years to follow. Let me give you an example: never become too distinguished, but also don't let yourself be excluded by staying behind. Why? Well, it's actually quite simple: if you're too distinguished or passive, you'll end up taking the responsibility if something bad were to happen. That's why the system eliminated those who took initiative or risks, and those who were too passive often became scapegoats. You would never be commended if something good were to happen, but always held responsible if something bad were to happen. The state is an organizational structure that isn't "owned" by anyone, it has to define its penal sanctioning because the system is so open to irresponsibility and misconduct. On the other hand, if a task is completed successfully, there is no reward system other than at the discretion of your superior. Since there's no other way about it, the system produces people who can't take initiative or risks. As the system has to operate like clockwork, all forms of individuality are discarded by it. This produces inhuman relationships between people.

Without delving into sociological or organizational analyses any further, I'd like to briefly state that I was quite scared to lose my mind, rationality and humanity during my military service. This was especially true when I witnessed commanders shouting, swearing and hitting privates; and expected third-lieutenants to do the same. I had promised myself that I would never hit, touch or swear at any soldier during my service. Yes, there were times that I would go into a rage and I would shout at the soldiers, but I never ever hit or even touched one of the soldiers. Nobody was my slave, as man is not a tool but a goal in and of itself. Some of the soldiers would try to exploit my kindness, and I would be tough with them but always by retaining a sense of jocularity. There were of course situations where it was very difficult to stick to this principle. One day the team commander saw a private who hadn't gotten his hair cut, he grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to where I was standing and started shouting "can't you keep these damn privates under control!" I guess, according to our team commander, since the soldier was a mere private, he didn't deserve to be treated as a human being. Another time, I was responsible of checking if the privates made their beds properly- an integral part of keeping the country safe!?- I was shouted at because one of the privates had wrinkles in his sheets, I simply responded by saying "Sir, yes sir!". After the commander had left, I calmly turned to said private and told him to be more careful next time. The private was shocked that I didn't shout at him, since I hadn't held him responsible of being shouted at. I didn't care how messy, how irresponsible some of the privates were, they were not my private property nor were they my slaves. We all shared the same fate, at the end of the day we were all children of the same country, compatriots and brothers.

We would regularly have guard duty. We would stand guard right across the Greek border to protect our country from a possible enemy attack. The duties would start at 8 o'clock in the morning and would continue until 8 next morning until there was a change of guards. I somewhat liked guard duty, it gave me the opportunity to read late into the night. I finished Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Wittgenstein's many books during those guard duties. I'd gather ten solider in the back room, line them up in front of me, then I'd get them to run for a while, clean up the place and told them if they didn't bother me, I wouldn't bother them. Sometimes I'd treat them to crisps and coke. I'd chat with a lot of them deep into the night, some would talk about an unfinished vendetta in Diyarbakır, others about the revenge they wanted to take. There was one guy, he used to talk about how he started using drugs. He told us he first learned how to take drugs from his family, he was from Hacıhüsrev where when families visited each other it was rude to not offer cannabis to guests. Another guy would talk about his uncles living in Hakkari, where they became very rich smuggling drugs from the Iranian border. Very few of them had never been in prison, our barracks in Edirne were known as a "detention colony". Towards three o'clock at night, I would start to get tired, and I'd rest my head on the table to get some sleep. Normally it was forbidden to sleep, and if one of the commanding officers had caught me, I would get a penalty; but you see it was intolerable. It would have made more sense to divide guard duty into 12-hour shifts, but you see there's no place for reason in the military. The military is based on absolute obedience, which was something I couldn't accept. That was one of the most difficult things to accept, for someone like me who had undergone a high-quality education, where I learned to respect not only myself but my ideas as well. I really didn't have a problem with things that pushed us physically, it actually built you up and made you stronger. Staying in tents in the colds of Edirne that would reach minus 10 degrees Celsius and not get sick was a significant achievement for me. Commanding the troops, conducting drill practice in armored vehicles, being in nature... these were all wonderful things; but I just couldn't get used to the superior-subordinate hierarchy. I also believed that absolute obedience should be shown to the Creator only, and not to your fellow man. But I tolerated things, as I felt it was only temporary.

After about a year in the army, I finally got my discharge papers on July 16, 2011. The only thing that went through my mind at the time was: I'm free, to live a life without taking order from anyone. From time to time I thought I was going to lose my mind in there, and I think that was the biggest sacrifice I could have made. That's why I read books when I was on guard duty and watched English videos at night; to keep myself sane, and not forget the language I had learned at those five years I had spent at university. I felt as though I could overcome any obstacle life were to throw me. I didn't fear other people anymore, I was a pushover no longer. I had learned in the army the importance of being strong, or looking strong even if wasn't, to survive in this country. This proved to be an invaluable lesson in the future.

Starting Work - The IETT Years

About 20 days until my military service was to finish, Mustafa- my roommate- told me that new public service positions had opened, and I should check it out since I did well in the Public Personnel Selection Examination. Those days, I wasn't really thinking about work; I had thought that after I finished my service, I would take a long holiday and then maybe look for a job in the private sector. The only thing I wanted at the time was for my military service to end, I gathered that I'd be happy after that no matter what. I told Mustafa that I wasn't interested at first, but he kept pushing because he knew my exam result was very good- I had scored a 91- and for most teachers that meant having to study for years to achieve such a score, so they hadn't forgot about it. When we looked at the available positions for industrial engineers, we saw that Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality had 4 empty positions, and IETT, the public bus company of Istanbul, had 7. I didn't want to work anywhere other than Istanbul, so I put those two places down. Later on, I put down a couple more places just so my application form wouldn't be empty; I mean, I wasn't planning on going to Ankara. The results came out about two weeks later, I had gotten a position in IETT, but I was the last one to be accepted. I was glad that I wouldn't be under stress looking for a job after my service finished; and the job started in August so that gave me plenty of time to relax and enjoy myself. I gathered all my documents and registered, it felt great to be accepted based solely on an exam and there wasn't an interview. I was also very glad I didn't have to "market" myself to other people. A few years later, the public sector was going to start not accepting people based on exams, and nepotism/interviews were going to play a much more important role. At the time, I still wasn't thinking that I would spend a lot of time in IETT, I thought I'd stay for a few months then look for a job in the private sector. When I started the job a lot of people were saying "What are you even doing here? Aren't you a graduate of Bogazici University?". What people didn't understand was that I was looking for peace of mind those days, I didn't want any stress, I wanted work in a comfortable and free environment.

My salary was much higher than what I had expected, and I hadn't even looked at what they were offering when I first applied. The salary was much better than what was on offer in the private sector. There was one problem though, our salary only increased by 3-4 percent each year. It wasn't that important at first, I was just happy to have finished my military service and I no longer had to worry about the army. I was a civil servant, but I didn't feel like a servant. Actually, I don't think anybody felt that way. It was comfortable working in the public sector, nobody actually "owned" it so there was much less pressure. My manager those days was also an easy-going person. He would never put pressure on us and would leave us to our own devices. After a few weeks had gone by, I got used to the atmosphere; it was just what I needed, to be left alone to my own devices. That's why I thought it didn't really make sense to look for a job in the private sector after a while. My salary was good, I had a comfortable job, and I had earned it by doing well in an exam, I mean nobody gave me the job, I had earned it. This idea made me really happy. Another reason why civil servants had comfortable jobs was because it was nearly impossible to be fired. I would later find out that according to law no. 657 it was a right given to civil servants, that unless they were terrorists- which was impossible those days- you couldn't be fired and your salary couldn't be decreased. I was never a person to skive off work, but the idea that someone was exploiting me to make more money than me didn't seem fair, so I thought that that job was better than working in the private sector. Everybody was free to leave the office at 5, and I had the whole weekend to myself. Nobody expected you to work after hours, and even during work hours we were pretty free. I'd go out for lunch, then maybe even meet friends and walk around Istiklal street. Then I'd meet other friends in the evening, and just enjoy being in Istanbul. I had a lot of time to myself to read all the books I wanted to read, and when I was at work, I'd quickly finish what I needed to do and then read the papers, articles or whatever I could find.

These were the kind of things that put me off from working in the private sector, I mean I had my little kingdom to myself. Since managers didn't have the power to fire you, or cut your wages, they couldn't put any pressure on us. Of course, this had a little to do with the personality of the manager, but since their power was limited things tended to work in a reciprocally cordial way. A lot of my friends who were working in large corporate companies were working longer hours than me, sometimes even the weekends, and they earned less than me; this all added to my decision of staying at IETT. They were all working with the dream of climbing the corporate ladder, hoping to earn more money. None of this was an issue for me, I was never a career crazy person to begin with. I was comfortable, and that was enough for me.

My place in the hierarchical order was as an industrial engineer in the Information Management Directorate (Later Business Intelligence and Project Management Directorate) under the then called Department of Strategy Development. My address was clear, so was my place in the world. Since career achievements are everything in people's hierarchy of needs, their place in the world is defined by their jobs. What do you do? Well, I work at so and so. That's it. I, on the other hand, continued to question my place in the world at an ever-increasing pace. Ok, I had a job, a position, there were things that were expected of me, I'd get payed on the 15th of every month etc. and then? Where was my place in the grand scheme of things? Who am I? What about the fleetingness and finiteness of life? And what about after it? Does it exist? What if it did? What if it didn't? Then what should one do? What is good? What is bad? What is our true mission? What are we really? What is really expected of us? Allah? Why are we here? Where are we going? What's truly important and valuable? Being good? Going with the flow? Then what should one do? What about me? My decisions? Is there such a thing as free will? Is everything predetermined? Am I reading a book that's been written for me, or am I writing that book? Questions, questions, questions... Well, what about answers? That comes next.

Therefore, my identity started to shape into two dimensions. The first dimension was "love/transcendence/spiritual/aethereal/beyond" which kept asking these questions. My other side was about "worldliness/belonging here/ physical/ success-oriented/ material". Yes, I wanted to be successful in this world too. I wanted a good job, to have a good education, to do nice presentations, to drive nice cars, travel the world, to have a beautiful lover, to eat good food, to succeed, to live a fulfilling life. Maybe it was because I am a Taurus, I had a lot of ambition, not anger but ambition. The story of my life is based on these two dimensions working together, not working against each other. I don't know, maybe it's the influence of religion, but I've observed that many people have to suppress one side of themselves. They either left their spiritual side and focused solely on the worldly things, or they left all worldly things behind and devoted themselves to religion. By developing yourself spiritually I mean to be devoted to searching the truth behind real questions, to constantly pursue and to start looking again when you think you've attained truth, a spirituality defined by increased awareness and consciousness; I'm not referring to a ritual based religious life. I'm referring to find what is truly important, to find a life worth living and living that life; to ask, find, lose, search, read, to be grateful, to hope, to lose hope too, to get back up on your feet, to search for the Grand Meaning, to find your essence, to remember Unity and the Garden, then to forget, then to search and find again, to kneel, to prostate oneself, to stand, to run, to jump in joy, Glorious News, the path, the true path, the path to there... and there was this side to me too. Now, let's get back to our worldly story...

The Department of Strategy Development was an ideal place for me. It was not directly focused on operational things (like buses not leaving on time, systems shutting down, communicating with the people, drivers, garages, chiefs etc.) but it was more about strategic operations, long term plans, writing performance scorecards, conducting quality studies, greeting international committees, developing strategic plans, attending overseas meetings and conferences, holding presentations for higher management. IETT was all about the first world. The second world had its own rules of politics, where nothing was done right but everything was glamorized. I would constantly keep tabs on the developments in public transportation, and I would do many presentations on how the latest change of price tariffs affected bus rates, how many buses needed to carry how many passengers to break-even, and corporate scorecards etc. I trusted myself. Our then general manager was a visionary man that came from academia. He liked innovation. When I was doing my presentations, he would ask questions directly at me, and I would answer (there would be the department manager and other managers, too) directly back at him "I actually meant this... we assumed that here we...." very sure of myself. I knew how to approach my superiors, I got used to it in the army, so I was able to control the distance between us. Despite this, I was warned by another manager who said, "Don't answer back at everything, try sitting back a bit.". I tended to be quite laid-back with that manager, too. This all seemed very strange to my colleagues. My colleagues wouldn't "warn" me, but they'd tease me due to how comfortable I was. I mean, what can I say? I was just doing what I was doing.

In my last year of university, I had sworn to never return to those classrooms, but my workplace allowed us to take 2 days off work to attend classes so that kind of eased my stance on the subject. I mean, if I didn't like the course, I could always drop it; so, I began to research possible master's courses. I didn't want to continue my education in Bogazici University as I knew the approach of the lecturers there, they didn't want master's/doctorate students who were in a job. Anyway, I wanted to meet new people and see new, so I applied to Galatasaray University, Department of Business Administration- but that didn't work out. Only Yıldız Technical University, Department of Industrial Engineering was taking students in August, so I decided to apply, and I got accepted. I'd go to school for two days, the rest of the week I'd go to work. The course wasn't difficult, I'd study when I had exams and somehow pass. It wasn't difficult to find a thesis topic either, I had done many projects in IETT that I could write a thesis on. I smartened up a balanced scorecard study and called it "Corporate Performance Management in Public Transportation Systems: A Scorecard Study on IETT" as thesis, handed it in and finished my master's in three years.

Traveling

Let's go back a bit. Something interesting happened in my second year at IETT. My manager called me to his office and asked me if I could travel to Chile or not. I thought he had said Şile (a place in Istanbul), so I said sure I could go but it was a little out of my way. When he said, "Yes, it's a bit of a plane ride." it dawned on me. One of the organizations IETT was a part of had a three-day training course in Santiago (which apparently was the capital city of Chile). I got to use my English for the first time there. There wasn't anyone in the institution that could speak English (speak properly, that is) so they thought of me. I told them I would go, but I was surprised. I had never been abroad before, I hadn't really cared about traveling when I was at university mainly because I figured everywhere was basically the same. Back then my whole world was books, and the library. I could have spent my whole life in a library. That was, of course, back at university. I eventually got a ten-year passport, then bought a return ticket, sorted out my accommodation online, and got my travel pay (it included everything). My first plane trip, and first flight abroad lasted 20 hours. It took 4 hours to travel to Paris, where there was an hour layover, then another 15 hours from Paris to Santiago. I flew over Europe, the Atlantic, the Amazon and the Andes and finally arrived in Santiago. It was February, so while Istanbul was going through winter, it was summer in Santiago. It was an amazing experience, I met new people, there were people in the streets all speaking Spanish, different tropical fruits, student protesters, favelas bordering gated communities, I got to spend three days at a fantastic hotel and the training was very good too, not mention roaming the Chilean streets at feasting on Chilean cuisine. I got to practice some English, too. The training involved a lot of talking, so I got to practice my speaking skills. Traveling and learning, what a great combination! My first trip abroad was excellent. When I returned, I made a presentation on what I had learned in Chile. The executive board was impressed, so they picked me to travel overseas whenever it was necessary. Chile was a first.

Later on, I got to attend many overseas conferences, trainings and meetings. Sometimes, I'd arrange a group of friends to travel abroad. I got to travel all over the world, from north to south, east to west. I got to stay in beautiful hotels, I was always welcomed graciously, and got to taste delicious food, meet amazing people, and learned to say at least "thank you" in the language of the country I was visiting. I remember people smiling at me when I was in Chile, saying "Gracias", they were gracious hosts and showed me some of the best places in town. When I was a child, I'd read the countless countries Evliya Çelebi and Ibn Battuta had visited; the size of the world would make me feel dizzy. One summer, we rented a car in Marseilles and traveled along the coast passing through Nice, Cannes, and Monaco. I got to visit Singapore, one of the most prosperous and neat cities of that part of the world. I had the opportunity to study the transportation system of those extremely hard-working people. I got to walk on the sandy beaches of Sentosa Island, and swim between the small islands. In Skopje, I visited Behlül the coffee maker in the Turkish bazaar, we talked about the reign of Tito. I attended transportation project meetings in the European Commission's building in Brussels. I walked around the medieval streets of Bruges and watched the whole of Belgium from its clock tower. Walking through the streets one snowy day in New York under those tall skyscrapers wasn't boring, but I felt how empty things seemed under the neon advertisements in Times Square. I missed Turkey while I was walking down the streets of Berlin. I chatted with the beautiful women of Riga, they said the Turkish men that came to study there would never stop chasing them. The calmness of the Viking city Gothenbourg was too much, so I ran to Copenhagen. Everyone there, both young and old, were cycling. "This is a place I could live" I told myself. I imagined what it would be like to cycle safely in Istanbul, that was a healthy and peaceful system of transportation. I walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles and saw all those peoples' stars. There's no cure for death, famous or not. I had a coffee in the first Starbucks opened in Seattle. I wasn't sure if the world was massive or tiny as I was walking down those pine scented streets. The glamorous museums and magnificent palaces of Vienna seemed distant and cold, rather than welcoming. I recalled the misery that was suffered after we were denied entry into Vienna during the war in the 17th century; there was no need to conquer it anyway. The streets of Bratislava were calm, and the waffle was nice.

My most memorable trip was to Morocco, it felt as though I had entered a dream world. The snake charmers in Jemaa el-Fnaa, monkeys jumping around, Bedouins playing their tambourines, the scent of street food surrounding us, it all felt like I was in a different world. The streets were like labyrinths, there were children who would show us the way and ask money from us. The minty tea we had at our host's house was amazing. The house we stayed in had a little fountain in its yard, it looked like something out of a dream. The traffic on the other hand was complete chaos; horse carts, bicycles, motorbikes, pedestrians were everywhere, it was as though there were not traffic rules! Horse carts would race through narrow streets, we'd stick to the walls to let them through. Even Istanbul's traffic was better than this! We walked along the coast of Casablanca. We had to put mint under our noses to not faint when visiting the dye houses. There were old men in white robes in the mosques, they seemed like they belonged to a different time. After leaving this dream world, Barcelona presented us with another one, with its neat streets and La Rambla. Gaudi's colorful architecture was splendid. In Dubai, I witnessed richness, magnificence and slavery. During one of the seminars I had attended, someone important was there wearing a white robe and black Gittra. The people surrounding him were bowing and scraping. I asked the person sitting next to me who this person was, they said that he was from the royal family. I asked him what this man did, he laughed and said, "He's from the royal family". Very true, I mean what more could he do? Me with my silly questions, he owned everything there. So, money could basically get people to bow to you. You could see the whole of Dubai from the top of the Burj Khalifa. In the back streets of Dubai, I witnessed poverty. The Pakistani, Filipinos and Indian workers were in misery. I ran away from that place, that place where money was everything. I had never seen such a gap between the wealthy and the poor. From there, we went on to Canada, Vancouver. Vancouver was an amazing city, everyone was free and lived well, it had clean streets and its people were amazing. There was a ten hours' time difference between Turkey and Vancouver, I couldn't get over the jet-lag for the whole week I was there. We studied the environmentally friendly transportation models of Ljubljana. I had an amazing holiday with friends from work in Malta, the country of knights. Life was very vibrant there, both during night and day. I presented the governor of the freezing city of Astana (-20 degrees) in Kazakhstan, Istanbul's metro system. We then drank kumys and commemorated the years we rode through central Asia on horseback.

A picture of King Abdullah with his wife and son hanged in every shop in Amman. I understood better what the word "republic" meant after that. The city square was drenched in poverty. We had asked for a spoon so as to not eat rice without hands. They had amazing desserts. Medina and Mecca, the two holy cities. I ate dates and drank Yemeni coffee in Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Medina. I was constantly confronted by the Zemzem Tower while I was circumambulating the Kaaba. I was extremely parched. I prayed with Muslims from all over the world. I had yogurt pie in the middle of Sarajevo's bazaar. I saw buildings full of holes, and the surrounding burials, all remnants of the war. War... what a terrible thing, what nonsense! You could feel its effect on the whole city. We walked through the ancient walls of Dubrovnik and was greeted by the blue sea. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia the people were as nice as ever. The Milan Cathedral filled up the whole square with its magnificence. Fashion and history were intertwined in this city. I tried to learn some Portuguese in Lisbon but couldn't. Every corner or Prague was historical and legendary. I visited Kafka's house, where I was reminded of the feeling of being lost, meaninglessness and obscurity. How mysterious the world is! So many things happening to us, yet we always miss the meaning behind it. Jerusalem, (Which means Land of Peace) was so far from being peaceful. The land started to become barren when going to Palestine from Israel. Poverty was everywhere in this city of occupation and war. I saw that peace and serenity were quite impossible in this city. The city actually provided a picture of the world: there were the worship places of three religions, but they were all at each other's throats. Back to Montreal, Canada. Wealth and happiness. Then Stockholm, then Ireland's capital Dublin. And last but not least, London. I write these lines as I sit in a hotel by myself in North London, thinking about how big and small the world is, how wonderful and how horrible it is, too. What a strange place, this world is...

Being a Manager

In the first few days of November 2013, I was making plans about doing a master's in Gröningen, the Netherlands, when I got a call. The caller was my manager, we had started together in 2011, and he had become manager about 6 months ago. I liked him. He first said "Congratulations" and I asked him "what about?" he said "Well, you've replaced me" in a calm and humorous voice. I was quite shocked, because it had never occurred to me to be a manager. It felt like too much responsibility. My little world was enough for me; but I didn't say no. Well, nobody was asking anyway. That's what it's like the public sector, the next thing you know you're placed somewhere, then suddenly you're placed somewhere else, and then they move you somewhere else etc. They don't really ask if you want to be moved or not. I canceled my plans of going to the Netherlands. So that's how I started my managerial position. I was lucky, because I had become manager to the department I had worked for before. I knew the people there, and I tried to make it clear that I didn't want them to feel like I were there boss. Despite of this, some people started calling me "Mr. Fatih" instead of plain old Fatih. I didn't like this kind of formal talk, as I felt it killed the familiarity between people. Nevertheless, I felt like it was a matter of principle to let people act whatever way they wanted to. I've never liked hierarchy, or superior-subordinate relations; but these kinds of things were very important in Turkish culture. It's not easy to break these taboos. Even though I tried hard to be myself, I was in a certain position in a world where these types of positions meant something. I was used to giving orders from the military, and I was good at it too. But ever since I had left the military I had tried to stay away from these superior-subordinate type power structures. Alas! The world is based on these relations. Wherever there is an organizational structure, there were power relations. Sometimes I would think to myself the best kind of job was like the one my dad had: a small shop where you were your own boss, and that was that. I always hated the idea of answering to someone, but I've always refrained from expressing this as it's a natural result of being in such a structure. The nomadic blood of my Turkish ancestors must run through my blood, I could never get used to the corporate world; sometimes I would dream of moving to our mountain village in Niğde and live a solitary life there. I've carried this pastoral dream wherever I have gone. Of course, while my subconscious dreamed of such dreams, days, months and years passed and I continued my managerial position.

I always tried to be laid-back and cordial with the people I worked with. Actually, I didn't try because I was laid-back. Nobody was better at this managing business than I was. If I got an order from above, and it was either too difficult for our team I'd spread it out over time until it was forgotten. I tried to balance everything, whether they were order from the directorate, other units or from friends (never subordinates) just like a master acrobat. I would never get angry if things weren't finished on time, I would ask again if it were finished very politely. During my managerial position, I'm proud to say that I've almost never gotten angry and have never broken anyone's heart. I mean, things would eventually work out, and the important thing in life was to not be mean to anyone. I knew anger, and I knew how to control it. I knew very well how disruptive anger could be, how it could mess up relationships and eat up someone. Whenever something happened that would make me angry, if something urgent wasn't finish, I would spread it out over time and wait for it. What was the worst that could happen? They'd remove me from my managerial position, and that didn't mean anything to me. I never made it a part of my personality. Being Fatih Canıtez was much more important to me. I mean, there are hundreds and thousands of managers, administrators, directorates, chiefs etc. but the most privileged thing one could be is one's self. There's nothing other than myself, I love myself and respect myself, therefore I am able to love other people. That's what I don't miss my university, or high-school years. Everyone viewed each other as an opponent, everyone was trying to surpass the other, and they seem like lost years to me. I didn't want to see people as my opponents, or as superiors or as subordinates. My philosophy was of one Creator and one People. The fabricated superior-subordinate power relations reflected nothing about the truth. All of us are important, and we all have an eternal soul. I have never viewed somebody as a tool to advance my own interests. I have always thought it was something futile anyway. What people meant by excelling in their careers meant earning more money, giving orders to more people, essentially having more power. They never talked about maturing, trying to be wiser, to know themselves, to know their essence.

On the other hand, I would always follow up on what I assigned to each person in my team, I would delegate the work, try and give everyone something to do according to what they were good at, I'd try and smooth out any problems, motivate the team, keep close contact with other units, prepare presentations, present reports, write out memos, organize meetings, receive e-mails, write e-mails, keep a close eye on performance, help out those who couldn't complete the tasks; I basically would do everything that my job expected me to do. One of my favorite things to do was to do presentations in English to foreign committees. Committees from all over the world would visit us, from Asia, Africa and Europe. Being complimented on my English presentations would make me feel very good about myself.

Almost all of my colleagues on my team were about my age, so our communication was great with each other. Most of them got the job through an exam (like the one I had taken), so we were generally on the same page. Those who got in though a contract (read: got in through knowing someone or by pulling strings) were only able to join us if they were successful, so it wasn't much of a problem. I didn't have much trouble because I never worked with older civil servants that had lost their motivation, energy and expectation from life. I never worked with politicized people as well. Politicization increased as you climbed up the managerial ladder. I kept up to date with politics, but I was never part of it as it seemed irrational to my rational soul. Daily politics was for the masses, those who had found their true identity didn't need fake ones. I've never identified with- expect when I was a child- any football club. It seemed strange- it still does, I mean how can someone support Galatasaray instead of Fenerbahçe, or Beşiktaş. The same thing goes for political parties as well, I've never liked fanatic football supporters, and I've never liked fanatical party supporters either. The political climate was softer then, so it didn't really matter which side you were on. I was able to be myself for many years there.

After completing a master's degree in industrial engineering at Yıldız Technical University in 2015, I started a Management Engineering doctorate at Istanbul Technical University. The main reason behind changing departments was that I just didn't want to deal with numbers anymore. I realized that in life, as well as at work, words mattered more than numbers. Management wasn't a numbers game, it was a verbal affair. At the end of the day, first there was the Word and not the number. I was able to express myself better verbally and be more creative. Numbers limited me, they were too certain; they didn't leave any room for ambiguity. Everything was determined with numbers. Whenever I elaborated on something, my lecturers would comment and say I was straying from the point. And on the other hand, a new university meant a new environment and new people. I was attending my doctorate classes while I was continuing my managerial duties. The old directorate had changed and was replaced by a friend from the next unit. We had gotten off on the wrong foot straight from the bat. He was a control freak which felt suffocating. The previous directorate knew my style and would leave me to my own devices. They say stick to the devil you know, yet I tried to strike a balance with the new manager but to no avail. He would always dump all his responsibilities on us, and demanded they be finished. He had no backbone to defend us from higher management, and he would always throw me under the bus whenever he had a problem with his superiors. He'd make me rewrite a simple memo many times. My motivation had begun to decrease daily.

Whenever the directorate had changed so did the general approach of the institution. One day a committee from Afghanistan had visited us, I was doing a presentation for them in English about the "metrobus" system. I kept glancing at our new general manager, waiting for him to contribute to the presentation, but continued when he didn't add anything. Anyway, there was a Q&A, I answered all the questions and felt quite satisfied with myself. After the committee had left, I was left in the room with the general manager, assistant general manager and directorate. The general manager first scolded the assistant manager "why didn't you say anything while he was talking", and then he turned to me and said "as an engineer, remember your place". I was expecting a compliment but ended up being scolded. I stared straight in his eyes, with a look on my face that said, "are you actually being serious?" He probably couldn't speak any English and felt quite intimidated. After that, I never dealt with the committees. I had done everything with a sense of duty until then, there were many things I was proud of. I never dragged my feet on my way to work, I never felt like I was working for someone else. I kept thinking about quitting my position; it didn't have many advantages other than the extra 1500 TL that I made, and the disadvantages started to outweigh the advantages. It wasn't even a material thing, it took too much away from my soul. They expected me to obey everything they asked of me. With the changing political climate, those years of freedom ended too.

So like that, I had come to the end of my 3 year stint as manager. I actually felt quite relieved. Working as an engineer was much more comfortable, especially in such murky waters, than working as a manager. I devoted myself to my academic studies, I wanted to finish my doctorate as soon as I could. I finished my compulsory classes first, then I wrote some articles about my thesis, and the passed the doctorate proficiency exam. At that point, the unit that I worked for had changed too. In 2017 I transferred from Strategy to IT. I was known for being hardworking and smart, so the whole work load was dumped on me. Working hard, doing a good job was "rewarded" with even more work. I felt like it was time to leave. I had previously applied to the university's foreign exchange program (Erasmus). I had gotten a place in Middlesex University, Business School in London. But for some reason my letter of acceptance hadn't arrived. The letter finally arrived in October, it felt liberating. I took non-payed leave between January and May. The whole process of getting a visa, sorting out documents for registration etc. took about two months, and I finally arrived in London on 26 December 2017. I rented a room for 5 months in North London, Hendon. I had saved up some money, so I could stay there for a few months without working. Even though I hadn't made a clean break from IETT, I felt like it had run its course. I would travel around London, work on my thesis and would read all the time. Istanbul and my workplace began to feel too much for me, and this felt like an opportunity like no other to reflect and think about things. I was alone in a room, in a distant land, with my thoughts and dreams to keep me company.
PART 3- DEEP THOUGHTS

Writing and Existence

Why do I write? To have a name and identity in this world. To be able to say "I, too, have lived here." To be able to say "I have existed as well". Yes, I was born, I felt, my heart beat, I breathed, I had a house and a family, I had friends, I went to school, I lived in a country, I got to know people, I saw different cities, I dreamed, I went through heartbreak, I loved, I was loved too, there were times my love was not reciprocal too, I succeeded, I failed, I view the world as my home, and at times as a land of exile. But I existed, I had a name, a sense of self and identity, I had a story and fate. I write to say, "This is me, the true me, this is my self."

Some people found companies, do big things; some people start a family to continue their lineage; some build countries, impose laws, conquer foreign lands and cities; some write books and poems, and put their names under their work; some build skyscrapers and put their signatures under it; even people without anything have a gravestone with their names, birth and death dates on it. Why? So, they would have a name, something to remember them by. A standing stone, static in face of the eternal flow of time, something that never changes. A memory left behind. This is the reason why the ancient Greeks built statues, and old nomadic Turkish tribes build gravestones and shrines; to leave something behind, to not be erased out of existence, to not be forgotten. If there is a life beyond death (and I do believe there is) these endeavors would seem comical, and if there is not life beyond death, they would seem tragic. Why? Well, even they are forgotten after enough time has passed. Still, this is a need that is felt, that comes forth from the subconscious of man: to leave something behind that expresses him, that reflects who he was. Is there any better mirror for the soul than writing? Well, that's why I write.

Signs

There were many signs on earth, but we were far from them. Yet these signs had left marks to remind us of them, to not forget that beautiful Garden, to see similar gardens here on earth in order not to forget the Eternal Garden. But it is human nature to forget. Why is there a flaw in every form of beauty? Why does the rose harbor thorns? Because there isn't here. Because we live down there somewhere (earth) everything is defective. It's quite simple actually; through the defective we remember the perfect.

Even in the most advanced nations there was misery. No matter how rich you are, one day there will be problems, worries and hardships. Even the most beautiful women would become boring after a while. There has been a war in every period of existence. Even if everything did go well, it was followed by ambiguity. The worry of not knowing of where we were going. Regardless, we struggled to take control of everything all our lives. We constantly seek security: I wonder where I should invest my money in, which option is the most secure one? I wonder which school is safer for my child? Which profession is the safest? Which road is safer, would it be safer to travel by bus, plane? Which job would guarantee me a comfortable life? Could I really trust my friends, family and wife? A constant struggle for security.

## "But Satan caused them to slip out of it and removed them from that [condition] in which they had been. And We said, "Go down, [all of you], as enemies to one another, and you will have upon the earth a place of settlement and provision for a time."

We were in a constant state of safety and soundness. When we fell here from there, we sought this garden of safety and soundness either consciously or subconsciously. We'd latch on to our mothers straight after birth in search of this garden; we sought this garden when embracing our lovers; that dream house was in search of our home in that garden. We sought trust in man, because everything was safe there. We strived to build the most beautiful countries, we developed laws, systems of rules, then we changed them again and again in search of the Land of Peace (Dar'us-selam/ Jerusalem). We tried to improve the economy to preserve our blessings, to eat and drink whatever we pleased, to not worry about hunger. Just like it was there. But no matter what we did, we made a mess of it. Our lovers never loved us that much, money sometimes lost its value, the company you worked for and trusted could fire you, or it could go bankrupt. A war could break out in your country, there could be oppression and injustices. People could double-cross each other and do horrible things.

We were like children, building sandcastles on the beach and believing them to be actual castles. It only takes a wave to demolish a sandcastle, and we would build it again believing it to be stronger only to be wiped out by a bigger wave.

## "The example of those who take allies other than Allah is like that of the spider who takes a home. And indeed, the weakest of homes is the home of the spider, if they only knew."

So instead of seeking refuge in sandcastles, we should make friends with the sea. We shouldn't be tricked by the image in the mirror but reach out to the truth behind it. We must go beyond the picture and reach the essence.

Eternal Love

How long has it been since the age of Layla and Majnun? Maybe thousands of years, but some of us haven't forgotten about that story. Layla and Qays (Later to be known as Majnun) fell in love with each other at school. In a short space of time word of their love spreads everywhere. When Layla's mother hears of this, she quickly takes Layla away from school and forbids her from seeing Qays. Qays cannot stand this pain and is referred to as Majnun after this which means "crazy". Majnun starts to wander the deserts because of this, and many people tell him to forget about Layla, but to no avail because Layla meant the whole world to him. His grandfather takes Majnun to the Kaaba, in hopes of finding a cure for him; but Majnun starts to pray to increase his troubles. Both Layla and Majnun keep getting worse and worse. Layla is married off to someone else but finds excuses to distance herself from her husband and the man soon dies. Majnun is in the desert while all this happens, then is scalded by the pain of love; he loses all connection to worldly things and starts to live only through his soul. His connection to all material things, including Layla, ceases. Layla finds him in the desert one day, and Majnun doesn't recognize her and says, "Layla is inside of me, who might you be?". Layla understands Majnun's level of attainment and decides to go home. She soon after passes away. When Majnun finds out about this, he lies on Layla's grave and weeps to the Creator to take his life, so he could be united with Layla again. His wish is granted, and that's how the story ends: the lover and beloved become one.

It might be an arabesque (as it comes from the Arabs) love story. If Layla and Majnun lived in our modern times, they'd probably date for a while, break up and then eventually delete each other from their social media accounts.

Hundreds of years after the story of Layla and Majnun, Dante sees Beatrice walking on a bridge in 1280 Florence. He becomes awestruck and cannot forget about that experience and writes "La Vita Nuova" which starts: "Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi" which translates to: "Behold, a deity stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me. "He then wanders Florence in search of Beatrice, just to see her once again. He loves her in secret for nine years, in seclusion he writes many poems. Nine years later, he sees Beatrice walking on the same bridge, but this time dressed in white, accompanied by two old women. Beatrice turns, and greats Dante out of the corner of her eye; Dante becomes so happy he becomes speechless and shuts himself into his room to continue writing poetry. He then finds out that Beatrice has died, a few days later. Following this he writes his "Divine Comedy". Accompanied by the wise man Virgil when on the floors of Hell and Limbo, we see Beatrice accompanying him in Heaven, because it was not knowledge that opened the gates of Heaven, but love.

If Dante were alive today, he would have probably met Beatrice on some mobile application. If he was lucky, they might meet up in person. He might not have written "the Divine Comedy" but at least he'd have had a normal relationship.

The belle you speak of is no longer here, Fatih  
She appears as a fairy, but a dream to you.

What is Love?

Well then, what is love? Love is love, it just changes in form over the centuries. It manifests itself in its essence, it does not change. Love is hugging the beloved, living out the world in close embrace. It is attaining unity once again. Dreaming together, going to the cinema together, enchanting the world again. Love is adding color to an old black and white photo. Love is feeling that you exist, a magical crystal ball, being united despite the distance, finding a safe place in a world full of hurt, distrust and constant fluctuation. Love is watching the beloved peacefully sleeping. Love is curiosity, wandering what the beloved is doing. Love is forgetting the self, it is actively living the memory of that Garden. Love is losing one's self in the ecstasy of existing. Love is finding yourself again and losing yourself in this cycle. Loving is not feeling the rain when it is pouring on you. Love is discovering meaning in life. Love is Truth itself. Love is an endless riddle. Love is trying to keep important dates in your mind (birthdays, the day you met etc.) Love is passion. Love is not thinking about the end. It tastes like strawberries, it's mysterious. Love is shaky hands, it clears the mind, and cures all ailments. Love is embracing life, finding a life worth living. Love is feeling like you could run to the end of the world and carry it at the same time. Love is the constant sound of your beloved ringing in your ears. Love is wanting to sing every song to the beloved. Love is sharing the same cup. Love is a dream. Love is both material and abstract. Love is a paradox. Love is sometimes obsessing and other times forgetting about it. Love is making plans for the weekend. Love is waiting. Love is being foolish to your heart's content. Love is a hidden treasure, it craves to be discovered. Love is discovery. Love is finding meaning in everything. Love is everything finding its proper place, or completely losing it. Love is getting up early to make breakfast for the beloved. Love is knowing that with every separation comes reunification. Love is swallowing your pride. Love is madness shared by two people. Love is nobility. It elevates the soul and causes goodness, starts adventures and helps overcome difficulties. Love is the reason for the universe. Love is sharing chocolate. The stars shine with love, it's the reason why the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the Milky-way and the starts orbit distant galaxies. Love is a sweet kiss. Love is dizziness. Love is that twinkle in your eye. Love has its own rules, words and geography. Love is forgetting what you've said. Love is forgetting about time when you're together. Love is timeless. Love is the final explanation of everything. Love is the thing we've always been looking for, that thing we always think we have found, that we cannot contain. It both kills and gives life. That's what love is.

Love is all there in the universe

The rest is but a pack of lies (Adapted from Fuzuli's famous poem)

Being a Turk

Sometimes we become aware of things only when we've left that environment. So, I thought that it would be better to try to understand what being a Turk means while I'm in England. I especially found it difficult to say which part of the world I was from (European, Asian, African, Latin American, Middle Eastern) while I was on the plane from Istanbul to London. I started to question what it means to be from Turkey. Were we Middle Eastern? A bit, yes but not exactly. Were we Asian? European? Not exactly. I mean, Istanbul is both in Asia and Europe, but it wasn't exactly what came to mind when you said these two places. There's a bit of everything, but not exactly truly any of them. For example, if I were Italian, I could describe myself as part of something bigger like Europe. Or if I were from Guinea, Nigeria or Kenya, I could call myself African. I'm not going to even go into Latin America. I guess one could group countries if they are Muslim or not, but there are too many big differences to form a singular group. I noticed during one of the conferences I attended that I was mentally more compatible with Germans or Singaporeans in comparison to Moroccans or Omanis. We could try to form a singular group comprising of Turkic peoples (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan etc.) but again, there would be many differences. When I visited Kazakhstan, I noticed they either spoke Kazakh (There are some etymological similarities to Turkish, but it's a very different language) or Russian. Although there is a common history of these two countries, where we would ride on horseback and drink kumys, I couldn't find many things that we had in common. Many things had changed since those days.

After having visited many European countries, I made the conclusion that we were definitely not European. One of the most defining things of the cultural difference between Turkey and Europe is the difference of religion, accompanied by not having a common language and common sense of history. Relations between Turkey and Europe has always been quite complicated. There have been so many wars (The Crusades, wars with Byzantium, wars the Ottoman Empire had with countless European countries) and a regression following the World War I, and the Turkish War of Independence. During the final stages of the Ottoman Empire, and the beginning of the Republic of Turkey, the cultural exchange with Europe has constantly been unilateral, where we have imported military techniques, then founded our education system on the basis of rational and scientific thought, then imported administrative systems (the transition from sultanate to the republic) etc. Despite the European Union accession process, and the increased pace of cultural exchange due to globalization Turks and Europeans have remained as two separate categories with distinct essences. Nevertheless, this had an impact on my personality as a Turk. First of all, my perception of family, religion, and worldview was shaped by the education I received. The education I received was a product of European, or in more general terms Western, thought. The most defining aspect of Western culture, ever since Europe, has been its emphasis on rational thought. The way of thinking that was based on the rules of logic (that goes back mainly to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) and the different branches of science that is the product of this mindset, shaped our universal curricula and thus our rationalist worldview. I think this is the main reason why I could communicate better with Europeans and Westerners. Of course, my classes in Bogazici University were all conducted in English, nearly all the sources I researched were in English too, so through the rationalist side of my soul I could easily communicate with Europeans and Westerners. This has been an important aspect of my experience of being a Turk, too.

The three historical elements that have affected my inner world and helped me understand my place in the world as a Turk are as follows: Islam and being a Muslim, the Ottoman Empire, and the Republic. Let's start with Islam. When I was born, they sang the azan into my ear, and as a child I attended Quran courses, I prayed, I fasted, I listened to the azan five times a day. I believed in Allah, Allah's last prophet Muhammad, and the last holy book the Quran. I believed in the afterlife and the day of reckoning. Islam appealed to my mind, but most of all to my heart. I memorized Arabic prayers. We all filled the mosques on Fridays and on the days of holy festivals. We always made wishes in the name of Allah (inshallah, may Allah protect you etc.) and when we die, we will be buried according to Islam (in a burial robe- how different it is to cremation). A defined flow of life from birth to death. Through this we have a common history and culture with other peoples. Through this we have a common identity and fate with a Nigerian, Pakistani, Iranian, Arab, American Muslim. Through this our place in the world is defined.

On the other hand, we have the Ottoman Empire era. Turkish tribes marching through Asia to arrive at Anatolia. Then come the chiefdoms, then the birth of the Ottoman Empire in Söğüt and Bilecik, that would become a vast empire stretching from Europe to the Middle East, and Africa. The Ottoman Empire, with its ideal to bring peace, law and order was a vast imperial country (I don't use the word imperial with any negative connotations here, on the contrary I use it in the meaning of the universality). A political system that was able to gather different people under one roof. The sultans were viewed as the shadow of ultimate justice on the world and as the caliphate of the prophet (I want to draw attention to the symbolism here, how successful they were of this is debatable) of which the whole social order revolved around, brought a very different culture. In our modern conception of the nation state, the world is perceived in a fragmented state; whereas in imperial cultures there is a claim for the whole world. The Roman Empire was such a state. Europe, after the Enlightenment period, has such an imperial worldview. The Ottomans had such a culture too. The Suleymaniye Mosque, in all its splendor, reflects this sense of universality. Ottomanism, first and foremost, gave my soul a global perspective of taking action towards the world, to now view myself as not being a part of the rest of the world, to strive to abolish injustices, and preserve law and order. Reading encyclopedia entries about Ottoman rulers, learning about Ottoman history in history classes in the school, witnessing Ottoman artifacts on every corner of Istanbul (palaces, mosques, taps, shrines etc.) deeply affected my soul. It was one of the things that made me, me. I think having the same name "Fatih" as the conqueror of Istanbul had a big impact, too. On the other hand, was all the blood and fratricide and wars worth it? (When Mehmed III had come to the throne, 19 coffins all of which belonged to his brothers, had left the palace) I would say no. Look at what happens when holy ideals are at the hands of humans! It must be the irony of fate, that those who are the holders of holy ideals (or maybe noble lies) are the ones that shed blood the most... The world was a dangerous place...

## "And when it is said to them, "Do not cause corruption on the earth," they say, "We are but reformers."

Then came the Republican period. After decades of war (Turco-Italian War, Balkan Wars, First World War and the Turkish War of Independence) the Ottoman Empire had little, if nothing to say to the world, and with Ataturk came about a new country. The nation did not have the luxury to lose anymore. The main difference between this state, and the previous one, was that it was not imperial. It was based on a nation and had no claims to the world, but it had only claimed on its internal affairs and mainly Turks. Those times of glory and power were nothing but distant memories. Another difference was that religion (not religion in terms of individual belief) didn't play a global, political or societal ideal, and it was replaced with concepts from the Enlightenment period like republicanism, citizenship etc. One of the main characteristics of the new state was, that it paid a lot of importance to rationality and science and dreamed of taking its place alongside contemporary civilizations of its time. The Sultanate and caliphate were abolished and were replaced by the Republic and Parliament. A new education system was implemented on the basis of science and rationality instead of one that was based on religion. Although I don't think these two concepts inherently contradict each other, these two states and its institutions were different. Therefore, one of the important elements that shaped who I was to become, the education system, was a product of the Republic. Ataturk's struggle and his life; physics, chemistry, biology, history of Turkish revolution, citizenship classes; the exams I took, the schools I attended were all a product of the Republic and deeply molded the rational side of my soul. The Republic is first and foremost about rationalism and science. It is about equal citizenship. This was an element that connected me to the world. Thanks to going through this education system, I was able to integrate into a world where I wrote articles for scientific journals, or I was do presentations at international conferences. On the other hand, was excluding religion for the sake of rationalism only to create a cultural schizophrenia that deeply shook the fabric of our society worth it? I'd say no. Sudden transitions are always traumatic. Too much of everything isn't good for you!

These all affected my personality, and made me who I am today. This is the historical background to what being a Turk means to me. In addition to this, I believe that being a Turk means to be involved with the societal, and not the individual. I believe this is one of the most distinctive elements between us and the British. If we go to a restaurant one of us tries to pay the whole check, but if we split the check among us, we call it "going Dutch", it suddenly becomes external to us. That's why we have political rows, too. The "this is ours, this is yours" tribal mentality (I don't use it in a negative way, "tribal" first and foremost means group solidarity) causes us to fight. Individualism isn't really a thing in our country. Being a Turk means to love kebab, to always look for a kebab place abroad. Being a Turk means to listen to other Turks and take it to heart. It's a mixture of a little saz, and a touch of clarinet. Being a Turk is about the endless steppes of Anatolia, the deep blue seas of the Aegean and Mediterranean, the delicious food of the Southeast, the glorious mountains of the east, and the hospitality of Thrace. Being a Turk is about the vicious waves of the Black Sea, and its noble and humorous people. Being a Turk also means to admire power, to immediately line up in front of it. It's also about practical thinking, rather than critical and theoretical thinking. It's about taking of the short-term, rather than think about the long-term. It's about taking action immediately rather than planning and strategizing. We don't like to obey the rules, and even take pride in not doing so (I believe this comes from our nomadic background, that's why we don't like boundaries). We take pride in laddishness instead of politeness. Being a Turk is about drinking tea and coffee all day and chatting about nothing. It's about the word, rather than the writing (beautiful words have always surpassed beautiful writing, and I believe this has a lot to do without oral tradition).

This is my take on what it means to be a Turk. Everyone probably has their own take, but this is mine. To conclude;

"O mankind, indeed, we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted."

Istanbul

Istanbul. Where I was born, where I grew up, where I fell in love, where I was loved, where I went to school, started a job, the place whose streets I wandered, in its crowded buses, I bustled about. I have a love and hate relationship with Istanbul. I sometimes loved the city to death, and sometimes hated it, and sometimes I just wanted to run away from it. I could never get far though, it would pull me back in. Istanbul, a city that was the capital of Rome, Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire; the city that gave birth to many civilizations, and also where many civilizations are buried. A place where its streets are paved with gold, where people come with great dreams, and where many of these dreams are crushed.

I would love to walk down its old narrow streets, and suddenly be greeted with the view of the Bosphorus. I loved the atmosphere of the place, the city that never slept. I loved to wander about, all by myself, down the quiet and desolate streets of Eminonu, Fatih, Vefa, Hisarüstü and Kandilli, whose streets looked as though they were thousands of years old. I loved to walk down the spiral path from Bogazici University to Bebek, the coastal parks of Fenerbahçe and Kalamış, the fishermen's market in Kadıköy, the coast that ranged from Emirgan to Sarıyer; to eat fish at Şile and Ağva; the fish soup at the municipal restaurants; the teas I rank in the cafés behind Suleymaniye and Haliç that overlooked the Bosphorus; to eat fried mussels, or to walk from Tünel to Galatasaray High-School. Bogazici University's Bebek campus, Istanbul Technical University's Maçka campus, and Yıldız Technical University's Beşiktaş campus were the only areas that could preserve its nature and not succumb to the concretion of Istanbul. They were the only areas you could breathe. Gardens were important, since even though our earthly gardens are faded in comparison, they reminded us of the Garden. I would feel more at home when I walked in these gardens, and not like I was in exile.

That was one of the reasons why I hated Istanbul, it was turning into a soulless city full of concrete buildings. Because it was full of people rushing left and right, without even so much as glancing at each other or even saying hello, it was total chaos. Because the buses were packed, the metros full to the brim, it not only crushed my body but also my soul. Because of its never-ending traffic, that would drag along inch by inch as though it would never end. Because people consumed each other to stay alive, and love and respect were last on their list of priorities. Because people forgot the meaning of loving their neighbors, and friendships were only temporary. Because Istanbul left me longing for the greenness of nature, because it hid the sky from us.

Whereas Istanbul didn't have to be this way, it could have been a place where people could ride their bikes to work without worrying about cars, where you didn't have to be a billionaire to buy a house with garden, where people knew each other on the streets, where they asked after each other, where buildings weren't gray and gloomy and shut out the view of the sky, where people mingled in its squares, where people weren't packed like sardines on its buses or subways, where cars didn't invade the sidewalks, where you could chat with your neighbors sitting in your garden sipping tea, where death wasn't a looming presence but a reminder of a peaceful eternal slumber until the day of resurrection through tastefully built graveyards, a place where people didn't use their wits to rip each other off, but to help each other, a city that was green and colorful. I know it's almost impossible (I say almost impossible) but still, let's dream big.

Business Life and Career

## "And it is He who has made the night for you as clothing and sleep [a means for] rest and has made the day a resurrection."

Why do we work? Yes, it's a simple question yet an important one. After we finish with school, we spend most of our lives at where we work. We wake up early, hit the road, hustle and bustle all day, and do the same over and over again. If your answer is "to earn a living", well then that means this: Spending your entire life to earn money to be able to get by would be madness since that would mean that life is only the sum of weekends (those who don't have to work weekends anyway), 15-20 days of leave, and a few years of retirement (which is spent dealing with old age and illnesses). I could never understand how people looked forward to taking yearly leave, or how middle-aged people would wait for retirement to live their "personal" lives.

Getting a job; earning money and spending it, earning more money and spending it again...Let's all be sorry for these people together. Let's all be sad for people who view their jobs as attaining a meaningless status and position. And let's all weep for those who view business life as ripping people off. First of all, working gives a person the opportunity to know themselves better, to find out who they are and explore themselves. It gives the individual the chance to realize their mission and ideals in life. No matter what the person's job is, if they do it consciously of making the world a better place to live in, they are an honorable and noble person. The academic who doesn't strive to publish as many articles as possible and to exalt their position in the academic hierarchy, but strives to learn, understand, contemplate and uses their God-given mind is of a noble and honorable personage. Entrepreneurs who strive to not only maximize their own profits, (not just write about it as though it's their company's mission, but to actually mean it) but to also contribute to the world, are of noble and honorable character. The politician who not only tries to gain his own voter's favor through power, but strives to ensure justice, peace and goodness (even if it means to lose an election) is of a noble and honorable personage. The civil servant who not only think about their monthly salary every 15th of each month but works to make their country a better and dignified place, is of a noble and honorable personage. The white collared worker, that doesn't only think about getting a minimal raise and climbing the corporate ladder but strives to do a good job and make the world a better place is noble and honorable.

People form an identity through their professions. One of my biggest worries after university was turning into one of those white collared "suits". They reeked of self-importance in their fussy two-piece suits and would mindlessly identify with their corporate employers. Their jobs were actually just masking they would wear, their only goal was to show the world their status. At the end of the day, it wasn't what they had accomplished individually, but what the company they worked for accomplished. What does it matter if you're the head of so and so department in so and so company if you've already lost your own identity? I wasn't viewed as being me as an individual, but as a human "resource" that contributed to the company's goals. Workers of "corporate" companies aren't the end-goal, but as a tool as means to an end. That's why I didn't want to spend my life as being part of the plans for other people, but to be free to be able to write my own story and do what I wanted. I lost this feeling I had in the first few years of working at IETT, and found myself looking elsewhere. Should I become an academician at a university? On the one hand I would be freer, but then again, I would have to deal with deans, rectors, the endless exams of students and administrative duties. I just wanted to answer to myself, and nobody else. What if I started my own company? I always dreamed of doing freelance consultancy work. I was continuing work combining transportation and management consultancy. I viewed the five months I was to spend in London as a transitory period for a new beginning. My most important goals were: to be myself, to not be someone else's tool, to not be viewed as a human "resource", to write my own story, to draw my own path, to leave something good for this world, to use my God-given mind and do it justice, to make the world a better place, to plant a seed of goodness, and to be able to get by while doing all of this. I wonder, am I asking for too much? Anyway, let's dream big.

Life and the Big Void

That moment never comes. You wait, you try to constantly succeed, to achieve something. You always try and complete something that's missing in your life. And there's always something missing. You get into the school you want, or get into that dream university but the thrill and happiness you feel only lasts a few days. Why? Well, you get used to it. You decide to get better grades or get a better job and you end up doing exactly that. It doesn't take long, you get used to that too. In my first year of university the only thing I wanted to do was pass my prep year of English that June. And I did do it. I had passed with an A, as a beginner student, which had never been done before. Thet day I found out I had passed, I was ecstatic! The next day, life had returned to normal and there wasn't a trace of that excitement left. After that exam came other exams that needed to be passed, I wanted to pass so that's what I did. It's so paradoxical, the sense of emptiness that comes after the joy of succeeding. When I was in the army doing my military service, I couldn't wait until it was over. The day I got to leave was the happiest day of my life. But the next day, the next week, everything returned to normal. It was as though it had never happened, it felt like a distant memory.

Goals followed goals. Man is always in search of something; when he is born, he reaches for his mother's breast instinctively, and this instinct of reaching for something continues throughout his life. It never ends, only the thing he reaches for changes. He strives, he achieves, then gets bored, then wants again, this time something else. As a child, he only thinks of riding the merry-go-round, but it doesn't take until evening till he forgets that sense of joy. Then he wants to get a good job, with a good pay so he can rise to the top quickly. As he climbs the corporate ladder, he slowly realizes that the ladder goes up and up and up... it never ends. There's always a higher position to attain. If he becomes the manager of a company, he wishes to manage a larger company. He buys a new house, then he thinks he'd like a garden. A newer model of his current car comes out, things constantly change. Everything gets old, that joy we feel when we buy something new is always replaced with dissatisfaction and a search for new things. Nothing is perfect, and it's as though this was done on purpose. The thousand-year-old rose-thorn analogy is so true. Maybe that's why it's a cliché, because it's so true. That thorn wasn't placed there by accident, it was done on purpose. How beautiful she is, yet how shallow too. The man, so handsome, so successful, yet cannot commit. He undependable, you can never know if he's going to cheat or not.

You could spend the world on buying an expensive flat, but somebody could still break into it. You could save all you want, if the economy takes a nose dive and the banks go bust, you could lose it all. Some oaf, speeding down the street could hit your unsuspecting child on his way to school. Everything could be going well, but you might suddenly lose someone. There's a story about a murder every day on the news. Bombs go off, either in a neighboring country, or in your own. Death reminds itself on every corner. Everything might be perfect but death whispers in your ear "I'm still here, have you forgotten?". You work, and you achieve, and you finally retire. You can now travel the world, or plant that flower you have always wanted in your garden. But then you get sick, your old cells aren't what they used to be. There are so many diseases these days, it would be a wonder to not get sick at that age. Maybe one of your children goes bankrupt or owes someone a lot of money. Then you try and save your child.

No matter where you live, life is the same. People talk about progress, a new era, an enlightened future, but that day never comes, it hasn't come for centuries. Politicians are too busy filling up their own pockets, and as an idealist this breaks your heart. The opposite could be true too, the country could be doing well, but this time your pockets are empty. You hustle and bustle for years and end up being in power. But this time you find yourself in endless games. Every country in the world tries to undermine each other. Wars break out suddenly, people are left homeless, they have to immigrate to other countries. You read about children losing limbs, dying under rubble and you feel horrible. You can't do anything, so you feel even worse. But you continue living. Established systems fall, some win and some lose. Sometimes the winners suddenly become the losers. You can never be sure of anything. Everything is on shaky ground. You just want to shut out the world, but that doesn't last long either. You end up running to your friends, your work, and your daily life. Your work has piled up again, there's so much to do. You finish something, and then you start something else. The race never ends. Everything is urgent, you spend days on gathering up documents, but something is always missing. The person that owes you money fails to pay you back again. It's just one of those days again. You apply for jobs, they don't call you back from months, or work would be going well and suddenly your manager changes and the new one just won't get off your case.

The endless wanting-satisfying-forgetting-wanting again-satisfied again-forgetting again cycle is so tiresome you just want it to end. You want that final end. You want to feel comfortable, and you do end up being comfortable until something else comes up. You're used to struggling, but things that seem impossible to overcome present themselves. You give up, but that doesn't last long either. Once you gather your strength you start to fight again. This cycle continues until your last moment on earth. Nobody can escape this cycle. Those who do claim to have escaped it, don't last long in their "nirvana". They return back to earth and its endless troubles.

The Creator created man with such a void that the whole world couldn't fill it. That void is ever present, it cannot be filled. It might feel like it's filled, but that's a mere illusion... a mirage if you may. Just like the rose and the thorn, everything seems pretty in this world. You'd like to grab the rose, and smell it but the thorns stick into you, and you can't enjoy it anymore because your hand hurts. You try to gently hold the rose, but this time you're so worried about the thorns that you cannot enjoy the rose. It looks so beautiful, it smells so nice, that you think this time you've got it, but then your hand starts to bleed again. You become disappointed, and you cry. But then you accept this cycle, as though it is a part of your destiny. You start to feel sad. What you dreamed of and what it really is... you can feel this contrast in your bones.

Now, the author could stop with the metaphors and leave the interpretation up to the reader here. But he decides not to, he excitedly wants to share this thing he has discovered. There are so many impertinent writers, aren't there? They do nothing but regurgitate the same clichés over and over again. But this story has never changed, ever since man has set foot on earth this story has been experienced billions of time and will still continue to be experienced until the Last Day. Only the main characters of the story changes. Analogies don't change too, the rose-thorn metaphor still holds truth because the Creator has done this on purpose. The Creator placed thorns on the rose to show mankind the meaning and meaninglessness of the world. So that man can find meaning in the meaninglessness of it all. The Creator wants man to remember that he was kicked out of the garden for eating the forbidden fruit. The path to the heart of the rose is adorned with thorns in this world. Pain was embedded in the beautiful, Hell (separation) was added to Heaven (unity) so that man experiences both in this mortal coil.

## "Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children - like the example of a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries, and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes [scattered] debris. And in the Hereafter is severe punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval. And what is the worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion."

Reading and Beyond the Mirror

## "Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe,"

According to my mother I started to read when I was four years old. I would ask her to spell out the words on her clothes, or a stop sign, or newspaper headlines. I would constantly pester her and ask "what does it say here? And what does it say there?" and she would answer me patiently. She would spell the words out for me. Then I just started to read when I was five. There hasn't been a single day I haven't read since then. When I look back, I see that my ever-increasing passion to read was closely linked to my need to understand the meaning of the world. Curiosity... What the people who wrote that meant to say? What were they saying about the world? I'd go mad if I couldn't find out. Why, why, why? I searched for meaning in words, and not visual things. Those letters, words, sentences contained a completely different world. It seemed like visual things reflected the world in a superficial way. Maybe that's why I never had a talent of drawing, my mum would always help me do my art homework at school. But when it came to writing compositions, nobody was better than me. I'd always enjoyed books more than films.

The more I read, the more curios I got. The more curios I got, the more I read. I started reading fairy-tales and children's stories, and in high-school I started to read the classics and novels. Towards the end of high-school and the beginning of university I constantly read poems. I was a romantic those years. Towards the end of university my rational and logical side overpowered my poetic side. I mainly read philosophy, religious and historical books then. Including the fairy-tales I read in primary school, the main driving force behind reading was the constant search for meaning. Even though I couldn't comprehend that fairy-tales contained the most meaning, I felt like they did. The flow of events was almost the same in most fairy-tales: at the beginning everything is in a state of unity and completion. Then something bad happens, and that unity scatters. The protagonist of the story embarks on many adventures, overcomes many obstacles, goes through amazing experiences and journey, and in the end, everything is solved, and balance and unity is restored once again (for example, saving a princess) and the scattered unity of time is whole again (like three apples falling from the sky, and happily living ever after). The protagonist becomes someone else at the end of the journey. Everything is more mature and established. The journey and hero pattern reflected what we go through this world and our place in it, in a basic framework. Every story has an introduction, build-up and conclusion. So, the world and life should be the same. Therefore, a fairy-tale is not simply just a tale. That's why I read everything with so much curiosity, I wanted to know the story of every hero. Why? Because the story I read wasn't about something external to me, it was my own, personal journey.

Leaving behind fairy-tales and starting to read novels felt like shedding a shell of innocence and integrating myself more to the world. But the same pattern applied, just the heroes and events had changed. Instead of reading about a prince of some foreign land fighting giants, I was reading about the story of a teacher during Turkish War of Independence, or some spendthrift's love of cars in the last era of Ottomans, or a story about revolutionary France and the miserable lives of the people of that time. Although I wasn't aware of it at the time, what pushed me to read so much at the time was my thirst to find out what the true story about mankind's existence on earth was about. All stories were the same, in the beginning there's unity and completion, then decadence and destruction, the journey the hero embarks followed by a resolution. After that came eternal time. That was the whole meaning of it all. I was reading the same story in different forms. I became interested in poetry because it made me feel the ambiguous hidden and magical dimensions of the world. Later on, I sought this depth not in poetry but the harsh and serious world of philosophy, religion and history.

When I read the history of all religions, what I was seeking was the Grand Meaning. What was at question was basically the same thing in different forms. The message of the last Prophet Muhammad, that preached submission only to Allah, and to not attribute a partner to Allah, and to do good was the same as Jesus preaching to love God with all your heart and soul, and to love they neighbor. The first five of the Ten Commandments of Moses were about not worshiping false idols, to only submit to God, while the rest were about morality (thou shalt not kill etc.). The message was essentially the same. The only thing that was different was the presentation of the message due to different historical eras. This truth that existed out there, it felt as though it was waiting for me to discover it. The Big and Constant Truth had manifested in thousands of ways and put signs around the universe. And in everything written too. All things written pointed at the Grand and Eternal Truth. Only the form changed, the essence was the same. Writing was a sign, to those who really knew how to read. Those who weren't stuck in their shells but went down to their cores. To those who truly wanted to discover the hidden treasure.

That is why I shall continue to read until the end of my life. I will continue to read about people in newspapers, the magnificence of reason in scientific articles and philosophy books, the never changing stories of novels and tales, the Grand and Eternal Truth and the Hidden Meaning in the Quran and other holy books. Because the stars, mountains, the sky and all living things pointed at this in a faded way, but writing and the meaning contained in it, pointed at tis in an enlightening way. I wasn't searching for the reflection of my image in the mirror, I am searching beyond the mirror.

Because what I read was no other than my own soul, self and essence.

" _Read: In the name of your Lord Who created  
Created man from a clot  
Read: And your Lord is most Generous  
Who has taught by the Pen  
Has taught man that which he knew not."_

Friendship

" _Those who have a good friend need not a mirror."_

One of the best things a person can have are good friends. Friends you can talk about anything with, like-minded friends you can discuss things for hours on end, with passion, and without fearing of offending the other; friends you can pour your heart out to; friends you can get along with despite your differences; friends you can listen to for hours. Although I've had many friends, I've had only one friend that I've been able to do all of the above with. And I feel very luck for it.

I met Mehmet for the first time through a mutual friend, in an old café in Atpazarı, Fatih district. I'll never forget our first discussion, a philosophical and theological discussion regarding whether or not the Quran was created or not. Even though he was teaching religion at high-school, he studied philosophy for years, and was a very open-minded person, and a good conversationalist as well. Our mutual friend Savaş didn't like these deep conversations very much but would try and lighten the mood by joking about. We would meet up with Savaş if we wanted to have a good time laughing about, but if we were to talk about deep subjects it would just be the two of us. I'd meet him after work at a café in Fatih, Taksim, Cihangir or Karaköy, and we'd talk for hours. At the beginning we began our discussions on an English book or article, to help him improve his English, but then we'd end up talking about everything from everyday politics, to the existence of Allah, work problems, relationships, the deepest subjects of philosophy, a news article, Kafka's works, how to increase the profit margin of his brother's mobile phone shop etc.

My favorite side of Mehmet was that he would listen to my philosophical, sociological and religious views for hours. Better yet, even though he didn't agree on certain points, he would understand where I was coming from. That's something I have never been able to find in someone else. Others wouldn't understand where I was coming from if they didn't agree with me. Mehmet had devoted himself to philosophy after years of religious education. In terms of philosophy he had adopted a Hegelian rationalism. Rather, he tried to understand and adopt this philosophy. Mehmet advocated that you could attain metaphysical knowledge through dialectical mind/logic/cerebral abstraction. That's probably our biggest difference. I, on the other hand, believed that intuitive/internal knowledge through revelation was more important than the reason in attaining true knowledge. I didn't exclude reason, but I tried to prove the point that reason is insufficient when it came to metaphysical matters. I don't think I could talk a subject that is so important to me, with anyone else. I don't think there is anyone else who could understand and interpret the examples I gave from the Quran, or my religious and metaphysical ideas, the way Mehmet does while still being able to make fun of each other.

I felt like we were the modern versions of Ibn Rush and Ibn Arabi who would discuss metaphysical issues symbolically in Cordoba, thousands of years ago. Mehmet, like Ibn Rush, would advocate that reason (reason here should be considered as deductive, rational/logical) was the only way to attain knowledge. Al-Ghazali is famous for his rebuttal "The Incoherence of Incoherence" in his book "The Incoherence of Philosophers". While Ibn Rush interpreted revelation through reason, Ibn Arabi interpreted reason through revelation. Ibn Rush would search for through solely through logic, whereas Ibn Arabi was more concerned with completing a poetic and mystical inner journey. His famous books The Meccan Illuminations (Al-Futüḥat al-Makkiyya- my name shares the same root) and The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus-al Hikam) strive to attain knowledge and truth through direct intuitive disovery. Despite this, Mehmet's main difference to Ibn Rush, was that he based his dialects on reason. Each thing that existed, in it manifested its opposite (the thing it wasn't). So, good was actually bad, and the holy wasn't actually holy, or it wasn't it. To me, this was unfathomable, but of course he wouldn't approach it that simplistically. He would try to prove this through a Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic. I, on the other hand, was different from Ibn Arabi in that I found his idea of Wahdat al-Wujud (Unity of Existence) extreme, and almost pantheistic. But the balance he formed between Tashbih (to declare something similar to something else) and Tanzih (declaring incomparability) was important. Another thing Mehmet and I couldn't agree on was that he rejected the idea that time had a beginning. I, on the other hand, did believe that time was created and had a beginning. Mehmet believed in the rational God of philosophers, whereas I believed in the Allah of holy books and prophets. We talked about this for hours in the streets of Stockholm and Riga.

So, such friendships do exist in the world. Do you now believe why I couldn't have another friend like this, who has devoted himself to these topics and could about them with me for weeks, even months? I would call it one of Allah's favors, but he would probably try to explain it in a dialectical manner. In a nutshell, Mehmet has been a very important part of my life as a good friend. I couldn't have not mentioned him in this story of self-discovery.

" _You cannot find without first searching; but this friend is different; for without finding him you cannot search."_

Anatolian Painters and Chinese Painters

" _Those who wish to see their face look in the mirror; Those who wish to see their essence look into the soul."_

In the Masnavi of Mewlana Celaleddin Rumi, a story of Anatolian and Chinese painters is told. The story is simple, but it contains the Big Truth in it. An emperor who wants to decorate the walls of his palace's hall makes a deal with Chinese and Anatolian painters. The hall is split in two with a curtain, dividing the Chinese painters from the Anatolian painters. The Chinese painters constantly ask for the paint, and they do an amazing job by painting intricate things. The Anatolian painters constantly clean and polish their wall. When their time is up, the emperor looks at the Chinese painters' work and is amazed. They truly do a wonderful job, with intricate designs etc. When it comes to the Anatolian painters' turn, the view is simply amazing. The painting across from the wall is reflected from the now very polished wall, in a more beautiful and vibrant way. So, the emperor gives the award to the Anatolian painters.

Rumi doesn't only tell the story but gives us the moral behind it too: "Having no colors at all is better than painting a wall in two hundred colors. Perhaps the Anatolian painters do not have lessons to study or books to read; but their souls are properly polished and purified of want, greed, meanness and malice. Those whose souls are polished, can see divine beauty easily." We could stop with the moral aspect of the story here, but I want to add some different interpretations just to make my own little contribution to the grand literature.

The main story of the world for the last three hundred years; first the West's then the rest of the world's adaptation to technology and the culture it brought, and then the transformation of the old traditional world. Countries, even people are measured according to how integrated they are to technology and with it political, economic and social standards. According to this logic, the best country is the one that produces and consumes the most. The best kind of science is one that contributes to technology the most. The person who drives a car is more advanced than the person who rides a horse. Urban people living in multiplex residences in gated communities are more "advanced" than nomadic people living in their tents. A person working for an international company on the top floor of some skyscraper in London has a more enviable, important and valuable life than somebody working as a farmer in the vast tundra of Mongolia. Why? Because they are "advanced". Those people are the Chinese painters; the ones who shape the world through technology and modern life. They're the ones that are too focused on the superficial. The Anatolian painters on the other hand, are the ones seeking a good, authentic and worthwhile life, they are the ones who are after depth. Maybe they don't have the technological gadgets that change the world, but at least they haven't turned the world into a dump. The feeling of truly belonging somewhere, their roots, their relationships with their neighbors and family are more important than a luxury apartment, or minimalist nuclear families. Their traditional life that revolves around places of worship hasn't been replaced by large streets of shopping malls. The number of Chinese painters is increasing faster than ever. The world will pay for this, it actually has already. England, which once was the empire on which the sun never set, which is at the heart of modernism, capitalism and technology, has appointed a Minister for Loneliness. There's a story with a moral right there.

Here's another example: The model human being, the one worth being, the accomplished one, is defined in terms of that person's profession. So, to answer the question of "who are you?" we answer with the place we work at, and our position there. Our duty, in fact. Even the chain of duties you've gad so far. A life story that could be summed up in a CV. I graduated from so and so, started in the position so and so, had so and so duties at so and so company, was successful in so and so, is talented in so and so, he even has hobbies, he's into photography, enjoys diving, even parachute jumping. He was a part of so and so project, even ran a few himself. We could apply this to academic careers, political careers, to different more personal careers, too. A professional personality. The ideals of schools and universities is to mold you into this type of personality. According to this mindset, it's more important, more worthwhile to be a sales specialist in some big company in Maslak, than to be a shopkeeper or a farmer. The modern version of the Chinese painters are people who only live for their "personal careers". They are only as much as their CVs. They are doomed to carry their CVs as masks for the rest of their lives. Anatolian painters, on the other hand, seek to truly be themselves, to find themselves, to be authentic and hold these above all else. Chinese painters run from one project to another, from one position to another, from one title to another, and paint the walls of their souls with these paintings. Anatolian painters try to clean their souls and get to know themselves.

Yes, the paintings of the Chinese painters were good. But compared to the Anatolian painters, their paintings were faded, and superficial.

## "Do they not contemplate within themselves?"

History

" _History is a nightmare, from which I am trying to wake up."_

Events, events, events. An infinite number of people, and infinite number of events, and an infinite number of stories. When I look at the totality of history, I feel like I'm looking down from a sky scraper and it makes me feel dizzy. Every even opens up to another one. Every time I think about the chain of events that have happened outside of my presence makes me feel very small and lost. I sometimes can't help but think, that those events existed for me to interpret, and do not exist in and of themselves; and it wouldn't matter even if they did, it wouldn't matter. It feels as though the only true and important story is my own story. Everybody's story is actually a part of the Big Story; but there are so many differences that I feel like I'm drowning when I try and piece them together. When I'm interpreting history, I need a point of view, or a perspective. I mean, why is there a past? Why is there the future? What is my place in these eternal events?

If history were only to be a cluster of random events, that lacked unity, or didn't point to some higher story, was done and finished, that lacked buoyancy, a random chain of events; that would be truly horrible. History would be nothing other than the events and the graveyard of man's past. To even think about it is horrifying. But to truly think, to truly think about the time that has passed since man has first set foot on earth, the chain of events that have happened, all those people that have lived. If you're thinking that the effect this has still continues today, you're trying to understand it in terms of now and our own selves and you aren't really thinking in terms of what I said. You're attributing a higher frame to it. Try to view the past and all that has been lived through as something "that has happened". Think about the endless empires that were built and destroyed, tribes living in deserts; imagine the historic loneliness of a nomad galloping through Asia on horseback. Think about all of this not existing anymore, what once was living breathing flesh, now isn't even ash. Think about a Serbian infantryman dying in the Crusade of Nicopolis, or a Turk. Don't try to attribute meaning to the events. Just see it as an event; and try to chain them together. It's impossible to do this without drowning in a sense of eternity.

The fact that we can't do this point to an important truth. We have two options here: History is a meaningful whole, or it is merely a cluster of meaninglessness. There is no "in between", the difference is extremely clear. The latter is unfathomable. If we were to approach this through proof-by-contradiction, we find ourselves at the former: History is a meaningful whole. Whenever we are evaluating a person or event in the past, it would be madness to do so without linking it to ourselves or the present. We would constantly try to link it to some higher meaning. We would link it to other things. The Crusade of Nicopolis happened because the Turks wanted to march through Europe. We immediately think about the Ottoman Empire and place this crusade in a chain of events. It doesn't necessarily have to be chronological, we do this simply to understand the meaning and importance of the subject. Just like the meaning and importance of the day, people have meaning and importance in their minds as well. We cannot think about anything without attributing meaning and importance to it; we can't view something as purely an event. An "objective" history, devoid of values and interpretation is impossible.

So, if we think about history as a meaningful whole, why does the Big Story exist in it? It exists because of the same reasons Time exists. Then why does Time exist? Because we "fell" from Timelessness into Time. Why did we fall from Timelessness into Time? I don't know. This is beyond the comprehension of humans, because man thinks in temporal terms. There is only "before" and "after for man, we cannot fathom a situation that has no past or future. That's why allegories exist: There's the fruit that man ate in the Garden, there's the snake, the Devil. I mean, something happened, but we cannot express what that thing was. I'm not going to even bother to talk about the "evolutionary" explanations put forth to explain man and Time. The story of mankind is metaphysical. That is, it is beyond the physical, it is beyond time and space. That's why history is meaningful. To discover this Higher Meaning, we need a higher framework, a perspective, in short, we need a higher story. A story of which all stories open to, a Main Story.

When I visited the British Museum in London I saw the artifacts of all man (Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, Sumerians, Assyrians, Ninovids, Urartians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Ancient Chinese and Japanese civilizations, Aztecites, Ingushes, Anglo-Saxons, Mongols, Sassanids, Umayyads, Persians, Mamluks, Aq Qoyunlus, the Ottomans, the Fatimids, and many other nations, tribes, human beings who do not even have a name) and I started to feel dizzy. All of it must have a meaning. This meaning must contain all of this. It must contain humans, peoples, events, wars, states, defeats, death, life, the immortality and mortality of man, heroism and wretchedness.

History is a period of time which presents the war between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, good and evil. History is a continuous whole. History is the story of us beyond the Garden, our story and adventure on earth. History is a lesson to those who know how to look, see, read the signs, decipher the crypt. It's a warning, it's proof. History is ascension and collapse. It's the manifestation of the Divine Laws. Otherwise there is no history, there is only a cluster of events. Therefore, history exists, and it is our mirror. We see ourselves in it. Our own self, and our fallen souls.

" _Have they not traveled through the earth and observed how was the end of those before them? They were greater than them in power, and they plowed the earth and built it up more than they have built it up, and their messengers came to them with clear evidences. And Allah would not ever have wronged them, but they were wronging themselves."_

Politics

## "Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant."

Yes, we took on this task. We can't remember when and where this offer was made, but we accepted it. We couldn't really work out what was going to happen to us. We couldn't know, and thus the darkness in us was exposed. This darkness showed itself many times since Cain murdered Abel. Countless murders, countless wars, the blood that has spilled, the oppression that was formed, and the endless persecution of man has exposed this darkness over and over again. All of these deeds had an explanation of course, when asked they'd answer by starting with "but", there was always a "but". In this lowly place called earth, man's darkness was reflected upon it like a mirror. The fact that history is not defined by important pacts of peace, but rather through massive wars is testament enough to the dark side of man. Man first marginalized each other, then made enemies of the "other" and the tried to strangle the "other" and proved this verse in the Quran: "But Satan caused them to slip out of it and removed them from that [condition] in which they had been. And We said, "Go down, [all of you], as enemies to one another, and you will have upon the earth a place of settlement and provision for a time."

Because the mission/task/trust imposed on man was too heavy for him. It was too difficult for man to always do the right thing, under every condition without succumbing to public pressure. It seemed safer to man to drown out his own voice among the chants of angry crowds calling for war and destruction. The fact that, despite murders caused by individual reasons, there have been wars where man has killed each other en masse, shows us clearly how irrational a place the world is. People simply couldn't trust each other. Man, who fell from Heaven, firstly lost his trust in his fellows. He had to protect himself. Sticks and stones came about, then man made swords and armor. That wasn't enough. He then developed the rifle, then the F-16 and the atomic bomb. The more secure he felt, the more insecurity he condemned himself to. When man was free to roam in total security in the Garden, he feels into the thorn bush of our world and found himself surrounded by enemies. There were thieves, so man had to develop the lock. Other tribes could attack, so man had to make castles with tall walls. Other countries could attack, so man formed border patrols and surrounded his country with observation towers. Man didn't actually fear man, he feared the darkness he projected on his fellow men and protected himself from himself. Alienation, enmity, were all but man's flight from his own darkness.

Man's position in terms of other men was actually his position according to himself. The mission and task imposed on man was to overcome this. Man could only realize his essence only by how much of the peace and tranquility of the Garden he could carry into the world. That's why states existed. Administration systems were founded with the principle of realizing this. Judicial systems, laws and rules were developed for this, so that we could live together. People rallied together in large parliaments, in local councils, neighborhood units, in village squares for this. The main goal was to form a world where we could live as brothers and sisters, righteously, like we did in the Garden. That's what made man, "man". He had to establish order on earth, to be himself, to live more securely with other people, to show the goodness in him and erase the darkness inside him, to see his "self" and to see his "self" in others. To be rid of alienation, because other people were not "others", but parts of his self.

Let's give a simple example of an individual that is alienated and one that isn't. An alienated person, when he spends money for whatever reason, firstly think about how his money has decreased or "his own interest". When to go shopping he constantly think "how much money do I have? I wonder how much this is, and how much that is, I wonder if I should buy two of them? No, no one should be enough. OK, add, subtract and divide, how much change am I going to get? Alright, make sure it's the exact change. How much do I have left now?" But someone who doesn't feel alienated would think "How great is this? There are people in the world willing to do this that I couldn't do by myself. If I tried to bake bread by myself, how hard would that be? Thankfully there are people in this world that will help lessen the burden on my shoulders. That's why I should pay the baker the amount he deserves for helping me with things I couldn't do by myself, so he can help pay for the things he can't do by himself." Therefore, I wasn't losing anything, we were just helping each other through giving and taking; it's impossible to fulfill all our needs by ourselves. And if I needed to pay tax, to ensure that we lived in a state mechanism that helps us live together through its laws and institutions, I'd be more than happy to. I'm not paying tax to the "other", I'm actually paying it to myself. I wasn't really losing money when buying something or paying tax, I wasn't doing anything against my own interest, on the contrary were helping each other out. Life is tough, the mission we have taken upon is difficult and we needed to stand by each other.

That's why politics existed. That's why the state existed. To help us help each other, to fulfill the task we have taken upon ourselves. Elections, parliaments, political parties, flags, laws, states, presidents, civil servants, institutions, official papers, military, police, judges, countries: they all existed to help us get along with each other.

But man has made a mess of his task. His dark side prevailed, and thus the whole world alienated itself. He was left alone. People could be brothers and sisters, it was a nice idea. But the truth of the matter was different. The world was ruthless, and if you weren't ruthless then somebody else would be. The burden was too much for man, and he continued to alienate, to start wars and do evil. And so man fell further, and further away from the Garden.

Cities Worth Living in and Public Transportation

## "Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned, so he may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done that perhaps they will return [to righteousness]."

My biggest fear when I was at university was that I would spend the rest of my life dedicated to earning more money in some corporate company. I could never accept that my job, and thus my own self-worth, would be measured according to how much I earned. Getting a pay check every month and revolving my life around this always seemed like a very strange idea. What was even stranger that I never bumped into anyone that didn't think like this, or scratch that, I never bumped into people that were even looking for something different. Friends, relatives, colleagues, my lecturers, they all seemed to revolve their lives around this idea. It always seemed like I, and a few of the authors and poets I read, were the only people that thought there could be more to life than this. I always kept this idea to myself. I nurtured this idea by reading, thinking, dreaming, and believing and reading more, and thinking more. Yes, life had to have more to it than getting married, having a child, going to work and coming back home, killing time on the weekends, or lying on the beach like a dead fish during holidays. The things we call careers should play an important role in this too. If I were to live life without finding this hidden meaning, I was to look back on my life as though I had spent it for the sake of absolutely nothing. In short, it would've meant that I had completely missed the point of living.

Thanks to Allah's grace, I started work as an engineer in a public institution that I had no idea what it was about. IETT was a municipal institution, and it aimed to provide the public with public transport. At the beginning I worked there without appreciating the importance of this. The only thing that was important for me was working in a comfortable environment. As the years went by, I realized that the public sector would be the best place to cater to my idealist needs. What we did at work impacted the lives of people. The effort I put into my work didn't manifest itself as profit for my employer, but as a service to the public. The idea that I wasn't the employee of someone had made me so devoted to my work that every morning I came to the workplace it felt as though I was working for myself. This place was mine, I had gotten this job through my own efforts (through an exam) and the idea that I was helping people by putting all my effort into developing a better transportation system for a better city by using my mind made me so happy that I always thanked Allah for this. I wasn't going to be anyone's slave, and this was truly amazing for me. Nobody studying at Bogazici University ever thought about working in the public sector, nobody encouraged us to do so. Most graduates of my university either dreamed of staying at school and doing research, or like the majority of them, dreamed of starting a career in a large international firm. There was no incentive to work in the public sector in this education institution model shaped by an American style capitalism. Despite all of this, through a twist of fate, and Allah's will, I started to work in the public sector. This allowed me to idealize my work, and to attach myself to higher goals and ideals. This was much harder to do in the private sector, maybe even impossible.

My work and academic studies revolved around public transportation systems. Public transportation was important, because without it, cars would take over the whole city, there'd be much more pollution and traffic, and living in a city would become torturous. If a public transportation system didn't work properly, people would be encouraged to buy a car the first chance they get, which would lead to roads not being enough, and when new roads are opened this would encourage people to buy more cars and cause total chaos when it comes to traffic. Everything is included in public transportation: metros, trams, cable cars, ferries, sea buses, metrobuses etc. To elaborate even more: safely cycling and walking are a part of reducing the usage of cars and is related to public transportation. My job has been about making sure the system works properly. I would work on these systems at the office, and then continue studies during my master's and doctorate programs. I've done presentations in conferences and seminars on this subject, I have written articles on it and I have traveled to many cities to see the best practice around the world.

My master's thesis was on how to measure public transportation system performances and how to make them better. For my doctorate thesis I worked on the structural and institutional problems of Istanbul's public transportation system. I was able to formulate the problems caused by fragmented management structures, and the necessary amendments needed to be done in terms of law, politics and institutions regarding public transportation. I suggested a model of institutional improvement and transformation in order to exemplify other cities in the world with similar problems like Istanbul. At the end of the day, structuring a public transportation system that functioned on time meant that people would be able to travel comfortably and safely, whether rich or poor, at affordable prices, which made the city a more beautiful place to live in. I dreamed of being able to safely cycle in Istanbul, to get on the bus on time without thinking about crowds, to get off at the nearest stop to your house and walking home through green parks. A public transportation system was imperative to make it a peaceful and clean city, and I was focusing all of my efforts on attaining this. I was using my intellectual capital to make this happened and this gave my great happiness. I derived great spiritual satisfaction from my work.

I worked in the strategic and management aspects of public transportation. I tried to learn about all I could as though the design and management of the whole transportation system was up to me. So, I read about management, economy, organization theory, social sciences, city planning, engineering etc. And apply what I learned on transportation systems. On the other hand, I traveled to cities (London, Singapore, Copenhagen, Vancouver etc.) with the world's best transportation systems to see them in action and meet its managers, and also read articles to find out how to best apply this knowledge to Istanbul. Later on, I began to think I shouldn't limit myself to Istanbul, and it was necessary to open up to the whole world. At the end of the day, it felt as though all the cities and all the countries in the world felt like they were mine.

Because Allah had entrusted the world to mankind. If you looked after it, you could build a peaceful city (villages and towns included). You could live decently. Working in public transportation was a field where people could demonstrate their intellectual capabilities, intelligence and organizational talent. I wanted to advise cities and countries on how to develop good transportation systems, I wanted to research the subject, support projects, travel the world, learn and teach. It felt as though Allah had given me this mission. I was to use my mind to make this world a better and more beautiful place. If I didn't do this, perhaps corruption would appear throughout the land and sea. I was entrusted with the world, and with my own little world the most I could do was contribute to humanity through help build better public transportation systems. Thus, perhaps I could not prevent global warming by myself, but at least I could prevent the world and our environment from getting worse.

Designing cities that reflected divine beauty... Cities that reminded us of the Garden, in this temporary accommodation... Cities where one could live in peace, tranquility and decency... I could use my find and knowledge for this ideal. I could make Allah's will on earth like this. As best I could. At the end of the day, the world would be the world, it could never become the Garden but merely remind us of our separation from it. Yet still, it was important to find something here that reminded us of there, to feel, to live decently. To design our temporary accommodation that reminded us of there... That was my goal.

## "And [He created] the horses, mules and donkeys for you to ride and [as] adornment. And He creates that which you do not know."

Traveling

## "And We placed between them and the cities which We had blessed [many] visible cities. And We determined between them the [distances of] journey, [saying], "Travel between them by night or day in safety."

The world was huge. Traveling was eternal. I am on a long and narrow path. I travel day and night. I was born and raised in Istanbul but the whole world felt like my home country. I had to travel each city, each town, mountain inch by inch. I just had to see every nook and cranny. I've been on buses, passed through villages, drank my hot soup during when the bus stopped in the freezing weather (It must have been Bolu) and thought about the endless roads. And then I hit the roads again. I've seen so many goodbyes in bus stations, waving hands and teary eyes. The plane I'd embark on would tear through the sky, and I'd think to myself the world is so big yet so small. I dreamed of distant countries, the different lives there, like the stars of a distant galaxy. I became someone else while going through passport control. I got lost in countries whose language I couldn't speak, whose lands I didn't know. My self was the same, yet so different. I imagined the eternal differences of people, paths, intersecting lives and reams...

There was one journey that was the same, that was the journey of life. Ever since we descended from the Garden, we have been going left and right without stopping. We were all looking for it. When we dreamed of foreign lands, we would dream of the Happy Garden and eternity. We would search for that Heavenly Moment and Timelessness on our endless journeys. Being travel-worn was just tiredness by existing in time. We were at the end again. At the end of every journey was the beginning of another one. At the end of every summer I spent in our village in the vast plains of Anatolia was the journey back to Istanbul. And when schools opened, we'd hit the road again. Going to work every day felt like embarking the same journey over and over again. The people I'd bump into, the stretching buildings, the reemerging streets flashed by my eyes like a kaleidoscope. The colors, and shapes, their sheer number would mesmerize me. I'd get dizzy, and as the feeling of eternity course through my veins, I'd watch my life flow before me. I'd think about how fast time passed, and how true the cliché of time flowing like a roaring river was. And then another journey would start. I'd pack my bags and head towards different lives. Every kilometer took something from me but gave something back. Getting old was making way. Making way meant getting old.

The path was time flowing, and time was the path. They both flowed. I remember, soldiers would write "they can't stop time" on their bunk-beds, when I was in the army. Every pain, adventure, joy had an ending. That end would be the beginning of something else, and it would just continue on. Everything was in a state of starting and ending. The whole universe ended, was recreated and ended again at the same time. Neither a state of actual existence or actual oblivion. Time was the product of the pain of being stuck between these two states. While the paths flowed, and connected to each other, so did time. A new path would form when we met someone new. Different stories, intersecting paths. Old friends would disappear one by one, and our memory would keep up with this. Then other people would appear around us. Other faces became familiar faces. We would share lives, go on the same journeys, on snowy, wet, dry roads. Then we would wave at each other. Sometimes it was death that parted us, sometimes it was moving houses or school ending, or changing jobs or train ride. Faces would change, the years with flow with the paths, we would cry because of new endings, but greet new beginnings.

As the seasons passed from summer to autumn, from winter to spring, we danced through this eternal cycle. As the moon orbited around the earth, the earth around the sun, the sun around the galaxy, we'd go dizzy with the vastness of it all, but adapt somehow. We were only babies yesterday, but now roamed the earth inch by inch, which was a miracle. I saw the eternity of creation while I was traveling in a train through the snowy mountains of Kars. I thought about how fairy-tale like, how miraculous life was. And I imagined the Big Ocean to whom all the rivers flow, and the Eternal Time all paths lead to. I was amazed, I was grateful, I lost myself, and found myself, and hit the road again, only to lose my path, to find it again, got intoxicated, felt dizzy, I walked at times, then ran, got tired, rested, dreamed, and drifted... Life was a path, and on the path was life, to continue the journey...

## "It is He who made the earth tame for you - so walk among its slopes and eat of His provision - and to Him is the resurrection."

Newspaper Articles, Opinion Columns, Noble Lies and the Truth About Life

The newspaper articles I read every day reflected the spirit of the time. The spirit of time or the spirit of the world. I tried to understand with lots of curiosity about the world we were living, how it actually was, through reading newspapers. I not only read papers from my own country, but papers from different countries too. I read the worst pieces of news (murders, traffic accidents, a celebrity death etc.) to news on politics, the economy and current affairs; I tried to make sense of all of it. I would try and link events to each other, to try and foresee the results of the government's current policies, but also try and figure out the true reason for a suicide by reading between the lines. It was important to find meaning in these events, if I couldn't interpret these chains of events, if I couldn't see the big picture I would start to get agitated and feel like I was lost in a big labyrinth.

I'd follow certain columnists and would know their opinion on the subject by just reading the first line they wrote. After reading for a while, I realized that almost nobody wrote sincerely. They were all part of some power relation, and they were just trying to position themselves accordingly. Thanks to my intuition I was able to differentiate between the sincere and the insincere and saw that there were almost no independent thinkers (I'm not saying there weren't any), who didn't let sleeping dogs lie, and spoke the truth no matter what. There are great powers in the world (people, institutions, ideologies, structures etc.) and there weren't many people who could speak up and get themselves heard in these webs of power. It was difficult to be yourself. To be yourself you need to find yourself first. And to find yourself you need to start straight from the beginning, to start over again. There are too many learned, rigid mental barriers. In order to overcome these barriers, and to see things in all its clarity and purity meant developing insight, and your own inner voice, which is a very difficult endeavor for many people. That's why it is easy to accept things as they are, without questioning them. This was especially true for columnists. Actually, there weren't any columnist who had their own voices, there were just supporters. Supporters that you knew how they were going to talk about something without even reading what they had written.

The amorphous plurality of newspaper articles proved that the world was a very corrupted and inconsistent place. Yes, these things actually did happen, a soldier really was killed, a man really did go mad and killed his wife and children, that plane really did crash, the news that one man dragged his whole country to war to save his own neck really did happen, millions of miserable immigrants were in fact real, all these alliances, enemies, wars were real, the dollar going up and down in value was real too. The wealthy of yesterday could suddenly become the poor of today. The oppressed of yesterday could become the powerful of today. And then they changed turns again. Noble lies could be applauded by millions of people. You needn't go to the cinema, what's happening in the world is action film itself.

These newspaper columns were begging to be read, to be interpreted, to abstract meaning from, to be thought upon, they begged us to think, to think well and truly without fear. It was though as they were saying that read, to understand that here isn't There. Everything in the news was saying one basic Big piece of news: "Here, isn't There. You are far from the Garden, you're in a strange land where sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold, sometimes it's day, and sometimes it's night, where war and peace are intertwined, happiness and misery are hand in hand, and good and evil are arm in arm. You're going to go through some more controlled chaos. Hold on tight. Fear and tremble, believe and trust!"

And then I look at the evening to papers online to see what's happened in the world.

## "And We did not create the heaven and earth and that between them in vain."

We are all Searching for You

We are all searching for you. Ever since we set on this world, crying and screaming we were looking for you. We searched for you lost in the dark labyrinths of the world, sometimes in hope sometimes in despair. When we wished goodness, and happiness, we were actually looking for you. Appearing at during, disappearing at night, the sun that illuminated everything with warmth was a sign to you. Some people equated this with you, but those who got to the bottom of it knew it was a sign. You were in the dream of that peaceful house and Garden. We were in search of the infinite splendor of the Eternal and True House. You were where the clouds, rivers and time flowed to. We sought after you while we day dreamed in our routine and monotonous days. We go from one adventure to the other because we were in search of you. When we fell in love and found ourselves, only to lose ourselves again, we were actually in search of you. We were searching for you when we hoped to win the games we played. We were looking for you when we hugged a loved one. We had lost your eternal embrace and sought it in an infinite quest. Heroes of fairy-tales, that fought giants in search of the elixir of eternity were actually in search of you. The youth taking exams, dreaming of a safe and peaceful life were actually searching for you. The moon, the planets, the sun, they were all in orbit, trying to find you. Birds migrated in search of you. The child that lost grip of his balloon, crying after it as it sailed into the sky, was actually crying after you. We were actually searching for you when dealing with problems, the unknown, darkness, fear and distress. We were in search of you when complaining about the treachery of man. We were waiting for you when talking in awe about how time passed. We sought you in history, in wars and in peace. We were dreaming about your Eternal Land, when we day dreamed about faraway places. We were actually waiting for you when waiting for our summer holidays. We were actually searching the Eternal Holiday Resort's eternal time. We sought you in the Arabic letters we tried so hard to pronounce. We searched after you on an old prayer rug next to an old and quite mosque. We were in search of you when waiting for the end of a sad film. We were actually waiting for you when battling illness deep in the night, as we awaited the morning.

We searched for you, and celebrated you, remembered you and never forgot about you. We might have forgotten what we were searching for, but we never forgot we were searching. You were that Truth. Your Eternal Glance and Embrace was what we were searching for. We were waiting for that day the sun would never set, the Eternal Day. Truth itself, was Your Truth. That's what we were looking for.

PART 4- THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Living Life to the Fullest

I was at the brink of turning thirty. In about three months I'd be thirty. Thirty long years. That was five years more than a quarter of a century. What was going through my mind was that first of all I had lived my life to the fullest. I felt like I hadn't wasted my time when I looked back. I saw that I had tried to do my best, and I had been pretty good at what I had been doing. When I took out the elements that were out of my hands (the place I was born in, the people I bumped into, the socioeconomic and cultural background of my family, what society had to offer me etc.) I felt like I had done the best I could possibly do. I was the only son (the older brother of two sisters) of a man who run a small furniture shop in Gaziosmanpaşa, Istanbul. Nobody in my family except my mother had gone to university. I came from a cultural background that didn't emphasize getting a good education, but more focused on trading and saving that day. Yet I felt a deep need to read, learn, understand the world, know myself, think, improve myself, meet more people, discover the world, live and travel, go to university, get degrees, do a master's and doctorate, do the best job in the best jobs, do presentations, read books, learn and learn even more, travel and travel more.

I went to a small neighborhood school in Küçükköy, and I got into Istanbul Atatürk Science High-school after I scored very high in an exam. Later on, I did very well in my university exam and went to Bogazici University, Department of Industrial Engineering- which was the dream of millions of students in Turkey. I made the honor roll at graduation. I studied in the best places of Istanbul. I made some amazing friends. I studied with the best students in Turkey. After doing a year of military service, I developed an amazing strength and endurance that prepared me to face any hardship in life. When I got my discharge papers, I knew that nothing could easily knock me down. I felt a deep sense of liberation, of being myself and living life to the fullest. There was nothing I couldn't do, nothing I couldn't overcome. Later on I got a job in IETT which was just what I wanted. I worked to accomplish my ideals, and not for money. I became a manager at 25, I had colleagues who I believed truly loved me. I traveled the world. My success didn't go to my head. I strived to be a good person, to contribute to the world, to make good friends. And I did. I always felt Allah helping me on the way. I have been against evil, wrongfulness and injustice all my life. I have always tried to do the right thing, even though at times it meant doing what was not in my own interest. The time I got to spend with my friends, being able to chat over some coffee meant more to me than any amount of money in the world. I've always tried to be myself. I've always kept up my spirits and tried to see the humorous side of things. I've always tried to be good (not in a passive way) and live life to the fullest, to be someone who knows how to love, and to leave a positive mark on people's lives. I'd like to think I'm known for this, too. I've tried to never think bad things about people, and I didn't. I tried to view people who ripped me of as immature, or as people not conscious enough of what they had done. They did bad things because they weren't strong enough, or they didn't have much self-esteem, or had some sort of inferiority complex.

I've tried to read all books worth reading, and I didn't just read but I underlined, took notes about what I thought was important. I've tried to read all books written on the meaning of life (philosophy, psychology, history, novels, poems, academic articles, scientific articles, holy books). I didn't satisfy myself with the superficial, I went deep down. To the deepest. When I arrived there, the holy Quran's illumination blinded me. This made me want to read and learn even more. I read with a mad passion and devotion. I wanted to know about other cultures, different civilizations and world views. We weren't here by accident. I needed to do what was needed to be done. It felt as though everything, and I mean everything, was about me. It had nothing to do with selfishness or self-centeredness. What I felt was self-esteem, self-respect, being at peace with myself. The world was about me, what mattered was my answer to the world. I was to have an identity, a sense of self through what I wanted to do in this life project. What I mean by "self" is eternal, the soul. What was important was not the journey you take outside, but inside. Our real sense of self, the place where we would truly be ourselves was in the Eternal Universe, it was preparation for the Garden.

Then I started a master's program. I finished it, then I started a doctorate program. I attended classes, passed my exams, wrote articles, did countless projects, attended conferences, did presentations at conferences, got applauded, became happy, wrote theses, passed the jury, worked with the general manager, made contacts all over the world, I got to travel to Los Angeles, New York, Singapore, London, Barcelona where I met with high level teams working on public transportation, I saw a Turkish flag in a meeting in Los Angeles and was proud to be a Turk, proud of having a country and a city like Istanbul where the whole world wanted to visit, I made friends, traveled through Istanbul, Turkey, America, Africa, Europe, Asia, talked about transportation from dusk till dawn in meetings, tried to solve problems, read books, read them again, then again, and started a new book, to learn the world, not only through reading, but through living, experiencing, feeling. I read countless books from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pascal, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Ibn Arabi, Ibn Sina, Rumi, Leibniz, Russell, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, and countless other thinkers. I learned something from them all, and I found something missing from them all. I've read the Torah, the Psalms, the Bible and the Quran. I have seen the big picture. I saw our grand place in this picture.

I searched for true love. A true love where I felt sincerity, passion, authenticity where I would feel love. Instead of that, I was faced with trivial games people played, cheap sentimentalism, insincerity, power games, touchiness and superficiality. I didn't mind it much. I was strong the way I was. I expected everyone at work to be themselves, to be strong, to be able to take risks, to not lose their sense of humor, maturity and courage to overcome even the most trying of situations, to communicate honestly without superior-subordinate power relations affecting them. Instead of this, I saw people worshiping power, not being able to take risks, passivity, people trying to kill time etc. I didn't mind it much. I didn't want to become some passive character in the world of civil servants and superiors. I couldn't betray myself like that. I left my managerial position, then I took leave. I went to London to study. I had my whole life ahead of me; being myself, being free and feeling free meant more to me than anything.

Yes, I was almost thirty, but I didn't feel like it. Some people enter a crisis when they turn thirty, but I didn't. Maybe those who don't know how to live, those who haven't found themselves, the ones feeling lost, living someone else's life and not their own, those who were wasting life, not knowing what to do or showing any effort to change things, those who couldn't take risks, couldn't dream, didn't know how to live, or couldn't view life as the miracle that it is. Maybe they're the ones who enter this crisis. I was filled with a desire to live. This desire coursed through my veins. I wanted to be myself, find myself and live myself. I wanted to do big projects, write amazing books, make amazing friends, fall in love, live with love, I didn't want to leave a simple melody for the world, but a thumping song, I wanted to tell the truth, to do the right things, to make the world a better place, to do presentations, to be applauded, to make sure goodness and not evil prevailed, in short I wanted to live a good life. I wanted to search for and find the hidden meaning in life. I wanted to find my own voice and make sure people heard it. We didn't come here to mess around, no. We came here to play, with joy, happiness, excitement and passion. The obscurity of the paths and years in front of me were dizzying. Every path lead to another one. And every path lead to the same destination: our True House, the Garden we lost, and to Him. Therefore, we could walk down these paths with peace of mind. I will continue my path with all my strength and energy as long as He allows me to...

## "...Then to Us is your return, and We will inform you of what you did in life."

THE END (FOR NOW)

