Category: Reflections

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Deaths and births

!Epic Tomorrows

The piece below was originally published on the blogsite, thingsfromsomewhere; republished with permission.

I get very excited when I become someone else. Those are the moments when I feel most alive. When I do something I never expected myself to do, when I find myself in a state I could never have imagined myself in before.

No, I am not talking about our age’s experience sickness. I do not mean the hunting (or should I have said gathering?) of new activities, new places, and new people that are paid for. I am talking about dying and being born. A part of the old me dies, and a new me is born. Life is countless deaths and births. We cannot be born without dying, and we cannot live without dying and being born again.

These are not such great moments of transformation. Everything happens in an instant, with a small spark, in the midst of everyday life. In a word that slips out of your mouth, at a corner you turn while walking, as you sip your coffee, or even while gazing into the distance. A small fire ignites inside you, and you become enlightened. You realize that the uneasiness within you was the agony of that slow death and the birth that was on its way.

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Reflections

Kanaan (Introduction)

!Epic Tomorrows

This is where it all started. Such a beautiful name: Kanaan. And it even had other names before this. Probably no-one knows the first name that was given to this land, or even the language it was given in. What is much more certain, is that Life is to be celebrated. Celebrating Life means mourning loss of Life, especially or specifically where that loss is premature; where that loss is born from hate and not the natural cycle of Life and Death. That is why today, the 7th of October, can only ever be a tragic day for those who love Life: for those who love Kanaan.

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Helplessness is good

!Epic Tomorrows

The piece below was originally published on the blogsite, thingsfromsomewhere; republished with permission.

As our world becomes a worse and worse place, we are constantly told to stay away from negative feelings. While we are all living in a catastrophe, we chase happiness. But what catches us is indifference.

I suggest neither foolish optimism nor paralyzing pessimism, neither false hope nor a hopelessness that mortgages the future. Let us feel a genuine helplessness.

When we feel helpless, we face how terrible the current situation is, we appreciate what is better and more beautiful, and we know our inability to reach it, but we do not close ourselves off to possibilities. For now, we may see no light around; but we do not make a final judgment about how long the darkness will last. Because while hopelessness is about the situation, helplessness is about ourselves.

So helplessness is good; better than playing at being happy, and than a dead indifference.

Featured blogs, sites & lit works, Reflections, Turkey

Lion in a Cage / Lonely Death

!Epic Tomorrows

The two pieces below were originally published on the blogsite, thingsfromsomewhere; republished with permission.

Lion in a Cage

It feels as if our hearts are desperately searching for something or running away from something. Maybe both are the same thing. We cannot bear to drift in emptiness.

Maybe we are running away from unspoken words. Those troublesome words. Trying to express feelings with words is like putting a lion in a cage for people to watch. We are searching for a noise loud enough to silence the words left unspoken.

We are running away from the darkness, towards a flood of colors so bright that it blinds us; to hide the light that darkness cannot.

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Lonely Death

A man in his fifties who lived alone was found dead in his home. It had been several days since his death. Then the talk began. If you live alone, they won’t find your body right away. If you live alone, you die young. Living alone is bad for your health.

Fortunately, all the people writing these things had their families by their side. A day or two later, they forgot about the whole thing, and about death. They started reading other news. Cases of domestic violence, rates of spouses cheating on each other and the lower rates of divorce, a mother who killed her mentally disabled child and then herself, a man who ran away with his neighbor’s wife, a woman who abandoned her children.

As these ordinary events came and went, they fell asleep at night holding their spouses and dreamed of other people.

Featured blogs, sites & lit works, Reflections, Turkey

The moment of decision

!Epic Tomorrows

This piece was originally published on the blogsite, thingsfromsomewhere; republished with permission.

Don’t force yourself to make a decision. Thinking it over and over doesn’t help. The mind alone cannot carry the weight of such burdens.

The moment of decision comes of its own accord, without you even feeling that you have made a decision. Sometimes, it comes when one of the conflicting forces within you finally prevails. Sometimes, when a seed that has fallen into you unnoticed slowly takes root, sprouts, and blossoms. And sometimes, when waves stirred by a sudden, powerful wind carry you away.

Of course, only if you surrender to the branches, the winds, the waters.