Monday, September 24, 2007

bu sabah çok yağmur yağıyor.


Bugün yağmur
Bir kadın saçıdır
Yeryüzüne dökülen

Upuzun ince ince
Karanlık, kokulu

Sen ki aşkta aldatıldın
Yüreğin taş parçası
Dinle yağmuru dinle
Teselli bul türküsünde

Her şey olur
Her şey büyür
Her şey geçer
Hayat kalır

Bülent Ortaçgil

Saturday, September 22, 2007

I think I just deleted more than 10 numbers from my phone. Shows how many people left in a year...
Eşik

Sanırım insanın bir eşiği var, o eşiği geçtikten sonra artık kafayı bir şeye takamıyorsun. Başladığın noktaya yakın bir yere dönüyorsun. Başladığın noktaya dönüyorsun da, o artık o aynı sen olmuyorsun. İnsan kendini de zaman içinde, yeni durumlarla karşılaştıkça tanıyor ve hissettiklerine, düşündüklerine, bunların ona yaptırdıklarına çok hayret ediyor. Ne kadar aptal, ne kadar gerçek dışı, mantıksız düşünebildiğini, davranabildiğini görüyorsun. Evet dünya benim etrafımda dönmüyor. Evet insanların benim dışımda hayalleri, sorunları var. Onların kararlarını yönlendiren benim dışımda etkenler var. Ben çoğu zaman akıllarına bile gelmiyorum (ki bence en kötüsü bu), ama bütün davranışlarının bana yönelik olduğunu varsayıyorum. Her şeyi üzerime alınıyorum. Bütün insanlık benim isteklerimi gerçekleştirmek için türlü fedakarlıklar yapmak zorunda değil. Yine de yeniden aynı durumla karşılaşsam farklı davranabilir miyim, emin değilim.

Ben şimdi bunları anladım ve sadece söylenenlerin yerine ulaştığının bilinmesini istedim. Sorulmadığı halde her şeyi anladığını ispatlamayı amaç edinmiş öğrenciler gibi. ...

Bütün bu yazdıklarım gene her şeyi bir sonuca bağlama, açıklığa kavuşturma çabası... Maalesef gerçek hayat bu kadar basit değilmiş. Ortak bir arkadaşımızın dediği gibi, bazen sorularla, soruları yaşayabilmek gerekliymiş, cevaplar olmadan.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment
How to defer to men in solveable predicaments
How to control someone to be a carbon copy of you
How to have that not work and have them run away from you

How to keep people at arms length and never get too close
How to mistrust the ones who supposedly love the most
How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone
How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone

[Chorus:]I'll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget
I'll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I'll show you how leaderships looks when taught by the best

How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist
How to play all pious when you're really a hypocrite
How to hate god when you're a prayer and a spiritualist
How to sabotage your fantasies by fears of success

[Chorus]I've been doing research for years
I've been practicing my ass off
I've been training my whole life for this moment I swear to you
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you [Chorus]

How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself
How to numb a la holic to avoid going within
How to stay stuck in blue by blaming them for everything

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

note: since the damage is probably already done, I might as well own up to what I wrote.

and I realized today that it does have a point, and thus the down now.

childish things

Oh, scrap real estate agents... I still don't know whether we'll manage to get a contract next week and be able to move. I have a feeling we won't, given I don't trust that guy even one bit. if it all plays out, it'll be a pure coincidence of luck.

so I was sitting in the tube and it just hit me that the game I was playing the past week was so pointless. I've been in the exact same situation before. The week before someone leaves, and of course they have so many things to do and you try to keep yourself occupied. I believed in something that obviously had no chance of working. I pretended it could work and by being so blind and naive just accepted being treated like a child, someone who needs to be protected from her own stupidity. This week, I went beyond that - I decided not to repeat the same mistakes I made last time - but for what? The whole thing is an illusion and I'm making myself look pathetic by pretending just anything is possible. And I'm still writing this (for it to be read) rather than being an adult and sucking it up. (carry your own burden!)

Probably it's easier, acting childish, role playing.

Anyways, all I feel is repulsion now.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Uçurum

Her insan bir uçurumdur. Başını döndürür kişinin, gidip aşağı bakınca. Woyzeck.

...
It's been a year since I started writing these notes! Isn't that amazing? And most of the people in my life now, I didn't know back then.

Coming soon: Something about finding a place in London, and the practitioners of that holy occupation, the facilitators of the market, the grease in the machine, those that bring the supply and demand together (often with the welcome push of little lies and much ambivelance: is that called professionalism?): Yes, real estate agents.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

I can't trust myself

Nowadays I can't count on any decision I make. I tell myself I'll leave home at a specific time, I sincerely believe myself, then I end up leaving half an hour later again. I tell myself I'll move to Istanbul for good to do a phd in some really interesting philosophical sociological something and become a writer and then as I cross the Jubilee bridge my resolve drains out of me with every step.

I know I'm not happy the way things are. I tell myself, I'm not supposed to end up ordinary, I'm not supposed to end up like anyone. Maybe everybody thought like that before. Everybody thinks they are not ordinary, a quite ordinary thought. And then maybe there's a border and after you cross that line you don't think like that anymore. That question just becomes one of the things you dealt with and left in the past. One of those little things that needs taking care of. Everybody goes through the 'I'm special' phase, most find out that they aren't, and then they move on. They don't think about it anymore because it's already dealt with. Maybe sometimes they remember, like something you forget you've already done, 'wasn't I special?' Then they just remind themselves all the incidences that proved that they actually aren't, and get on with everything else they have to do.

My mom thinks I have ambition, but lack the motivation. I have to agree. Talent, ambition and motivation are different things. Just like the difference between being smart and being intelligent.

In Zadie Smith's On Beauty, Claire talks about the harmony between what you choose to do and your capability of doing it. On that moment you turn into a real person, that's when you become beautiful. That perfect match. But then, as someone told me, there are things one can do, and there are things one likes doing. So three things have to overlap, something you choose to do, something you can do and something you like to do. Maybe if I can find that intersection my life will be special.

I can choose what I will do, thanks to my parents, who did not have the same choice. (Is this fair, that's a whole different story.) I like rambling on about little personal things, as this blog proves. Am I talented in writing, do I really come up with anything interesting, anything you can relate to? Anything 'you always knew but didn't know you knew'? Anything special? Although I write like I'm the first person who feels like that, I find out I'm not the only one when I talk to people or read Ekşi Sözlük. Everybody went through everything before, probably much earlier than me. They just don't make a big deal out of it.

On my way out of Orhan Pamuk's talk tonight, I ran into a girl who's not really my friend, but one I really admire for some reason. I told her, with the triumphant air of someone who's decided to change her life, that I'm moving back to Turkey. I love the time when I'm about to move, because it means a temporary suspension of all responsibilities, you leave everything unpleasant behind, without having to face or fix anything. She recommended I think about it and maybe take a couple of weeks off to go to Turkey? She suggested my love for Turkey will fade quickly. I knew. She also suggested, that job experience in London counts for much in Turkey, and I should try to get a work permit even if I want to leave. I thought to myself, she's thinking of ordinary people. I'm special. I don't need the work experience in London to do a phd in some really interesting philosophical sociological something and become a writer. That I can only do in Istanbul, where I belong.

But you know what happened on Jubilee bridge.

Sunday, September 02, 2007