AKP's mistakes
Apparently when Cuneyd Zapsu suggested their party to be named "Muslim Democratic Party," Tayyip Erdogan objected, saying religion should not be mentioned in the party's name, because political parties make mistakes. Good foresight.
Back in July, I said I would vote for the Justice and Development Party, had I been in Turkey. Mostly for the lack of a better alternative. Then I got to do research about the healthcare system and the new social security law, and I was impressed by the government's efforts to undertake politically difficult reforms. Now they are working on an employment package to cut social security premiums and severance payments, as well as eliminating bureaucratic obligations, in an effort to reduce the informal economy and create more jobs - the headscarf debate permitting. (The Justice Minister's proposal to change Article 301, too, seems to have been shelved until the dust settles.)
The government's mistakes overshadow the well-meaning reforms. Just a quick laundry list to brush up our memories: The Finance Ministry launched a questionable tax probe on Petrol Ofisi, a privatized oil distributor, after the newspapers and TV channels belonging to its new owner, Aydın Doğan, took a critical stance towards the government. Then, only about a month ago, the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) sold Sabah, a newspaper, and ATV, a TV channel, to Çalık group, which is headed by Erdoğan's son-in-law. The rumor goes that the government is looking to change the law that bans foreign ownership of media outlets, and the Çalık Group will be able to make a decent profit by selling off its stake.
And take a look at the government's Jan. 9 action plan: Most of the items on the list lack clear detail and a timetable, and the few concrete policies lack consensus even within the cabinet. Economy minister Mehmet Şimşek, as well as the State Planning Organisation, had announced that the social security premium cuts would not go into effect until 2009, because the budget does not have any room to compensate for them. Industry Minister Zafer Çağlayan demanded earlier implementation, and Erdoğan announced that premium cuts will come into effect in 2008. It seems unfeasible, and Erdoğan only hurts his credibility by making promises at the spur of a moment.
A similar story goes for agricultural subsidies: The government announced that direct income support, based on land ownership, would be replaced by product price support, but it turns out the preliminary work isn't complete: it is not clear how much each product will be subsidized in each region.
Erdoğan also pledged to move the Central Bank from Ankara to Istanbul. The Central Bank staff, most notably the governor, have voiced their opposition to such a move, and the government has failed to show that such a fait accompli has a clear economic rationale. Now it all seems like stubborn insistence.
All this, including a global economic downturn that will hit emerging markets like us the most, doesn't matter, of course. The most important item on the government's agenda is the headscarf ban in universities. The ideal solution would be if another party, not AKP, lifted the ban, and such a move would give secularists real strength. Because they are not smart enough to do that, AKP drew power from their victim status. I never thought they would take the final steps to lift the ban, but they finally seem to have found the resolve, also emboldened by their election victory.
Of course, devil lies in the extremes: the religious conservative intelligensia is not shy about their dissatisfaction - they think civil servants, and even high school students should be allowed to wear headscarves. That would be going too far.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
like a rolling stone
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Bob Dylan
:)
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Bob Dylan
:)
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
London notes #2
22.01
Founder's Arms
I feel "ferah", like there's a huge breezy space in my heart, windows open, curtains flying in the wind. I don't know if it's the subtle, strong movement of the water, the lights or the dim, wide waterfront. I don't know if it's the medieval tunnels under the bridges. Or the memories, the habit of having walked there so many times, with different people, with the same people. There's still no place in London more soothing than there. There's no place, where the thought of going makes me happier.
22.01
Founder's Arms
I feel "ferah", like there's a huge breezy space in my heart, windows open, curtains flying in the wind. I don't know if it's the subtle, strong movement of the water, the lights or the dim, wide waterfront. I don't know if it's the medieval tunnels under the bridges. Or the memories, the habit of having walked there so many times, with different people, with the same people. There's still no place in London more soothing than there. There's no place, where the thought of going makes me happier.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Behind closed doors
You know those action movies, where the only weakness of the hero is his loved ones? And how secret service officers are usually picked among orphans?
One evening we found a ten pound bill on the staircase, and started ringing people's bells to see whose it is. Some people weren't home, but one family answered the door. The house was a real house and the family was a real family, in their casual home attire. The kids, some in their teens, the smiling mom trying to understand why we rang their bell. I felt like we put a huge spotlight into their nest, we intruded their privacy, caught them in their most defenseless moment. Just when they felt they didn't have to deal with strangers anymore, just when they felt they could relax.
You can be cool when you're by yourself. You can be all cool and collectively not care when you're sharing a flat with people your age. You can wear your poker faces and pretend you're strong.
Family, though, makes one so weak. You care for these people, you care for your home, you see their flaws and weaknesses, but still you can't imagine what would happen if something happened to any of them. You want to protect them from the world's gaze, sometimes you want to protect them from your own gaze.
I think that's why family can be such an intimate thing.
You know those action movies, where the only weakness of the hero is his loved ones? And how secret service officers are usually picked among orphans?
One evening we found a ten pound bill on the staircase, and started ringing people's bells to see whose it is. Some people weren't home, but one family answered the door. The house was a real house and the family was a real family, in their casual home attire. The kids, some in their teens, the smiling mom trying to understand why we rang their bell. I felt like we put a huge spotlight into their nest, we intruded their privacy, caught them in their most defenseless moment. Just when they felt they didn't have to deal with strangers anymore, just when they felt they could relax.
You can be cool when you're by yourself. You can be all cool and collectively not care when you're sharing a flat with people your age. You can wear your poker faces and pretend you're strong.
Family, though, makes one so weak. You care for these people, you care for your home, you see their flaws and weaknesses, but still you can't imagine what would happen if something happened to any of them. You want to protect them from the world's gaze, sometimes you want to protect them from your own gaze.
I think that's why family can be such an intimate thing.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
London notes
17.1, 20.1
Mayfair
Mayfair is a small, wealthy Swiss town in the middle of London. The Bond Streets host the boutiques, jewellers, art galleries and auctioneers advertised in How to Spend It. Sophisticated women and men walk the sidewalks, chins up, hardly flinching at what's displayed on the windows, never stopping. Women usually wear their trenchcoats and coats unbuttoned, while men keep their hands in their coat pockets. The buildings, powered by wealth and history, hold the colourful flags of the shops tirelessly. Small shops with small, delicate paintings, men's shoes, pipes, and small rectangle perfume bottles line the passages, they glow with the rustic red of the wood and warm yellow lights. On Sundays jewellers put away the jewels, but the price tags remain.
18.1
Shoreditch
Walking out of the dirty, busy Liverpool Street Station, one steps into the dark world of asphalt, steel, glass, sharp corners, vertical lines, white lights and water puddles reflecting and multiplying all this. If you walk left a little, you'll see a huge pub on the corner across the street, and that little street leads to the alleyways which in turn lead to where I used to live. That's why it's homey to me. First there's the friendly dry cleaners. Then there are little cafés and sandwich places that fill up during lunchtime, a dark winery decorated with barrells, there are homeless people walking up and down (one guy wanted to go to Bermuda and there was a little woman who really creeped me out), the occasional boutique that manages to hold an elegant, fragile contrast to everything else. There's the Jack the Ripper graffitti on the brick wall plastered with white paint. When you walk on those alleyways at night, there is always lots of trash, and a couple making out promiscuously.
I could see the roofs of these small buildings from my kitchen. One of them had a terrace with green plants even.
That was a huge paranthesis, sparked by my love of my old neighbourhood. But that is not where we went Friday night. We didn't take the street that leads to my old dorm, and then to Spitalfields, Commercial Street with the little, dark, concrete church, and Brick Lane. Instead we just kept walking on Bishopsgate past EBRD, ABN Amro, RBS, a skyscraper construction. We ended up in the Light on the brink of Shoreditch High. It's a two-storey, spacey place. Upstairs there are big windows and a terrace. From the windows you could see the street, the traffic, the red buses with their red stop lights. We had to step outside to escape from the loud trance music, and stood in the drizzle. From here we could see the Gurken and the street. It's a happy, playful building. It was alit white like all the others, but its round shape made it smiley like the moon.
19.1
Covent Garden
I remember the day I handed in my dissertation. I felt so light. I stopped by work briefly, then walked back towards Covent Garden. The first time I walked around the neighbourhood properly. There were boutiques, bookshops with boxes of cheap books outside, one bookshop solely dedicated to books about design, dance studios. It looked like an artsy theater district. Somewhere hidden were bohemian dancers, singers, actors, their aspirations. Then there were a couple of astrology/mysticism shops with colourful stones and beads and cards. I walked in and flipped through the books to read about the qualities of my sign - and the sign of the guy I liked at the time.
Last night, I walked from Charing Cross to Long Acre with a friend. I saw a Mexican restaurant, a native American place with high ceilings, some other restaurants/bars we haven't been to yet. People mingling. When places like these open in Istanbul, it becomes a huge deal. Here, there are just too many of them. Diverse, lively neighbourhoods, exciting and inspiring even in their dirt and ugliness. I felt ashamed of not being able to be happy in London, not being able to appreciate it fully, not being able to catch up with it, lose and forget myself in it.
Now that I'm thinking of leaving in a couple of months, I'm so awake to its beauty. I'm walking around like a tourist, always lifting my gaze to see the buildings and the whole street, my eyes scanning around to discover side streets, alleys, courtyards.
When I came home, I saw a quote by Charles Baudelaire on Ekşi Sözlük. "Ben nerede değilsem orada iyi olacakmışım gibi gelir." Whereever I'm not, it seems that I'll be good there. People said you couldn't escape from yourself wherever you went. Yea, we are always by ourselves, with ourselves. People can leave us, and each time somebody leaves us, we too want to leave ourselves, but we can't. We are stuck here. I can leave everything, everywhere and everyone, but not myself.
So better start getting along!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they´re blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like dream in the night
Who can say where we´re going
No care in the world
Maybe i´m learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
Roxy Music
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they´re blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like dream in the night
Who can say where we´re going
No care in the world
Maybe i´m learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
Roxy Music
Sunday, January 13, 2008
to stay or to go home
ON the same crossroads again... Don't read further if you're bored of it. I'm writing to help myself anyway.
So if I go home it means I'm chickening out just because I'm too scared of the competition, too lazy? I pretend I don't want to work in the City because I couldn't even if I wanted to? It means once again I failed to settle, grow roots, build and keep deep relationships?
Maybe so. There's another school of thought, though, saying how staying away from home may be cowardly, too, at least for citizens of the third world:
"He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey. Ohio was the first place he loved, for there he had at last been able to acquire a poise-" The Inheritance of Loss, page 299.
I really don't want to float for much longer, stand where I could do anything, without doing anything. I want to build something, I want to write. There.
...
Or a little more while... here. I still don't know. I'm human after all, I'm weak and self absorbed!
ON the same crossroads again... Don't read further if you're bored of it. I'm writing to help myself anyway.
All my friends think going home is the easy way out. Londoners (the good ones) must be the highest form of living, right, since they are surviving in this expensive, crowded city, constantly on their feet, interacting with others, coming up with ideas, making points, making the most of work and the most of their precious free time. The highest form of civilization is here, a hub of high benchmarks, reference points so much so that you have to be good to feel happy, accomplished. The most you can make out of your time and brain in this world.
So if I go home it means I'm chickening out just because I'm too scared of the competition, too lazy? I pretend I don't want to work in the City because I couldn't even if I wanted to? It means once again I failed to settle, grow roots, build and keep deep relationships?
Maybe so. There's another school of thought, though, saying how staying away from home may be cowardly, too, at least for citizens of the third world:
"He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey. Ohio was the first place he loved, for there he had at last been able to acquire a poise-" The Inheritance of Loss, page 299.
I really don't want to float for much longer, stand where I could do anything, without doing anything. I want to build something, I want to write. There.
...
Or a little more while... here. I still don't know. I'm human after all, I'm weak and self absorbed!
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
"By now, with the conversation disintegrating, his sense of humor began to return to him, and Gyan began to giggle, his eyes to soften, and she could see his expression shift. They were falling back into familiarity, into common ground, into the dirty gray. Just ordinary humans in ordinary opaque boiled-egg light, without grace, without revelation, composite of contradictions, easy principles, arguing about what they half believed in or even what they didn't believe in at all, desiring comfort as much as raw austerity, authenticity as much as playacting, desiring coziness of family as much as to abandon it forever. Cheese and chocolate they wanted, but also to kick all these bloody foreign things out. A wild daring love to bicycle them into the sky, but also a rice and dal love blessed by the unexciting feel of everyday, its surprises safely enmeshed in something solidly familiar like marrying the daughter or son of your father's best friend and grumbling about the cost of potatoes, the cost of onions. Every single contradiction history or opportunity might make available to them, every contradiction they were heir to, they desired. But only as much, of course, as they desired purity and a lack of contradiction.
...
"The sister was trying to hear but Gyan had her by the braids and was pulling her home. Sai had betrayed him, led him to betray others, his own people, his family. She had enticed him, sneaked up on him, spied on him, ruined him, caused him to behave badly. He couldn't wait for the day his mother would show him the photograph of the girl he was to marry, a charming girl, he hoped, with cheeks like two Simla apples, who hadn't allowed her mind to traverse the gutters and gray areas, and he would adore her for the miracle she was.
"Sai was not miraculous; she was an uninspiring person, a reflection of all the contradictions around her, a mirror that showed him himself far too clearly for comfort."
page 259, 262, The Inheritance of Loss
(In)consistency
I was having tea with a friend of mine, and here's more or less how the conversation progressed:
"I still wonder why you called me intriguing," she said, referring to a birthday card I'd given her. "You don't say things for no reason, right?"
As I was about to reply, she went on: "Do you always think before you speak?"
"Not always, sometimes I realize what I say is not what I mean and it's disappointing," I thought and said. (I should have said, "no, I usually end up not speaking when I think.")
"Do you think people can always be rational?" she asked.
I went into a spiel about how we can never have enough information, we can never interpret it right - so no.
After a while I asked her:
"Do you think people who act emotional are stupid?"
Before all this we had talked about how a way of live becomes the norm in the society. How one's job becomes the most important thing in one's life, how everything else is supposed to be transient until we reach a certain age, how one has to be really ambitious if one wants to get somewhere. How we hang on to people only as long as they give us pleasure, and the moment they don't, we feel no obligation. I was referring to that.
"No," she said, getting me slightly wrong, going into the IQ vs. EQ debate, "those who are stupid are the ones who try to control everything, rationalize everything. You never know the reasons why someone acts a certain way - maybe they didn't get the toy they wanted when they were little...."
I didn't listen to the rest. She always accuses me of trying to rationalize everything. I was offended.
I do try to understand things, understand people, myself. I want clarity. Sometimes I eliminate my options just because I want some clarity. I decide I want a certain thing and block other possibilities. Maybe I want order, consistency, rules to live by. A definition of what is good and what is bad. What is right and what is wrong. What makes sense and what doesn't. What is meant to be and what isn't. What is conceivable and what is not.
People who want contradicting things all at once, people who believe in one thing now and another thing later puzzle me. You can't hold on to them. What is this then, a jungle? Don't we have any rules at all? Don't we learn anything from the past? Shouldn't we try to get out of this mess?
My friend has a point. Maybe I should lift the barriers in my mind, allow my mind to be free, allow myself to be inconsistent, disloyal to any one option. Jump into the mess rather than looking down at it from the sidelines, thinking it's beneath me. Alright.
***
"What kind of man are you?" she asked. "Is this any way to behave?"
"I'm confused," he said finally, reluctantly. "I'm only human and sometimes I'm weak. I'm sorry."
"At whose expense are you weak and human! You'll never get anywhere in life, my friend," shouted Sai, "if this is what you think makes an excuse...."
"I don't have to listen to this," he said jumping up and storming off abruptly just as she was in powerful flow.
And Sai had cried, for it was the unjust truth. page 249.
...
"The sister was trying to hear but Gyan had her by the braids and was pulling her home. Sai had betrayed him, led him to betray others, his own people, his family. She had enticed him, sneaked up on him, spied on him, ruined him, caused him to behave badly. He couldn't wait for the day his mother would show him the photograph of the girl he was to marry, a charming girl, he hoped, with cheeks like two Simla apples, who hadn't allowed her mind to traverse the gutters and gray areas, and he would adore her for the miracle she was.
"Sai was not miraculous; she was an uninspiring person, a reflection of all the contradictions around her, a mirror that showed him himself far too clearly for comfort."
page 259, 262, The Inheritance of Loss
(In)consistency
I was having tea with a friend of mine, and here's more or less how the conversation progressed:
"I still wonder why you called me intriguing," she said, referring to a birthday card I'd given her. "You don't say things for no reason, right?"
As I was about to reply, she went on: "Do you always think before you speak?"
"Not always, sometimes I realize what I say is not what I mean and it's disappointing," I thought and said. (I should have said, "no, I usually end up not speaking when I think.")
"Do you think people can always be rational?" she asked.
I went into a spiel about how we can never have enough information, we can never interpret it right - so no.
After a while I asked her:
"Do you think people who act emotional are stupid?"
Before all this we had talked about how a way of live becomes the norm in the society. How one's job becomes the most important thing in one's life, how everything else is supposed to be transient until we reach a certain age, how one has to be really ambitious if one wants to get somewhere. How we hang on to people only as long as they give us pleasure, and the moment they don't, we feel no obligation. I was referring to that.
"No," she said, getting me slightly wrong, going into the IQ vs. EQ debate, "those who are stupid are the ones who try to control everything, rationalize everything. You never know the reasons why someone acts a certain way - maybe they didn't get the toy they wanted when they were little...."
I didn't listen to the rest. She always accuses me of trying to rationalize everything. I was offended.
I do try to understand things, understand people, myself. I want clarity. Sometimes I eliminate my options just because I want some clarity. I decide I want a certain thing and block other possibilities. Maybe I want order, consistency, rules to live by. A definition of what is good and what is bad. What is right and what is wrong. What makes sense and what doesn't. What is meant to be and what isn't. What is conceivable and what is not.
People who want contradicting things all at once, people who believe in one thing now and another thing later puzzle me. You can't hold on to them. What is this then, a jungle? Don't we have any rules at all? Don't we learn anything from the past? Shouldn't we try to get out of this mess?
My friend has a point. Maybe I should lift the barriers in my mind, allow my mind to be free, allow myself to be inconsistent, disloyal to any one option. Jump into the mess rather than looking down at it from the sidelines, thinking it's beneath me. Alright.
***
"What kind of man are you?" she asked. "Is this any way to behave?"
"I'm confused," he said finally, reluctantly. "I'm only human and sometimes I'm weak. I'm sorry."
"At whose expense are you weak and human! You'll never get anywhere in life, my friend," shouted Sai, "if this is what you think makes an excuse...."
"I don't have to listen to this," he said jumping up and storming off abruptly just as she was in powerful flow.
And Sai had cried, for it was the unjust truth. page 249.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Kader?
Bugün otoyolda sol şeritte gidiyoruz, tabii ki lambalar yanmıyor, yol zifiri karanlık. Yine aynı şey geldi aklıma - şoförü içip içip otoyola ters yönden giren, farları bile yanmayan kamyonla çarpışıp ölen gazeteciler. Kamyonu çarpana kadar görmemişlerdir bile belki. Kader, dedim kendi kendime, herhangi birinin karşısına çıkabilirdi o kamyon. O kadar tesadüfi ki her şey, pamuk ipliğine bağlı.
Ama sonra anladım ki, o kamyonla kimin karşılaşacağı kader de, o kamyonun şoförünün içmesi, zifiri karanlık yola ters yönden girmesi kader değil. Buralarda kader denen bir çok şeyin bir sorumlusu var, insanların hayatı boşu boşuna sönüyor, engellenebilecek şeyler yüzünden. Bu anlamsızlığa, bu haksızlığa dayanmak mümkün olmadığı için, biraz rahatlayabilmek, nefes alabilmek için kadere atıyoruz sorumluluğu. Karşımızda sorumluluğu alacak bir muhatap bulamadığımız, bulamayacağımız için. Pek çok şeyin sorumlusunun kader olduğu yerlerde hayat ucuzluyor.
Bugün otoyolda sol şeritte gidiyoruz, tabii ki lambalar yanmıyor, yol zifiri karanlık. Yine aynı şey geldi aklıma - şoförü içip içip otoyola ters yönden giren, farları bile yanmayan kamyonla çarpışıp ölen gazeteciler. Kamyonu çarpana kadar görmemişlerdir bile belki. Kader, dedim kendi kendime, herhangi birinin karşısına çıkabilirdi o kamyon. O kadar tesadüfi ki her şey, pamuk ipliğine bağlı.
Ama sonra anladım ki, o kamyonla kimin karşılaşacağı kader de, o kamyonun şoförünün içmesi, zifiri karanlık yola ters yönden girmesi kader değil. Buralarda kader denen bir çok şeyin bir sorumlusu var, insanların hayatı boşu boşuna sönüyor, engellenebilecek şeyler yüzünden. Bu anlamsızlığa, bu haksızlığa dayanmak mümkün olmadığı için, biraz rahatlayabilmek, nefes alabilmek için kadere atıyoruz sorumluluğu. Karşımızda sorumluluğu alacak bir muhatap bulamadığımız, bulamayacağımız için. Pek çok şeyin sorumlusunun kader olduğu yerlerde hayat ucuzluyor.
Books and People
I started reading Elif Şafak's Siyah Süt. The book didn't seem very interesting at first, it's about post-partum depression, what's that got to do with me? When I read further, though, I realized it's not only for women who just had a baby or planning to have one - it has much more to it.
Then I realized people we meet are just like books. Maybe we are attracted to the cover or something we heard about them, but then once we start reading them, we may realize they are not what they seemed like, what we expected - the first pages are complicated, they are not that interesting, they don't draw us in. Maybe we decide they are not for us. We put them away.
Just like books, people we put out of sight can't do much to convince us to pick them up again, until we are ready, until we make up our minds for it. But then, people are capable of doing one thing that books aren't able to: They change, they move on. We can't resume reading them from where we left off.
I started reading Elif Şafak's Siyah Süt. The book didn't seem very interesting at first, it's about post-partum depression, what's that got to do with me? When I read further, though, I realized it's not only for women who just had a baby or planning to have one - it has much more to it.
Then I realized people we meet are just like books. Maybe we are attracted to the cover or something we heard about them, but then once we start reading them, we may realize they are not what they seemed like, what we expected - the first pages are complicated, they are not that interesting, they don't draw us in. Maybe we decide they are not for us. We put them away.
Just like books, people we put out of sight can't do much to convince us to pick them up again, until we are ready, until we make up our minds for it. But then, people are capable of doing one thing that books aren't able to: They change, they move on. We can't resume reading them from where we left off.
Friday, December 28, 2007
A tragic assassination
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is likely to be a serious setback to democratization and secularization efforts in Pakistan. Bhutto's return to Pakistan was reportedly supported by the U.S. to conduce President Pervez Musharraf into a more civilian, legitimate rule and a power-sharing arrangement. Bhutto's party was likely to come out first in the upcoming elections in January. It is not clear whether these elections will still be held.
Many think radical Islamists are to blame. Al Qaeda has already assumed responsibility. The country has been fighting the Islamist militants in Waziristan, the northwest area bordering Afghanistan. During the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda militants have reportedly crossed the border into Pakistan, starting an insurgency in the tribal area. The conflict in the region has escalated following the Lal Masjid siege in July.
Radical Islamist groups seem to have much to gain from the assassination: Not only would such an attack eliminate a secularist politician with a strong backing, but it would also put President Musharraf in a difficult position. Musharraf is already much disliked by radical Islamists for supporting the U.S. in the war against terror. Now he is also accused by Bhutto supporters for not doing enough to ensure her security. He will have difficulty controlling the resulting instability.
Al Qaeda, however, is not the only suspect. When Bhutto's bus and supporters were attacked in Karachi upon her return in October, Bhutto herself pointed to radical Islamist intelligence officials and politicians as suspects. Members of Pakistani intelligence agencies have long been suspected to frequent the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, known for its radical agenda and teachings, and home to the recent bloody siege.
One can draw parallels between Turkey and Pakistan, but there are also differences. Both countries have immature democracies influenced by the military, although the problem is more acute in Pakistan. In both cases, the state has rogue, criminal elements within. Both countries face continuous conflict between secularists and Islamists. The insurgencies have different justifications (ethnical in Turkey and religious in Pakistan), and although the instability in neighbouring countries contribute to them, the insurgencies actually reflect deeper divides within these countries.
American policies in Afghanistan and the Middle East are part of the reason of the clashes in the region today. Even Bhutto herself is said to initially view Taliban in a positive light, hoping that they will bring stability to Afghanistan.
The assassination is tragic for Pakistan and on a personal level. There is something naive, idealistic about Bhutto's decision to return to Pakistan. She could have well stayed in Dubai with her family, enjoying the riches she is claimed to have gained from corruption. Although her father and brothers were killed -maybe because of that- she returned. Maybe she liked the love and attention she received from her supporters, she liked her heroine status. Maybe she genuinely believed that she could make a difference, that it was her calling. In any case, I really respect and admire her decision to return under such risky circumstances, and it saddens me to see the story end like this, the evil triumph. (I started to sound like Bush but this is how I feel!)
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is likely to be a serious setback to democratization and secularization efforts in Pakistan. Bhutto's return to Pakistan was reportedly supported by the U.S. to conduce President Pervez Musharraf into a more civilian, legitimate rule and a power-sharing arrangement. Bhutto's party was likely to come out first in the upcoming elections in January. It is not clear whether these elections will still be held.
Many think radical Islamists are to blame. Al Qaeda has already assumed responsibility. The country has been fighting the Islamist militants in Waziristan, the northwest area bordering Afghanistan. During the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda militants have reportedly crossed the border into Pakistan, starting an insurgency in the tribal area. The conflict in the region has escalated following the Lal Masjid siege in July.
Radical Islamist groups seem to have much to gain from the assassination: Not only would such an attack eliminate a secularist politician with a strong backing, but it would also put President Musharraf in a difficult position. Musharraf is already much disliked by radical Islamists for supporting the U.S. in the war against terror. Now he is also accused by Bhutto supporters for not doing enough to ensure her security. He will have difficulty controlling the resulting instability.
Al Qaeda, however, is not the only suspect. When Bhutto's bus and supporters were attacked in Karachi upon her return in October, Bhutto herself pointed to radical Islamist intelligence officials and politicians as suspects. Members of Pakistani intelligence agencies have long been suspected to frequent the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, known for its radical agenda and teachings, and home to the recent bloody siege.
One can draw parallels between Turkey and Pakistan, but there are also differences. Both countries have immature democracies influenced by the military, although the problem is more acute in Pakistan. In both cases, the state has rogue, criminal elements within. Both countries face continuous conflict between secularists and Islamists. The insurgencies have different justifications (ethnical in Turkey and religious in Pakistan), and although the instability in neighbouring countries contribute to them, the insurgencies actually reflect deeper divides within these countries.
American policies in Afghanistan and the Middle East are part of the reason of the clashes in the region today. Even Bhutto herself is said to initially view Taliban in a positive light, hoping that they will bring stability to Afghanistan.
The assassination is tragic for Pakistan and on a personal level. There is something naive, idealistic about Bhutto's decision to return to Pakistan. She could have well stayed in Dubai with her family, enjoying the riches she is claimed to have gained from corruption. Although her father and brothers were killed -maybe because of that- she returned. Maybe she liked the love and attention she received from her supporters, she liked her heroine status. Maybe she genuinely believed that she could make a difference, that it was her calling. In any case, I really respect and admire her decision to return under such risky circumstances, and it saddens me to see the story end like this, the evil triumph. (I started to sound like Bush but this is how I feel!)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
"time can do so much - are you still mine?" - Unchained Melody
"of course as you're looking in the rear mirror life goes on." - Levent Abi, my driving instructor, reminding me to check the road again
The food arrived. Bose made a valiant effort to retract and start over:
"Just found a new cook myself," he said. "That Sheru kicked the bucket after thirty years of service. The new one is untrained, but he came cheap because of that. I got out the recipe books and read them aloud as he copied it all down in Bengali. 'Look,' I told him, 'keep it basic, nothing fancy. Just learn a brown sauce and a white sauce-shove the bloody white sauce on the fish and shove the bloody brown sauce on the mutton."
But he couldn't manage to keep this up.
He now pleaded directly with the judge: "We're friends, aren't we?"
"Aren't we? Aren't we friends?"
"Time passes, things change," said the judge, feeling claustrophobia and emberrassment.
"But what is in the past remains unchanged, doesn't it?"
"I think it does change. The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind, Bose." The Inheritance of Loss, page 207, 208
Time
They are preparing a new room for the antique watches and clocks in the British Museum, and they put them in a temporary room until then. I got to see them last weekend, and I wondered, once again, how people came up with the concept of time, and how to measure it. Once I read somewhere that time is the fourth dimension, but I didn't quite get it. Now I grasp it better - let's say we have a room, with its length, width, depth. But the room is not the same from one second to the next. People enter, leave, relocate objects. The room changes, it moves away from the origin. We have frames following one another, each different from one another, like in a movie.
People must have noticed the change, the movement, and they called it time. The movement of stars, planets, earth, changing of coordinates, not being able to find something where you left it, finding something else. One of the clocks had a mechanism that portrayed exactly that - a small ball rolled along a curvy belt, and when it reached the end of it, it pulled a spring that pulled the wheels and turned them ever so slightly - then the plate with the belt slanted backwards and the ball started rolling again. Apparently it took 30 seconds for the ball to get from one end to the other.
We say it takes a certain time to go a certain distance. The opposite might be true, too - when time passes, people and objects move. We might as well assume that as time goes by, the further away from the origin we can expect to find things.
This doesn't say anything definitive about objects' positions relative to each other, though. The passage of time doesn't necessarily mean we'll travel further and further away. The opposite may also be the case. That only time can tell.
"of course as you're looking in the rear mirror life goes on." - Levent Abi, my driving instructor, reminding me to check the road again
The food arrived. Bose made a valiant effort to retract and start over:
"Just found a new cook myself," he said. "That Sheru kicked the bucket after thirty years of service. The new one is untrained, but he came cheap because of that. I got out the recipe books and read them aloud as he copied it all down in Bengali. 'Look,' I told him, 'keep it basic, nothing fancy. Just learn a brown sauce and a white sauce-shove the bloody white sauce on the fish and shove the bloody brown sauce on the mutton."
But he couldn't manage to keep this up.
He now pleaded directly with the judge: "We're friends, aren't we?"
"Aren't we? Aren't we friends?"
"Time passes, things change," said the judge, feeling claustrophobia and emberrassment.
"But what is in the past remains unchanged, doesn't it?"
"I think it does change. The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind, Bose." The Inheritance of Loss, page 207, 208
Time
They are preparing a new room for the antique watches and clocks in the British Museum, and they put them in a temporary room until then. I got to see them last weekend, and I wondered, once again, how people came up with the concept of time, and how to measure it. Once I read somewhere that time is the fourth dimension, but I didn't quite get it. Now I grasp it better - let's say we have a room, with its length, width, depth. But the room is not the same from one second to the next. People enter, leave, relocate objects. The room changes, it moves away from the origin. We have frames following one another, each different from one another, like in a movie.
People must have noticed the change, the movement, and they called it time. The movement of stars, planets, earth, changing of coordinates, not being able to find something where you left it, finding something else. One of the clocks had a mechanism that portrayed exactly that - a small ball rolled along a curvy belt, and when it reached the end of it, it pulled a spring that pulled the wheels and turned them ever so slightly - then the plate with the belt slanted backwards and the ball started rolling again. Apparently it took 30 seconds for the ball to get from one end to the other.
We say it takes a certain time to go a certain distance. The opposite might be true, too - when time passes, people and objects move. We might as well assume that as time goes by, the further away from the origin we can expect to find things.
This doesn't say anything definitive about objects' positions relative to each other, though. The passage of time doesn't necessarily mean we'll travel further and further away. The opposite may also be the case. That only time can tell.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
deli kızın türküsü
yağmur yağar akasyalar ıslanır
ben yağmura deli buluta deli
bir büyük oyun bu yaşamak dediğin
beni ya sevmeli ya öldürmeli
yitirmeli ne varsa
başlamalı yeniden
bu Allahsız bu yağmur
işlemez karanlıkta
garipliğine yan
yan yürek yan
gitti giden gitti giden
yitirmeli ne varsa
başlamalı yeniden
sana büyük caddelerin birinde rastlasam
elimi uzatsam tutsam götürsem
gözlerine baksam gözlerine
konuşmasak ah anlasan
elimi uzatsam tutamasam
olanca sevgimi yalnızlığımı
düşünsem hayır hayır düşünmesem
senin hiç hiç hiç haberin olmasa
Gülten Akın
yağmur yağar akasyalar ıslanır
ben yağmura deli buluta deli
bir büyük oyun bu yaşamak dediğin
beni ya sevmeli ya öldürmeli
yitirmeli ne varsa
başlamalı yeniden
bu Allahsız bu yağmur
işlemez karanlıkta
garipliğine yan
yan yürek yan
gitti giden gitti giden
yitirmeli ne varsa
başlamalı yeniden
sana büyük caddelerin birinde rastlasam
elimi uzatsam tutsam götürsem
gözlerine baksam gözlerine
konuşmasak ah anlasan
elimi uzatsam tutamasam
olanca sevgimi yalnızlığımı
düşünsem hayır hayır düşünmesem
senin hiç hiç hiç haberin olmasa
Gülten Akın
Monday, December 17, 2007
Jack Nicholson in Men's Journal January 2008 issue: the best interview I've ever read. He has solved it all. Read the whole interview, I don't want to spoil it for you by pulling quotes out of context, below is just a selection of good stuff.
***
"I don't know if you earn good fortune, but I think I've been pretty healthy about exploiting it when I had it, not kicking myself in the ass over it. I don't feel guilty because I'm fortunate. That's a waste."
"Don't waste hate on anything you don't love. This particular lady once told me, 'I never fight with anybody I don't love.' And you can't, anyway."
"Now this is a tough truth, but it's a truth: The men climbed on and over them to live. It's scary. I can't conceive it. But this is a fact. No matter what you may think about yourself, you're this."
"The real fear I have to overcome, actually, is the fear of the unknown. We're very uncomfortable with the unknown, and that's why we tend to cling to the status quo, to structure, to relationships - to just cling. You start off today and every day by trying to overcome fear with clarity. If you have clarity, it'll give you a position of power, the ability to act on your best instincts. I once put it this way in a comedy film: Where there's clarity, there is no choice. Where there's choice, there's misery."
"To be celebrated is uncomfortable, for men in particular. Because you don't have the choice of not being celebrated."
"For years I carried in my wallet this clipping from the Newark Star-Ledger that my mother gave me as a kid. It was the Comic Dictionary definition of a smart aleck: 'A smart aleck is the person who doesn't know that it's what he learns after he knows it all that counts.'... I carried that forever as a cautionary reminder, because I had to learn how to talk less forcefully, not hurl everything I had at somebody and feel like I had to win every argument. The truth is, I'm against nobody. My newest motto is: Everything in addition to; nothing against."
"But life - it'll make you suspicious of love, there's no doubt about that."
"We know the woman's actual cycle of infatuation is nine months; this is not psychological but in her genetic makeup. And your corresponding cycle, or sexual cycle, whatever you want to call it, is 20 minutes? An hour? We have more in common with a male dog than we do with a woman in this department."
"It's a false concept, the escape: 'I'm going to New York. I'm going to leave and go away from the pain.' This does not take anybody out of the world. We know this in many other areas of loss. Why do we think the game of geographic relocation could work here? I arrived at this on a personal level, because I always thought I could do without it, partnerships, in any situation. 'Hey, you're not happy with this scenario - okay, I've done the best I could. Let's see what happens. I'll just - go away.' So it was more an admonition of myself, because you get comfortable with the ways you successfully solve problems, and sometimes that's not the best thing."
"It's only if you don't examine it and allow it to nourish your perceptions that you're cooked. My secretary's a kind of Yiddish mama, and I love her definition of a relationship: 'If it's not half the effort and twice the fun, it's not good."
"Look, I have a lot of late eureka experiences these days. I'm driving along on Mulholland on a particular day, the kind about which my friend Harry Gittes says, 'The Lord's playing L.A. today.' And I'm looking at this beautiful day, thinking, I cannot imagine anything better than this, period. People say, 'Paradise, you're living in it.' But it had never sunk in in that eureka way that not only made me happy, but my tits got hard and my hair stood on end. I thought, Goddammit, you've experienced something here. But one second later I thought, Hey, what about Iraq? That's what I mean by the skill of happiness. It didn't protect me from Iraq. I wasn't able to jump right back into that euphoria. The increment had happened. So it's a grace to be able to modulate that. That's the best thing I have say about happy."
***
"I don't know if you earn good fortune, but I think I've been pretty healthy about exploiting it when I had it, not kicking myself in the ass over it. I don't feel guilty because I'm fortunate. That's a waste."
"Don't waste hate on anything you don't love. This particular lady once told me, 'I never fight with anybody I don't love.' And you can't, anyway."
"Now this is a tough truth, but it's a truth: The men climbed on and over them to live. It's scary. I can't conceive it. But this is a fact. No matter what you may think about yourself, you're this."
"The real fear I have to overcome, actually, is the fear of the unknown. We're very uncomfortable with the unknown, and that's why we tend to cling to the status quo, to structure, to relationships - to just cling. You start off today and every day by trying to overcome fear with clarity. If you have clarity, it'll give you a position of power, the ability to act on your best instincts. I once put it this way in a comedy film: Where there's clarity, there is no choice. Where there's choice, there's misery."
"To be celebrated is uncomfortable, for men in particular. Because you don't have the choice of not being celebrated."
"For years I carried in my wallet this clipping from the Newark Star-Ledger that my mother gave me as a kid. It was the Comic Dictionary definition of a smart aleck: 'A smart aleck is the person who doesn't know that it's what he learns after he knows it all that counts.'... I carried that forever as a cautionary reminder, because I had to learn how to talk less forcefully, not hurl everything I had at somebody and feel like I had to win every argument. The truth is, I'm against nobody. My newest motto is: Everything in addition to; nothing against."
"But life - it'll make you suspicious of love, there's no doubt about that."
"We know the woman's actual cycle of infatuation is nine months; this is not psychological but in her genetic makeup. And your corresponding cycle, or sexual cycle, whatever you want to call it, is 20 minutes? An hour? We have more in common with a male dog than we do with a woman in this department."
"It's a false concept, the escape: 'I'm going to New York. I'm going to leave and go away from the pain.' This does not take anybody out of the world. We know this in many other areas of loss. Why do we think the game of geographic relocation could work here? I arrived at this on a personal level, because I always thought I could do without it, partnerships, in any situation. 'Hey, you're not happy with this scenario - okay, I've done the best I could. Let's see what happens. I'll just - go away.' So it was more an admonition of myself, because you get comfortable with the ways you successfully solve problems, and sometimes that's not the best thing."
"It's only if you don't examine it and allow it to nourish your perceptions that you're cooked. My secretary's a kind of Yiddish mama, and I love her definition of a relationship: 'If it's not half the effort and twice the fun, it's not good."
"Look, I have a lot of late eureka experiences these days. I'm driving along on Mulholland on a particular day, the kind about which my friend Harry Gittes says, 'The Lord's playing L.A. today.' And I'm looking at this beautiful day, thinking, I cannot imagine anything better than this, period. People say, 'Paradise, you're living in it.' But it had never sunk in in that eureka way that not only made me happy, but my tits got hard and my hair stood on end. I thought, Goddammit, you've experienced something here. But one second later I thought, Hey, what about Iraq? That's what I mean by the skill of happiness. It didn't protect me from Iraq. I wasn't able to jump right back into that euphoria. The increment had happened. So it's a grace to be able to modulate that. That's the best thing I have say about happy."
Saturday, December 15, 2007
"the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances;
if there's any reaction, both are transformed." - Carl Gustav Jung
Lazy
A good friend of mine went to a training session in the gym she just subscribed to. As she was telling me everything they made her do, she mentioned something she learned. Apparently our body prefers to use the muscles that are the strongest and avoids using the weak ones, because it's more difficult. If an exercise requires that we use the weak muscles, we slightly change it to be able to use the strong ones again.
This made me wonder if it's the same way with the brain. We must be using the same parts of our brains all the time, and avoid using the other parts. We think in familiar ways, we recycle familiar opinions, listen to familiar songs, do familiar things. But when something new, unfamiliar arises, we get confused. The night before, when I asked another friend what she would change if she could only change one thing, she said she would "try to make people think in less extreme ways."
Going back to the original story, when I asked about the brain, "I think it's lazy to say it's the way you are," my friend said. She heard somewhere that our brain builds new links when we start thinking about different things, in different ways.
Part of my confusion, fear stems from laziness, but it's not only me. We try to keep new, unfamiliar things at bay, we put on our poker faces and wait for people to adjust to us. My way or highway.
Any kind of relationship is only meaningful if both sides are willing to adjust. This is what I think, if it matters at all...
if there's any reaction, both are transformed." - Carl Gustav Jung
Lazy
A good friend of mine went to a training session in the gym she just subscribed to. As she was telling me everything they made her do, she mentioned something she learned. Apparently our body prefers to use the muscles that are the strongest and avoids using the weak ones, because it's more difficult. If an exercise requires that we use the weak muscles, we slightly change it to be able to use the strong ones again.
This made me wonder if it's the same way with the brain. We must be using the same parts of our brains all the time, and avoid using the other parts. We think in familiar ways, we recycle familiar opinions, listen to familiar songs, do familiar things. But when something new, unfamiliar arises, we get confused. The night before, when I asked another friend what she would change if she could only change one thing, she said she would "try to make people think in less extreme ways."
Going back to the original story, when I asked about the brain, "I think it's lazy to say it's the way you are," my friend said. She heard somewhere that our brain builds new links when we start thinking about different things, in different ways.
Part of my confusion, fear stems from laziness, but it's not only me. We try to keep new, unfamiliar things at bay, we put on our poker faces and wait for people to adjust to us. My way or highway.
Any kind of relationship is only meaningful if both sides are willing to adjust. This is what I think, if it matters at all...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
refocused...
you know that split second the camera lens takes to refocus and the zzzzzz sound it makes. a blurry split second, the lens quickly moves back and forth, then everything is sharp again.
I was right at the beginning, I need my anchor, my voice before everything else.
when my dad was teaching me how to drive, I would go on the highway slowly, ever so slowly shifting left. hoping the cars would slow down and give me the way. they never did, they never cared, they just kept whizzing by. my dad kept telling me to just speed up. I hoped some drivers would be courteous.
every day I'm learning more about people.
you know that split second the camera lens takes to refocus and the zzzzzz sound it makes. a blurry split second, the lens quickly moves back and forth, then everything is sharp again.
I was right at the beginning, I need my anchor, my voice before everything else.
when my dad was teaching me how to drive, I would go on the highway slowly, ever so slowly shifting left. hoping the cars would slow down and give me the way. they never did, they never cared, they just kept whizzing by. my dad kept telling me to just speed up. I hoped some drivers would be courteous.
every day I'm learning more about people.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Kaputt
I feel like a computer and somebody just spilled a glass of water on me. As the water is seeping through my compartments, the data I've stored, the opinions I've formed, my beliefs are getting blurry, I'm getting confused. I'm trying to refocus, gather my thoughts - not even for my own sake, but only because nobody wants a dysfunctional computer - not even when they broke it themselves.
Now apparently they are making computers more resistant to accidents like this, they don't get messed up with a little water. Technology is evolving with experience. Unfortunately I'm older-generation, but at least I know by now that this is not a good state to be in.
I feel like a computer and somebody just spilled a glass of water on me. As the water is seeping through my compartments, the data I've stored, the opinions I've formed, my beliefs are getting blurry, I'm getting confused. I'm trying to refocus, gather my thoughts - not even for my own sake, but only because nobody wants a dysfunctional computer - not even when they broke it themselves.
Now apparently they are making computers more resistant to accidents like this, they don't get messed up with a little water. Technology is evolving with experience. Unfortunately I'm older-generation, but at least I know by now that this is not a good state to be in.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
From the Times Style supplement, Dec. 2, 2007:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2941341.ece
Age of innocence?
Shane Watson
Babies, according to new research, can tell good people from bad at the tender age of six months. In tests, the babies unanimously preferred a “positive” doll over both a “negative” or “neutral” doll. In other words, before we can speak, we can distinguish the people who have our best interests at heart. This is pretty amazing when you think about it: not that babies are programmed from birth, but that we all start out with a foolproof people-radar that is then systematically dismantled.
It starts with your parents making you play with their friends’ dysfunctional children. That’s when you learn that you must get on with everyone, even the ones who hit you over the head continuously, for the sake of avoiding awkwardness. The same way you have to put up with your grandparents’ lethal driving and the au pair taking you to the park with her friend and then abandoning you while they smoke. You are too young to point out that these people are not acting in your best interests. But you are learning that in the grown-up world nobody listens to their instincts because they have other more pressing concerns (saving time, saving face, getting through).
Then there’s school. You are a sneak if you tell anyone that the girl in your class is torturing you at break. You are dead if you don’t pick the pretty but unsporty girls first for the rounders team. You must quickly bury your instinctive grasp of who is decent and who is not because the only issue is fitting in.
This distorted perspective becomes normal and, once you hit puberty, the thoughtful boys and girls are toast: both sexes are now only interested in destructive types. Your mother, who has spent the past 15 or so years bludgeoning your instincts into a socially acceptable compromise, starts saying, “Can’t you see he’s no good for you?” Too late! Meanwhile, your brother is definitely a negative doll in your life, as is your mother’s shopaholic best friend, your youth-envying aunt and the neighbour who always gets your dad drunk - all natural enemies. But nobody does anything about it; instead everybody blames you for being too “black and white”.
It gets worse, obviously. All around you there are examples of people who are either negative or nimby or both: so-called friends who moan that you are horrible since you got a boyfriend/lost weight, and so-called colleagues who advertise all the great ideas you have missed during meetings. Gradually your “negative influence” radar gets furred up, because it’s hardly ever appropriate to act on it. When accepting a proposal of marriage, yes. When going into business with someone, yes. But, for some reason, you are not able to say, “I will not have dinner with them because I sense they would use me for a float in a tsunami.” You must throw your inner baby out with the bath water, and just get over yourself.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2941341.ece
Age of innocence?
Shane Watson
Babies, according to new research, can tell good people from bad at the tender age of six months. In tests, the babies unanimously preferred a “positive” doll over both a “negative” or “neutral” doll. In other words, before we can speak, we can distinguish the people who have our best interests at heart. This is pretty amazing when you think about it: not that babies are programmed from birth, but that we all start out with a foolproof people-radar that is then systematically dismantled.
It starts with your parents making you play with their friends’ dysfunctional children. That’s when you learn that you must get on with everyone, even the ones who hit you over the head continuously, for the sake of avoiding awkwardness. The same way you have to put up with your grandparents’ lethal driving and the au pair taking you to the park with her friend and then abandoning you while they smoke. You are too young to point out that these people are not acting in your best interests. But you are learning that in the grown-up world nobody listens to their instincts because they have other more pressing concerns (saving time, saving face, getting through).
Then there’s school. You are a sneak if you tell anyone that the girl in your class is torturing you at break. You are dead if you don’t pick the pretty but unsporty girls first for the rounders team. You must quickly bury your instinctive grasp of who is decent and who is not because the only issue is fitting in.
This distorted perspective becomes normal and, once you hit puberty, the thoughtful boys and girls are toast: both sexes are now only interested in destructive types. Your mother, who has spent the past 15 or so years bludgeoning your instincts into a socially acceptable compromise, starts saying, “Can’t you see he’s no good for you?” Too late! Meanwhile, your brother is definitely a negative doll in your life, as is your mother’s shopaholic best friend, your youth-envying aunt and the neighbour who always gets your dad drunk - all natural enemies. But nobody does anything about it; instead everybody blames you for being too “black and white”.
It gets worse, obviously. All around you there are examples of people who are either negative or nimby or both: so-called friends who moan that you are horrible since you got a boyfriend/lost weight, and so-called colleagues who advertise all the great ideas you have missed during meetings. Gradually your “negative influence” radar gets furred up, because it’s hardly ever appropriate to act on it. When accepting a proposal of marriage, yes. When going into business with someone, yes. But, for some reason, you are not able to say, “I will not have dinner with them because I sense they would use me for a float in a tsunami.” You must throw your inner baby out with the bath water, and just get over yourself.
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