AWAKE!!

Awake means- not in a state of sleep. In Turkish, it carries another meaning along with it. It is a word that is used in a sentence for parents telling their children for the last 25 years. “Son, learn to be awake at all times”.

What it translates to is being alert to all situations that can be taken advantage of. To accomplish anything in life you have to be “awake”, being intelligent, assiduous, good, or even lucky is not enough. Especially being good is considered not a positive attribute but an attribute synonymous to stupid. You have to be and act awake to push back other candidates with similar attributes.

I was not aware of this being a prevalent practice particular to my country until I lived and visited other countries. When I was younger I thought we were brave and smart for tricking foreign systems. Be it train tickets we don’t have to pay for unless busted without them, CDs we purchased by mail using dead president names for recipient names but our addresses, stereos we used and returned before their return period, I thought we were pretty good at fooling very fragilely built systems on trust.

When I returned back to Turkey after staying 5 years overseas, the forks of acts I thought laudable started to irritate me at first, and then disgust me. Being awake is at its full now in my country. Queues at airports, banks, bus stops are needless because some awake people think they are not worthy of waiting, they cut in front of others without any plausible explanation, and others, so gullible in their belief in their worthlessness, do not question this, they let other people cut in front of them because they believe if they cut in front of them, they are of course right at doing so. Sometimes you can hear some feeble protests but at the end, usually awake people are pretty loud and are good with their words and attitude, they push back the protester where he belongs, at the very best right behind them! And these conducts are everywhere, the awakes have infiltrated every possible institution, home, work, school. The awakes get higher on every ladder, stepping on others on their way up. Their success gives birth to awake wanna-bes, who like petty criminals are larger in numbers and less subtle in their activities.

I feel literally disgusted at this, I have no problem tricking a system, fooling a government or any institution. My problem is with people believing themselves to be superior to others in doing these acts, and when their thoughts turn to actions the results actulally make them superior. Taking advantage of systems and intstitutions or even specific situations makes life unfair then it already is. Trust becomes impossible and wihout trust all relationships between people and/or institutions turn into a Orwellian nightmare.

One of My Remaining Prejudices

In my teens I had many prejudices, in my twenties I humbly learned to let go most of them. And now in my thirties, I can honestly say I am left with a very few of them.

The one that I am finding very hard to relinquish, the one with passing time I feel more dedicated to, is my prejudice against believers. I can not take believers seriously . I mean in any context I can not, be it literature, music or friendly conversation with a friend. If I learn that a person believes in a higher being and that higher being’s dominion is somewhere else, and that we are expected at that dominion sometime; my position, my regard to that person’s outputs alter immediately.

For me believing in a form of higher being- that is not explicable with any reasoning mind- makes one’s mind open a crack to let in other favorable receptions other than the explainable. Believing with the help of religions facilitates lots of things, dictation of good or bad, fear of oblivion, dealing with dead loved ones, feelings of injustice.. The list can go on and on for every obstacle a person faces in life she can get around it by taking the ubiquitous warm hands of religion. Believing is indeed a savior for the person who in due or undue time will meet personal catastrophes. But I cannot trust a person who is so willingly gullible. One tries to lessen the effects of the blow, one tries to fool his self with make believe creatures and magic places. Then why not create other stories for the unexplainable (which in fact is explainable by evolution theory), but stick with one story for centuries to come? Maybe it is hoped that as time passes the belief solidifies itself like a rock form. I think not! I think a person must question everything’s validity. A story’s being past on from generation to generation does not make it legitimate.

And when someone chooses not to question and adapt to what he is handed over with, I question the one’s motives and more importantly his regard to life. Not taking the responsibility of his decisions and actions, being just and true without thinking about them is just as not acceptable with me being not good. Actually “being not good” consciously demands respectability because it is probably a well thought action than being good, just to be good.

When one chooses to believe in magic places not to deal with pain, how can one ever be expected to make choices based on his own reasonings or even feelings. They will always be open to alteration

This is my prejudice and will remain to be so until further notice!