Eskişehir, Eskişehir Province, Türkiye
Tuesday 19 March 2024
The itch from which I have suffered for years (but with interruptions) has recently become unbearable and for the last few months, has kept me from having any peace of mind, until I have begun once again recording my thoughts and feelings.
Nothing appears on the outside.
On the surface nothing is immediately apparent, but what is inside yearns to come out.
And as the restlessness expands so does its intensity spread across my mind.
I am like Job looking for a piece of glass with which to scratch myself.
I am like Flaubert whose correspondence in the last part of his life speaks of itching.
Each of us has his sufferings and it would be most unwise to long to change them.
Pain is a reminder that we still live, albeit uncomfortably.
I dream that the dead return to life, that what was dead had only been cold and that once rubbed beneath a fire can once again live.
What I write, what has lain dormant and cold, needs to be expressed, needs to be shared with the world.
The only real object in Life is to live as intensely conscious as possible.
For too many and for too long Life has slipped by unnoticed like a scene half seen from a railway wagon window.
I want to be always reacting to something in my surroundings, to uncover a complex of visual sensations, to make love to Love, to think about Thought, wherein nothing must be passively accepted.
Pleasure is not the absence of pain.
It is the promise of joy that can be extracted from experiences that can in themselves be neutral or unpleasant.
It is drama and curiosity that keep Life interesting, that shape the perception of events.
Paralyzing physical pain and absolute anxiety stifle joy and make Life something to be endured, but those fortunate enough to avoid the intensity of illness or injury and have learned to be brave in the face of fear, they are those who truly live.
It was at this time last year when I flew from Türkiye to Canada to visit a dying friend.
I returned to Canada a few months later to discover that my friend had been cremated and that there was no marker, no memorial to where those who knew him, those who loved him, could linger and remember him.
This absence of any concrete manifestation of his memory bothers me still.
My wife has a morbid fascination with skulls and skeletons and graveyards.
Every journey finds us in churches and cemeteries.
A thrill courses across her face upon the discovery of a skull.
A chill runs through my bones when I find myself once again inside a necropolis.
That being said, she wishes for an ending tribute as unremarkable as that of my late friend: no grave, no tombstone, no remnant that she once was, beyond the memory of those who loved her.
I am simultaneously as pragmatic as my wife and yet far more unaccepting of the reality of death than she is.
I accept that the desire for a deity makes the agony of life and the fear of dying far easier to accept.
I understand that there is a great comfort in the notion of an afterlife, that the good will be amply rewarded in Paradise and that the bad will be punished for their misdeeds.
But the harsh reality that only faith can disperse is that the only real proof of God is that He cannot neither be proven nor disproven, that death comes to us all and that there is at present no scientific evidence of an existence beyond our mortal coil.
Thus I am left with the everlasting enquiry as to what then is the meaning of a man’s life if its final destiny is only to end?
I am aware that death, as I understand it, means the cessation of all that a person was and the denial of all that a person could have been.
I am on a planet of over six billion people and every day thousands of people die.
What then is the significance of the life of an individual?
I want my life to have….
Significance.
I want to be remembered.
I want there to be something left behind that speaks to the observer that a man once lived and breathed and that his life mattered.
Who am I?
What makes me unique in this world?
If there is one thing that this modern age has taught me is that the unknown can never be loved.
To be loved means you need to be noticed.
The death of my friend last year and the sudden onslaught of the flu this past month have made me keenly aware of the fragility of Life.
The oncoming approach of my 59th birthday probably means that there is more time behind me than lies ahead.
I do not know how much time remains nor do I know whether or not in that time I will continually remain physically and mentally capable of self expression.
I need to write NOW, while I stıll can, for as long as I still can.
I need to reach as many people as I can, so I can remind people that they are not alone in the world and that while they live there remains reason to hope, reason to endure for as long as Life permits.
I have returned to blogging for a number of reasons:
There are books I need to write, but have not been produced as I have lacked the self-discipline to contınually write on a regular basis.
I want to continue my colloboration with my cousin, the athlete, on his account of his cross-Canada journey raising money for a foundation that aids the development of children.
I want to complete a number of novels that express many thoughts that I feel should be shared.
I want to tell stories that move people to great feeling and thought.
Can a humble blogger become a successful author?
Perhaps the key to publication lies in the success and popularity of a writer’s electronic presence.
The more the world knows a person, the stronger the possibility that they can successfully promote that which matters to them.
Will my topics be unique?
Perhaps not.
For, in truth, do new ideas really exist?
But can an old idea be presented in a novel way?
Time will tell.
I want to write of places I have seen with my own eyes and also through the lens of others who have had their own perspective of these places.
My Canada is not exactly the Canada of my cousin, but if adequately captured in words perhaps Canada can be a place felt by everyone.
Perhaps you too, gentle readers, may taste the temptation of a glass of Turkish tea, feel the caress of an Alpine breeze, savour the sights and sounds of a German Christmas market, should I successfully stimulate your imagination through my words.
I want to add value to Life and to the lives of those who read my words.
I want my words to be the lyrics of praise and thanksgiving to the magic and majesty, mystery and marvel of existence.
I will not deny the pain nor the trials and tribulations of Life, but I want to show that Life is not meant to be simply endured and tolerated, but that Life is both a blessing and a lesson for our benefit and instruction.
I have spent the past year teaching (online) four marketing managers of the Turkish food company Eti and they have taught me that I need to approach both teaching and writing as not merely exercises in themselves but as business endeavours.
In regards to writing, I need to not only think of my public words as merely writing or blogging but instead I need to approach electronic expression in the same manner as a businessman, because in this day and age successful bloggers and writers need to be savvy businesspeople.
Very simply, there are two publishing options.
First, you can self-publish in some form.
This could entail producing a print-on-demand (POD) version, putting copies in volume, producing an e-book or even creating an audio book.
Second, you can publish traditionally.
This involves finding an agent who can approach mid-sized or large publishing houses for you or approaching small publishing houses on your own.
The beauty of blogging, you can ultimately choose either of these paths for the final production of your manuscript.
A blog allows you to publish as you write.
Each time you write a blog post and hit “publish” button, it is sent out to the World Wide Web for anyone and everyone to read. You become a publisher, a self-publisher.
Blogging a book gives you the opportunity to actually publish your book as you write it rather than waiting until you complete your manuscript.
You stop waiting for someone else to say you are a good enough writer to have your work published.
You simply publish it yourself in cyberspace.
This does not mean you have to give up on traditional publishing routes.
In fact, you can send literary agents, editors and publishers to your blog to read your writing.
You can submit book query letters and proposals as you blog your book.
You can produce an e-book or a printed version of your book when you finish blogging your manuscript.
A blog gives you exposure and builds a platform.
I admit it.
I am a kind of lonely garret writer with a sole companion of coffee as I pound words into subserviance from the keys of my laptop.
But to become a published author, you have to emerge from the garret and socıalize.
You have to talk with people and engage them in your work.
You must get involved and interact with others.
If you don’t do this, you won’t develop an audience, a market, for your work.
Building a platform takes time and effort.
This blog is a beginning, a new start.
Why do writers write?
For several reasons.
They write, because they must.
I write to find my true self.
We don’t receive wisdom.
We must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
Writers write to turn suffering into art.
Art is our salvation, the truest antidote to suffering.
An escape into pleasure and beauty dulls the senses.
Art speaks to us because it has risen from the depths of human suffering.
The deeper the suffering, the more we must rise.
Writing tames us.
An hour spent writing is not merely a collection of minutes.
It is a vessel full of scents and sounds, hopes and feeling.
Writing is a fire that burns and releases from its flames lost time and newly discovered selves, an insight into the internal human experience, the nature of spontaneous memory.
Life is neither short nor long.
It is not the length that counts, but the quality inherent.
This meeting with ourselves is an itch that must be scratched, a present that must be opened.
Words are the building blocks of books.
Books are the windows of our world.
We write to know what we are thinking.
We read to know that we are not alone.
Reading teaches us to place a higher value on Life, a value which we did not know how to appreciate before we read.
Writing is the illumination of experience, an insight into what makes us human.
We write to understand the world, the minute human emotions and sensations therein.
Art is a flame we leave behind.
We read our own lives.
By writing I hope that my life is a reflection of the lives of my readers.
By blogging it is my hope that my writing is read and read quickly.
I write to express how the world has touched me and through my words hopefully touch the world.
I write because the world has made me cry, laugh and learn.
The world has transformed and inspired me.
I seek to make you cry, to laugh, to learn, to be transformed and inspired.
I want to relate to the world in the hopes that the world can relate to me.
I write to help people and to share the little I know.
I want to take you along on my journey, to transport you to my world, to show you my little slice of life.
I want to write what is worth reading, but without strong and contınual promotion I cannot compel people to read.
I write this blog to test market my writing.
I know it will take time and, God willing, I will have that time to impress others.
Writing a blog, writing a book, building a library is a commitment.
Writing this blog, blogging my writing, will bring me feedback.
What do you think?
Wish me luck.
