Sunday 26 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye The night is still heavy over Ankara when you wake, not to the call of inspiration, but to the high-pitched drone of a mosquito. It is 3:30 a.m. Outside, the world sleeps. Inside, something stirs — part irritation, part calling. The kind that brings a man to lace his… Continue reading Café de la Paix
Category: freedom
The Oppressed Pedagogy
Above: Socrates teaching Sunday 19 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye Education as Power Throughout history, the most dangerous person to any oppressive system has not been the warrior or the rebel — but the teacher. Throughout history, great thinkers have recognized that education is not merely about learning facts — It is about shaping the mind… Continue reading The Oppressed Pedagogy
The Academy of Joy (2)
Wednesday 15 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye Above: Fountain of the Nymphs in Kızılay Square in Ankara (1930) Reading about René Daumal’s Le Mont Analogue has led my mind to consider – Above: French writer René Daumal (1908 – 1944) Let us call it an idea, for lack of a better word – The quest for enlightenment,… Continue reading The Academy of Joy (2)
The ostrich in the room
Sunday 5 October 2025 Ankara, Türkiye Above: Başkent Millet Bahçesi Park, Ankara, Türkiye There is an old story about the ostrich, repeated since the days of Pliny the Elder, that when danger approaches the bird buries its head in the sand, imagining that what it cannot see cannot see it. In Natural History, Pliny the… Continue reading The ostrich in the room
The cheese transporter
“Inside every human being, there is a loneliness greater than any storm. Some try to fill it with people, others with dreams. And a few, poor souls, only ever find the silence inside growing louder.” Sabahattin Ali, Kürk Mantolu Madonna (Madonna in a Fur Coat) Above: Turkish writer Sabahattin Ali Spring arrived this week, with… Continue reading The cheese transporter
Floréal 1, Year 233
UNIVERSITY LECTURE HALL – DAYGeneva, Switzerland He walked resolutely from his dusty, book-lined office. Faint rays of afternoon sun sliced through motes in the air. PROFESSOR LINTON MARCH stood at the front of the lecture hall, the chalk in his hand a small but heavy weapon. He wrote “FRENCH REVOLUTION” across the blackboard, the squeak… Continue reading Floréal 1, Year 233
The last gentleman
He boarded the train to St. Gallen with the confidence of a man entering a courtroom in which he was both plaintiff and defendant. Under his right arm, glistening in the weak morning sun, dangled the unapologetically plastic limbs of a woman no one dared to name. Her expression was fixed — lips parted, eyes… Continue reading The last gentleman
To lay the keel
Tuesday 3 March 2025 Eskişehir, Türkiye “Nikos Kazantzakis asked his God for ten additional years. Ten additional years in which to complete his work – to say what he had to say and “empty himself“. He wanted Death to come and take only a sackful of bones. Ten years were enough. Or so he thought.… Continue reading To lay the keel
Another season
Sunday 16 February 2025 Sometimes words are like tears. Sometimes they quietly emerge from out of the corners of our perception. At other times they pour out of us like the torrent of my rushing river. And there are times when they cannot flow. My research on this calendar day has drawn me to 1923.… Continue reading Another season
Enemy at the gates
Above: The Scream, Edvard Munch (1893) Saturday 15 February 2025 Eskişehir, Türkiye My friends have a new hobby: Adam baiting. They know that I don’t follow the news, except as an afterthought for my calendar day blog posting. So, they will ask my opinions about world events. Above: The Thinker, August Rodin (1904) And what,… Continue reading Enemy at the gates