Who are you?
If someone tries to describe him or herself, just know that he or she is describing the image of him or herself on his or her mind. The answer of this question may get thousands of pages but I don’t think a unique or single answer can be given.
Because I don’t think this question can be answered by several words or generalizations. Who you are for whom? Who you are for when and where? How many “who you are?”
I believe there is no single or unique perception of anything. I mean, nothing is the same thing for all of us but it is the thing how we perceive it. Thus I’m the one as you perceived me for yourself.
Believing?
Believing gives the meaning to our lives or all our lives are shaped by our beliefs. There is very few things about what we are sure of but things about what we believe that are so. All we do is believing either by our observations or by our feelings, some are right and some are wrong. All our lives depend on how we believe or how we want to believe.
All our facts, knowledge, values and beliefs are those what makes us ourselves and distinguish us from others. In short, what we believe forms our personality. And the reflections of our beliefs on our behaviour make us ourselves. If you want to question yourself, question your beliefs about life, morale, virtue, knowledge and facts.
Time?
Time is the witness of the very beginning of everything and also of the very last moments. It witnesses every piece of all the experiences. Is it only the witness or the cause of everything? Time is the creator and destroyer of everything. We come to life in a moment in time and die in one another. Time is the independent variable of all phenomenon. Time gives a piece of herself to you and you spent it as your life either good or bad. All our loves, dissatisfactions, happiness, sadness and ambitions are lived in it. We achieve in one time and lost in another. Time is all we have and we are all depended on time. Time is the chance you are given, time is your life and time is your fortune however you spent. Perhaps one day, you may be questioned about the time you are given. But beforehand, you should question yourself about how you spent your time because you may never have another time.
Dün ile Birgün’ün Hikayesi (a poem)
Mağrur ve eğilmez,
otururken Dün,
Çekingen ve belirsiz,
Birgün uğradı.
Soluk pembe dizelerle çizilmiş,
imkansızlık resimleri yaptım.
Olmazlar bahçesine yine de tohumları ektim,
diye gürledi dün.
Sonbahar yağmurlarıyla suladım.
Bulutlardan güneş çaldım, yapraklarına.
Yaşanmışlıklar üstünde ölümsüz kaldım.
Bana bir gün borçlusun, dedi Dün.
Ve Birgün fısıldadı,
sende gördüm.
Her yolun her yere çıkacağını,
herkesin bir yerde kavuşacağını,
ve her sonun bir başlangıç olacağını.
Sende bildim,
her çaresizlikten bir çıkış olacağını,
aşkın ise hep yaşayacağını.
Ümit oldukça bende ölümsüzüm,
dedi Birgün.
Böylece ölümsüz kalırken,
Dün ile Birgün,
Fani olmakta ise çaresiz Bugün.
Çünkü Bugün, dün Birgün’dü,
Yarın ise olacaktır, mutlaka Dün.
İsmet ŞAHİN
Nature?
Time and universe is the main architects of cosmic existence. Then galaxies and the third existence circle mey be considered to be the solar systems and planets with their nature which feeds thousands of living eco systems. For some cultures in which all aspects of life heavily depends on nature, soil is the mother, sky is the god or father, seas are brothers or sisters and mountains are the home. Nature is magnificent and powerful, it represents smartness and kindliness and if you are careless it becomes brutal for all of us. Just imagine yourself on top of a high mountain, in the spring of a river, at the end of a valley, near the sea side in a warm spring day or a very cold winter day, or when it’s sunny, cloudy, foggy or raining heavily. The nature is habitat of all our dreams, we came from it and will go back to it at the end. As for a Shaman, an Indian or an Aborigine, the nature is the source and the energy of our souls.
Zamandan Bağımsız Aşklar
İsmet ŞAHİN ( a Poem)
Frames?
Consider a day is the frame of your daily routines, you wake up, change oyur clothes, have breakfast, go to work, lunch, chat a few friends and back home and bed. And the other day, another day, and hundred days later, if you put the frames on top of each other, you face a single frame, as if you lived only a day and 99 of the other have not been lived at all. Do you want to live only a single day and die? If you look the people around and their lives you see that many of them has a routine and rarely get out of it. But if can make a little change in everyday routines, a new place, a new person, a new feeling and taste after a hundred days we will have 100 frames that not fit each other. İf you live all your life in this manner when you turn back to your past you see a life full of experiences lived at the most.
Soul?
Do you believe there is a soul, out of our physical existence?
Do you believe the migration of soul to an eternal world after the death of our bodies? No one can be sure but we can only say “I believe or not.” We have a tendency to believe because the idea of being extinct, lost or disappeared is not very tasty.
Perhaps all we accept as the soul is the liveliness of the body that is caused by the micro volt electricity travels all around the nervous system. Who knows! May be we are all the clients of a superior wisdom. We may die and disappear completely but our experiences may be filtered and stored in that wisdom forever. Who knows! You can only believe or not which ever you want.
Justice?
Is there a divine justice in the world or is it only a human expectation. For Plato, justice is what wise man or man in power says it is just. For those who are not wise or powerful, justice is to obey what is said to be just by the wise ones. For me there is no divine justice. If you want. justice you should get it either by your wisdom, by paying or by force. If you are poor, there is nothing you can do except wishing to get it by the God. Democracy not as a concept but as it is lived in the world is similar. You can get it only if you are in power, or wise. İf not you can only wish to get it from the powerful. The system of democracy all over the world turned out to be power centered democracy. If you are powerful or near the powerful ones you get it, if you are not you lose it.
Death?
“The changing agent of life” said Steve Jobs for death when he was making a speech at the graduation ceremony of a university. Swiping the old down and open place to the new. Good to have! Guess how difficult it would be to live with those very old values, beliefs and methods. Sometimes death may be something desired as I witnessed for my grandmother. She was deaf and blind at her very last years and heard her many times murmuring ”he forgot me, he forgot me here”. She was asking her death from the God.
As Socrates said in his last speech, death may be one of these; either to be extinct completely and forever a state of very deep sleep even dreams can not disturb or the migration of the soul to eternal world where you can meet the old good men and women who had died a long ago. He said it worth dying for both. So death may not be a bad thing who died but bad thing who lost or left behind.
Happiness?
What is happiness? Can it be measured? I learned that it is related to what you expect. After the death of my grandmother, we went to our village for funeral and there I met some of my cousins for long I hadn’t seen. while chatting one of them he told me “if it rains these days it would be great because crops grow better and profit gets bigger” How much difference does it make I asked and he said 2000TL. It was about my salary a month. It was happiness for him but wouldn’t mean too much to me. Besides he showed his new house in the village he got built. He was so proud of it. It is a stone house and no cement cover outside and no paint. A few months ago I had bought an apartment flat and was a lot more expensive than the village house but I was not as much proud of it as my cousin. Suddenly I realized that happiness is about what you expect and how much of it you get. I mean if you expect 5 and get 3 of it you are happy but get 2 of it you are unhappy. Here, the most important thing is not getting the most but lowering the expectations.
Success or Wisdom?
Who is wise and successful. Is the ability to make money or to make career? I see so poor people around spent all their life with struggle to make or save money, never laughed deep in hearth, never had really a good friend, never laid under a tree without any purpose but lied to people, deceived them, stole. Is it success or wisdom? Success of deceiving people! I see many people around with a fake smile on the face, always tried to be with popular people or with powerful ones, sordid and baad minded to get a post or a label. This is a tragedy of modern human for me. Never tasted baldness of being natural and open hearted. This is not wisdom. Real wisdom is the ability to make oneself happy, to spent time doing activities that make oneself happy, to keep oneself off the negative, fake and bad environments, to have less but real friends,
DAVALAR VE SEVDALAR (was an article in a newspaper)
İnanmakla başlar her şey!
Parlak bir fark etme ya da derin bir sezgi.
Doğru dersin, içinden.
İşte bu!
Tek çare, yegane çözüm.
Kurtuluş belki de!
Tartılır günler, haftalar, aylarca.
Ufak ufak paylaşılır dostlarla.
Sonra?
Sonra, adı konur.
Bu dava benim davam!
Bu kavga benim!
Onunla yatıp onunla kalkarsın.
Akşam rakı masasında mezen,
Sabah sofrada kahvaltın olur.
Soğuk kış günlerinde sıcak parkan,
Yazın kavruk güneşinde serin şapkan.
Gün gelir sen onda, gün gelir o sende büyür.
Bazen bildiri olur elden ele dağıtılır, kaçar göçer.
Bazen afiş olur yapışır sudkostik kıvamında, duvar duvar.
Bazen korku olur gecenin karanlığında, titrek.
Bazen cesaret olur kalleş pusularda, çelik bilek.
Ama bir gün gelir.
Ne namussuz bir fark ediş,
Ne alçak bir seziştir ki o!
Sen sendesindir ancak,
Davan sende değil!
Peki ya sendeki de sen midir?
Aşk olsun!!!
Ya sevdalar?
Düşmekle başlar her şey!
İlkin göz düşer, ardından gönül,
Parlak bir fark ediş, derin bir seziş
Sonra o içine düşer,
Önce kanına…
Toplar damar alır,
O, yüreğine düşer.
Yürek çalkalar ve salar.
O, tüm hücrelerine düşer.
O anda,
tamam dersin içinden.
İşte aşk bu!
Sonsuz sevgi.
Sonra?
Sonra, adı konur.
Bu aşk benim!
Benim bu sevda!!!
Sonrası?
Sonrası aynı.
Onunla yatılıp onunla kalkılır.
Rakı masasında mezen , sabah sofrada kahvaltın.
Soğukta parkan, sıcakta şapkan.
Gün gelir o sende, gün gelir sen onda.
Bazen göz göze gelinir,… yürek titrer.
Bazen el ele, saatler geçer.
Ten teni bulur,
Aşk cana gelir.
O gün de geçip gider ama
bir gün gelir,
Ne namussuz bir fark ediş,
Ne hain bir seziş
Sen sendesindir ama
peki ya sevdan?
Aslında sendekine de,
AŞK OLSUN!!!
Aşk olsun davalara!
Aşk olsun sevdalara!
Ve Hayata
AŞK OLSUN!!!
İsmet ŞAHİN
Kocaeli Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü 41380 İzmit/Kocaeli/Türkiye
ismetsahin@gmail.com