Pricey readers, or shall I name you associates?
Jorge Luis Borges says friendship is born in shared solace, and right here, I do not really feel alone.
Everybody is aware of. Türkiye is bracing for the runoff polls on Sunday. Politics, like an insatiable wave, are sweeping by means of my nation. No nook has been left untouched. The air is thick with debates. Each espresso store dialog and each household dinner is teeming with discussions of insurance policies, guarantees and partisan passions. Murmurs, gossip and conspiracies lurk below the floor.
This isn’t stunning in any respect. We like politics. It’s ingrained in us from an early age. Politics is sort of a sport to us. We start our day with modernization debates, heat up with Ottoman nostalgia, intensify the train with the secularism-conservatism dichotomy and funky down with patriotism. Our political muscle tissues are a few of the strongest, particularly evident in our conventional coffeehouses (“kahvehane”), the place you possibly can simply discover a group of individuals engaged in heated conversations, striving to avoid wasting the world, uncover the function of the wealthy in international dynamics or critique Ankara’s training methods. This by no means modifications. In the event you do not imagine me, go to a kahvehane within the nation subsequent time and be happy to share your suggestions.
The place was I? Ah, sure, we’re heading to elections, and politics have dominated the Turkish environment. It’s nearly unattainable as of late to discover a good learn within the sea of election articles.
Amidst this frenzy, I discover myself weaving phrases to ignite a collective consciousness. With a twinkle in my eye and a touch of irony, let me regale you with a brief piece past the realm of Turkish elections – a realm the place life’s curiosities beckon. One thing to show we’ve not overpassed different enchantments. One thing that transcends the ballots and leads us to marvel.
Pricey associates,
Past the ballots lies a world of enlightenment for our minds and souls. As seekers of information and marvel, we should honor curiosity; in any other case, freedom fades away, and pessimism knocks at our door.
“Marvel” at all times jogs my memory of Jules Verne, a maestro of creativeness, who evokes a world of boundless potentialities, the place science and journey intertwine, and the human spirit soars on the wings of curiosity.
We meet Verne after we first uncover the enjoyment of studying – “Twenty Thousand Leagues Below the Sea,” “Journey to the Heart of the Earth” and others. His books discover a place in each baby’s house library. However, after we develop up, we neglect him. He simply disappears. So does the “marvel” in our lives.
I revisited Verne in my 30s and realized his true genius. Is it a few midlife disaster? Possibly.
An etching portrait of Jules Verne by Salvador Dali, featured within the catalog compiled by Lutz W. Lopsinger and Ralf Michler, offering complete info on Dali’s graphic works together with prints, etchings, lithographs and different mediums. (Getty Photos Photograph)
Only recently, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, at a seaside cafe close to my neighborhood within the Anatolian aspect of Istanbul, the place waves lap towards the shore softly, I reread “Twenty Thousand Leagues Below the Sea.” Possibly, the climate was simply nice. Or, the ice latte and vanilla-flavored pipe tobacco accompanied one another very properly. Or, it was the refreshing scent of spring within the air.
All of them performed their half, however I imagine it was Verne.
Within the guide, he says: “The ocean is every little thing. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and wholesome. It’s an immense desert, the place man is rarely lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The ocean is barely the embodiment of a supernatural and fantastic existence. It’s nothing however love and emotion; it’s the Dwelling Infinite.”
Genuinely easy, descriptive and majestic. I devoured the guide that day.
Verne’s readers are urged to undertake an adventurous and explorative line of imaginative and prescient. They’re impressed by limitlessness. It’s a testomony to the facility of literature.
In response to the British director Ridley Scott, Verne “was the final word futurist.” He’s proper. Verne fascinates the human thoughts with the idea of the long run. The philosophy you discover in his strains calls you to ponder about what lies forward. In half of the Eighteen Eighties, he dreamed massive, and a few of his goals are nonetheless related at the moment. Unbelievable. Verne is an final futurist.
Pricey associates,
Enable me to conclude together with his well-known quote, inviting you to dream.
“I dream with my eyes open,” Verne says.
Heat regards,
B.T.