I've reached twenty-six years of age. I can hardly believe I've reached this age because while very little has changed about my own character, time has passed by. I think about this: if I hadn't had disappointments, probably very few things would have happened to transform me either.
If someone had asked me ten years ago what my goal was, I would have said I wanted to publish Hierarchy of Vulpo Noir and then step into a good writing career. As a result of this writing career, I would have said I wanted to become a very important person—important enough to change worlds. Okay, at least I wanted to secure a place for myself. This was important.
Of course, what's truly important is the path to be taken rather than the goals themselves, but under the influence of these goals, I had acquired a somewhat different personality structure. Most of these weren't bad things either. I talked less with people because I believed I needed to spend my time thinking and creating things that would transform the world. Like a monk, in a way. Before the ideas in my head matured—that is, before I satisfied myself—I shouldn't reveal them to people. It sounds a bit perfectionist. One of the first things I learned in my high school life was that I shouldn't share every thought that came to mind with people. I loved wordplay and thought exercises, but they generally seemed silly to people. So I thought, since I seem silly to people when I speak, I'll express myself through writing. When writing, since I could perfect my flow of thought and present it persuasively, if there were people curious about what I was thinking, they could read my writings.
Now I realize this was quite cowardly. I don't care about it now either, perhaps this is one of the reasons why I'm not as enthusiastic about writing as I used to be.
So what's one of the reasons for my current "indifference"? The remedy you're looking for not being in what you're clinging to. We know this as disappointment among the people, and it helps transform a person. Once wounded, one becomes hopeless, but one's horizons expand, and they see that there might be different routes for themselves. By the way, I also don't approve of the principle that those who generally see themselves close to Sufism love: "Let's not leave hope in people so they don't get enthusiastic about anything." Living as a person who will never stand out also makes one feel like a bug. When you don't see yourself as something valuable, it becomes easy to commit injustice, act unfairly, and deceive. Because you lack a personality structure that "makes you valuable." Courage and dignity become meaningless; with the expansion of your horizon, it becomes easy to get into shifty business, to be parasitic. A person must first feel valuable about themselves to be worthy of the behaviors that valuable people would adopt.
Did I just describe the current state of the Turkish people? I'm going to digress a bit, but it's worth it. Actually, when you think about it, a Turk never grows up feeling valued. My elementary school life passed listening to how I was a worthless piece of garbage whose life would be ruined if I couldn't get the grade the elementary school teacher wanted. Since I wasn't a child who would accept this, I naturally sought completely different things that would make me feel valuable.
I found them for myself. An escape area, I stayed in a field where I would feel valuable. But what do the people in society who somehow couldn't feel valuable do? Some set up illegal betting sites, or others obtain naked pictures of young girls and establish "leak" sites. Some deal drugs, organize fraud networks. In short, to make easy money, they're willing to burn down the world without giving themselves an ounce of value. Some don't sink that low, but they fetishize "making money while lying down." Because they're hopeless, they don't believe there's anything they can do. The idea "Everything went wrong because I was good, let's be bad, even if we're not bad, let's not be good!" becomes a common view.
But the common trait of those who have crossed over to the dark side of the self is their broad awareness of their surroundings. People can commit fraud because they know what they can deceive. They can deal drugs because they can see where to obtain drugs. For example, in the places I've lived for years, what events have happened, my soul hasn't heard. I was lucky. As disappointments cut off the light of the self, they also enable seeing the surroundings. What's important is being able to control the light of the self. A person should neither strengthen that light so much that it blinds them, nor weaken it so much that it drags them into dishonor.
What do I mean by this light? A person's self-perception, self-confidence, courage, fortitude, and idealism. I accept all of these as different indicators of a single thing.
Of course, I admit that the light within me isn't very strong either. For example, when I realized I had definitely given up on a writing career, I was also giving up on being "an important person." This is something that has more than ten years of history in my personal spiritual realm. Except for a small minority, no one will read Hierarchy of Vulpo Noir, and it's not such a magnificent book anyway, to be honest. It can be known at most as much as industrial music is known in the world. But when a person gives up on the goal of being "an important person," they also understand what ridiculous things they endured for this purpose. For example, I didn't have to please many people who exist entirely to exploit people's respect for literature.
Am I doing things to strengthen it? I mean, I'm chasing childish things again. I'm chasing things that will make me "an important person" in the long run, and although I know this is essentially meaningless, I want to make progress without doing evil for this purpose at least. But at least I'm aware that instead of quickly running the path and passing by without seeing other opportunities, I need to walk with more solid steps.