A simple word - LOVE

I am sitting on a bench, in the middle of the night in Canakkale, south of Istanbul. The usual routine at night which is sleeping is not an interest for the people in here as I can see the Turkish people, especially adolescence around my age walking by in front of me. There are couple holding hands together feeling as if the windy night belongs to them, there are a group of youths laughing and talking loudly to each other feeling as if this laughter lightens up the darkness of the night, and there are people walking in a solitude feeling as if the world belongs only to himself. It is a windy night, I am tired due to the earlier long journey from Ephesus. The leaves falling as if the earth wants it to be, as the wind dominates the scenery. I am warming up myself with the leather jacket that I wear, at times I shiver as the nature gets over me. I look right of me, seeing a couple hugging themselves together and as a human being, I dream of the moment that they cherish now, right in front of my eyes. The sceptical side of me awakes when it comes to love. As I grow, experience and knowing people have taught me that love is not as easy as I say it. Like the Dardanell Straits in front of me, which the horizon marks the limit of my eyes in seeing the European side of Turkey, the similar blindness emerges in my comprehension of love. There is more to love than just holding hands, there is more to love than just sex and kissing, and even more than just saying I LOVE YOU. If I were to fall in love, I will do the best for me and the other half of the sky. However, do not say that the love is not there if I just give half of my effort and commitment. Do not just see what you want to see, do not just assume what you want to assume, as monkey see monkey do. There is still a long way to go, another sea to across, another mountain to climb, and another day to sail as the future is very uncertain and we are bounded by our own rationality. At my age now, this is the precious time for me to know a lot of people and doing things that I want to do. It is for the purpose of filling up my Experience Bank. I believe if both have good intentions to spend half of the life with the other half of the sky, that is the beginning of a new phase in life, which is the time for me to be a father and for the other half of the sky to be a mother. Yes, it is my highest happiness in the future to see my own baby, cuddling the baby as my father did to me. When the right time arrives, everything will be there.

At the moment, my desire of solitary moment in carving my own career path in the next four to five years clings to the words by Paulo Coelhe in 'The Zahir' -

If you're asking me if I like your company, the answer is yes. If on the other hand, you're asking me if I could live without you, the answer is also yes

However, I can plan but there are various possibility of different outcomes. I have my own bounded rationality too. As in 'The Zahir' -

Some time ago, I was in Geneva for a series of interviews. At the end of a day's work, and because a woman friend I was supposed to have supper with cancelled at the last minute, I set off for a stroll around the city. It was a particularly lovely night, the streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants still full of life, and everything seemed utterly calm, orderly, pretty, and yet suddenly I realised that I was utterly alone.

Needless to say, I had been alone on other occasions during the year. Needless to say, my girlfriend was only two hours away by plane. Needless to say, after a busy day, what could be better than a stroll through the narrow streets and lanes of the old city, without having talk to anyone, simply enjoying the beauty around me. And yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness - not having someone with whom I could share the city, the walk, the things I'd like to say.

I got out my mobile phone; after all, I had a reasonable number of friends in the city, but it was too late to phone anyone. I considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink; someone was bound to recognise me and invite me to join them. But I resisted the temptation and tried to get through that moment, discovering, in the process, that there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.

I began to imagine how many million of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched - however rich, charming and delightful they might be - because they were alone that night, as they were yesterday, and as they might well be tomorrow. Students with no one to go out with, older people sitting in front of the TV as if it were their sole salvation, businessmen in their hotel rooms, wondering if what they were doing made any sense, women who spent the afternoon carefully applying their makeup and doing their hair in order to to a bar only to pretend that they're not looking for company; all they want is confirmation that they're still attractive; the men ogle them and chat them, but the women reject them all disdainfully, because they feel inferior and are afraid the men will find out that they're single mothers or lowly clerks with nothing to say about what's going on in the world because they work from dawn to dusk to scrape a living and have no time to read the newspapers. People who look at themselves in the mirror and think themselves ugly, believing that being beautiful is what really matters, and spend their time reading magazines in which everyone is pretty, rich, and famous. Husbands and wives who wish they could talk over supper as they used to, but there are always other things demanding their attention, more important things, and the conversation can always wait for a tomorrow that never comes.

That day, I had lunch with a friend who had just got divorced and she said t me, 'Now I can enjoy the freedom I've always dreamed of having.' But that's a lie. No one wants that kind of freedom: we all want commitment, we all want someone to be beside us to enjoy the beauties of Geneva, to discuss books, films, or even to share a sandwhich with because there isn't enough money to buy one each. Better to eat half a sandwhich than a whole one.

I get up from my long sitting, an air of pleasure in realising the wonderful possibility arises as I am now longing for my bed in the hotel. I walk pass the 'wooden horse' of Troy exhibited on the seafront, breathing the air of victory as resembled by the horse.