This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
Opposing ideas only emerge when we begin to scrutinize things. Long before we recognize their origin, countless seeds of thought have taken root in the soil of our minds, and only much later do we develop the inclination to wander and explore. In some children, these ideas have been planted as firmly rooted trees by parents who regard them as their own property, nurtured year after year. The child finds himself lost in a forest he cannot freely navigate, cannot attend to each tree individually, and perhaps cannot even enter. Rather than venture into this unknown and secluded realm, he chooses instead to sit beneath the shade of a great oak, preferring not to explore what he believes to be his own domain. Yet there are also children whose fresh soil has been seized; within them, curiosity has been hardened into a spirit of resistance, and they boldly wander through it. They prune some trees, cut down others, and build shelters within them.
If you are so tightly bound by your ideas that you have never even asked the simplest questions, it is highly likely. Indeed, some ideas are so constantly defended that they are placed under protection; even after the threats vanish, this instinct of defense becomes entrenched and is difficult to shake off.
When someone tries to forcibly take your idea from you, it ceases to be merely an idea and becomes a struggle for freedom, one you gradually internalize. You never truly evaluate that tightly held idea. This manifests as a graceful gesture: refusing to acknowledge a debt owed to someone facing catastrophe. But when the attacks end and you finally open your hand, now scorched, new things begin to green. It is time to reckon with the idea for which you fought—certainly harder than merely defending it from assault.
Now, as he questioned all the infrastructure and pillars he had built his life upon, he wished to invite everyone around him who had helped construct them to undergo scrutiny as well. In a sense, when burdened by the weight of labor, he felt they too bore responsibility—and perhaps he was right.
But he had to accept that no one else had such a concern. People had chosen to accept their existing minds rather than confront them.
In minds filled with illicit walls built by others, no one had either the will or the time for serious reconstruction. But in his mind, an earthquake had occurred.
Now I am furious with him with all my strength. Beside the crossroads where he hesitated, my voice echoed into the void.
No matter how hard you struggle or how much you try, you will walk this path alone. If you seek companionship along the way, your greatest cost will be solitude. No matter which map you take in your hand, you cannot trust it in this secluded darkness. Why do you eagerly try to tell others about what you have seen on the road? Will you never tire of asking those who walk different paths, clinging to your endless, damp, sticky hope?
No, no one will walk that mysterious, dangerous path, shrouded in legends of those who vanished and whose end remains unknown.
How many doors must close in your face? How many people must turn away when they sense the cold? Are you truly so selfish that you expect even your closest ones to accompany you?
No, sir, you are not as cruel as those who, when something befalls you, try to pull someone else along. This time, you will not be that person.
At some hour of the night, when you hear voices from the forest, perhaps leaning against a breast you trusted, like an ostrich, may bring you comfort—but that same person may also drag you down paths you ought not to take and cause you harm. This is an expedition of discovery, sir; remember, every discovery has only one discoverer.
The reward at the end of this path is not something to be shared. The courageous seeker must bear all responsibility on his shoulders and pay the price with a single shoulder.
Even if you realize that your endless stream of words, spoken only to explain yourself, serves no purpose other than to annoy others, when does your persistence become an affront to your pride?
The things gnawing at your mind, sir, do not interest anyone. It is better now to be silent.