I Tombstoned Off the Bouldering Wall

Except it wasn't out at sea. Instead of breakages you get superficial bruises.
But that's what the bouldering wall is for, no? To practise, fall off, and emerge stronger from. Not really to tombstone off, but let's forget that for the moment.

Master of your own destiny?

Don't you see? Nobody really is the master of their own destiny. Even after they've shaken off the legion of tyrants intent on denying their freedom, after they've unshackled themselves from the deadening restraints of societal constraints, after they've conquered their own ignorance and fear. Even then, they face the cold, hard realities of scarcity and humankind's innate limitations.
The best we can hope to do is to reconcile ourselves to the messy compromise we must make between our wishes and dreams, and the unyielding, basic constraints that lie before us. Some deceive themselves into believing that once they have achieved that, they really are the masters of their own destiny, and that nothing can stand in their way. But of course that is really not quite true. It's only that they've managed to convince themselves that they actually really, really wanted to follow that painful but necessary compromise, rather than their originally-charted path which may have run smack into obstacles.

Cotton Castles in the Air

It was a long three-hour bus ride from Selcuk to Pamukkale. An interminable procession of low mountains, small towns and cities, and fields. But it wasn't all boring. There were friendly local passengers who tried to strike up conversations and one who actually gave a gift (even though we were just about complete strangers!) And then there was the shining white top of Pamukkale glistening in the distance. It looked somewhat like a huge dollop of toothpaste accidentally squeezed onto that part of the mountains by a giant. Or a huge layer of icing sugar, perhaps.

There used to be a large Roman city and health centre on the top of the Pamukkale plateau: Hierapolis, it was called. The place was like a Roman-era spa resort, complete with hot springs and pools. The Romans sure knew how to enjoy themselves.

The next day, after having watched the Netherlands almost not get beaten 1-0 in the World Cup finals (and it was only 4 more minutes too! Though admittedly Spain was visibly in control of the game by then), we headed back to Selcuk to visit the ruins of another large Roman city. Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia and home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Some of the ruins were quite pretty---the restored façade of the Library of Celsus, for instance---but overall it wasn't really very impressive. Not even as impressive as Hierapolis---though that's partly because it wasn't as well-endowed geographically. It might have been partly, too, because much of the ancient city still lay below ground, undiscovered, unexcavated, unseen. (Off on a tangent: Istanbul has many ruins underground too; I wonder how many of its hills are not natural hills, but in fact made up of the ruins and rubble of its long history?) But mostly it must have been due to the ravages of time. The Temple of Artemis used to have 127 columns, impressively arranged in colonnades, resting on majestic foundations and topped with imposing roofs. All that remains today is a single, rebuilt column, standing in the middle of an overgrown field of grass. The forces of nature and history have claimed the rest.

Lütfen Dikkat

So you speak the world's new lingua franca. Perhaps you are entirely, or essentially, monoglot. But that doesn't matter now, does it? Because everyone speaks some English, don't they? Or enough people around speak enough of it to get around anyway. Why do I need to learn these other troublesome, pesky small languages?
Well if you would just care to observe carefully---the next time you speak to someone whose doesn't have native-speaker proficiency in English---how different they sound out of their native language. They usually sound hesitant, timid, withdrawn and a little defensive, no matter how extroverted, lively or, bold they may be in person.   If the conversation was initiated by the other person, in another language, you may well be able to feel the brief, but palpably awkward, slightly disappointed silence after you reply in English: oh, we don't share a language.
Of course you don't actually have to care about all this. As long as I get my message across, what does it matter? But you know, it would only be nice to take notice, and to at least try to bridge the gap.

Göreme

Apparently the name of the town meant "cannot be seen" in Turkish (gör root for "to see" + negative suffix -eme.) Because although the fairy chimneys were very much visible, it was very difficult for jaded military patrols who didn't know better to spot signs of human habitation amidst this surreal but entirely natural volcanic moonscape.

It was pretty cool. There was even a jandarma (police) station inside a fairy chimney. The only downside was that ventilation was always not very optimal. It was invariably comfortably cool inside, but a little stuffy with a few hints of mould. They should have worked on ventilation technology.
But then again, maybe they did have the technological know-how, but just didn't implement it in the fairy chimneys for some reasons. The underground cities---or at least Derinkuyu, which we visited---had very fresh air even seven storeys below ground, courtesy of an elaborate system of ventilation shafts and tunnels. These underground cities were truly invisible too: were it not for the concrete shell of an entrance built for the benefit of tourists, we would have been entirely clueless to the presence of the vast twelve-storey complex of tunnels we were standing above.

Can you imagine staying for weeks, months even, cooped up deep underground, or holed up in the mountains, cut off from the rest of the world and for all intents and purposes invisible to them? Life back then cannot have been fun.

It is I

I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, nor from Europe, nor from Arabia. I am also called the Granadan, the Fassi, the Zayyati, but I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages.

Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus 

Custodians of the Crossroads

In Istanbul we took ferries between Europe and Asia. Sometimes several in a day. Once we tried to take a bus from Asia to Europe too, but we missed it, so we settled for the ferry yet again.

Okay so that was a bit of a cheap thrill. But how many cities can boast of straddling straits and continents? And of a history so rich ... though perhaps that comes with the territory. Such a commanding position--- between the Black Sea to the north and the Marmara to the south, between Anatolia and the Levant to the east and Europe to the west---would inevitably have drawn empires and conquerers, eager to gain control of strategic and lucrative trade and communication routes.
So the Greeks came. And then the Romans. Then the Byzantines, and the Seljuks, and the Mongolians, and the Ottomans ... Also, along the way, latter-day Europeans, though not as conquerers, but only as visiting merchants come to do business in one of the world's great crossroads. Each left their trace on the place, some more than others. The aqueduct, the columns in the Hippodrome and beyond, the Hagia Sofia, the great mosques, the palaces, the bustling marketplace of Galata and Pera.

How much of that can really said to belong to the history of the Turks, to the modern, unitary nation-state of Turkey? Very little, I submit. Istanbul's history has been, above all, a long and rich discourse between nations and civilizations. The Turks can only claim it as part of history in the sense that they are now the custodians of that discourse and its heritage.

Space Most Sublime

Istanbul's grand mosques all looked similar from the outside: grey brick topped by a slightly-flattened semicircular main dome, supported by a pyramid of semidomes, flanked by one or more pairs of minarets. They all seemed to take after the Ayasofya. Actually, they looked rather similar on the inside, too---not entirely the same, though. The most strikingly different feature in the interior of the Blue Mosque was the set of four elephantine pillars that held up the main dome. Those were truly huge---far thicker than an elephant's feet, really---and divided the interior space into portions of quite quotidian dimensions. The most unique feature of the interior of the Ayasofya, on the other hand, was the immense, soaring sense of spaciousness. The vast main dome, with its gilded calligraphic ciphers is not directly supported by any pillars, large or small; instead a complex structure of secondary semidomes directs the stress away towards the walls and buttresses. A ring of windows just below the dome bathes the interior with light from above, adding to the sense of space.

The resulting sense of spaciousness was simply awe-inspiring. It might have been an enclosed space, but it felt just as open and unbounded as a vast plaza. It was grand, mystical, sublime. It was truly a piece of art.

The Workday Just Ended

Forget Amsterdam. The weekday evening crowds along İstiklal Caddesi bring a whole new shade of meaning to "every day is a holiday."

Ex aura

Is that what maturity amounts to today's world---understanding that mediocrity is the easiest and most rational way forward, and accepting its muddled path? What if I understand but refuse to accept ... would that still count?