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when the music dies you'll be the first one the villagers kill

2012-01-22T09:16:00.002-11:00

i've come up with this really amazing ability to channel my old friends into my current existence. i take people like dan and brad and all the great conversations i've had within my tribe back home and sometimes when i'm pushing through my own questions i see them in my head and i simply keep my ears open for their ideas.

sometimes old conversations come back to me in beautiful flashbacks to my life back when i was a younger me. i remember sitting on my kitchen floor with some friends asking what we were meant to do in this world. my friends were and are great people with great potentiality and i was always humbled by them. i have friends whose purpose is to preserve the world so we may not doom our species; its true. i have friends who can write in the way that we can only narrate in our heads. not surprisingly it was in these moments that i first fortified my plans to become a teacher; one who believes they may not be able to save the world alone yet they can teach others.

and i have asked, 'is it better to inspire or to be inspired?'

some of my conversations are no longer in english. this presents a unique problem/opportunity to begin anew in an almost child-like fashion. learning turkish began as a means of ordering food without being laughed at and has thus progressed into a functioning and usable force in my life. it allowed me to travel the norther and far south east as a resident instead of a foreigner. now it puts me at the same table as those who have much to say about this country. as many curves as my life has taken it has swerved me into a house that is lived in and frequented by many persian folk as well as many kurdish people too.

as i've said i'll have no opinion (or at least a speakable one) so long as i can't vote in this country and this puts me in the position of being a completely neutral set of ears and a mouth only to ask questions. i have to admit thought that i never saw things like this coming six years ago when i sat on the kitchen floor of the trumbul house. it makes me wonder how far away my head will be when i come back home again and if people will be at all interested.

when i first landed here i came in search of a home. i was nearing the end of a year i had spent touching a handful of different continents that would end at a new years eve party on the rooftops of cairo (but thats another story). i could get into details about what took me here but its no different than the other bits of interwound web that fashions our lives in every other instance. soon enough i found a home and i unpacked my bags at long last.

and now i look at alice, my faithful backpack friend, and i think about where she is taking me next. i'm about to set off on a multi-national, multi-continental voyage into the slightly known and complete unknown yet i'm not that concerned; its not like i haven't done this before.

i love this city though and i love this country. i love the people and i love the streets i walk on. in that same love i know i'll come back and begin a new chapter but for now i'm reading maps from a different corner of the forest.

learning another language is cool but being more than functional in three is a blessing and a sign of dedication. i'm excited. i'm moving to south america and i'm passing a few old loves on the way in the form of ancient temples and nicaraguan flor de cana. i'm keeping centered and staying in tune because if i do...

...well i'll finally get my dream of seeing an end to this world :)

cycles of the moon

2012-01-21T06:07:00.003-11:00

whereas the sun cycles in patterns aligned to the rotation of plants, we follow cycles akin to that of the moon; perhaps thats why you and i cross paths in the way that we do.

everything in its right place

2012-01-16T01:58:00.002-11:00

life is an open-ended book with blank pages. perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that it writes itself in whichever style the author chooses and it leaves no room for a sequel. i'm so tickled by this fact that i often tend to indulge in the limitless possibilities of life only to see what would happen next. sometimes i want to shake people and urge them to realize how many opportunities are out there both good and bad. i'm actually a fan of a little trouble once in a while because it keeps things interesting.

what happens in this life in no coincidence.

we are colorful people and it baffles me that we leave room for things in our life that hold us back. perhaps the greatest setback of all would be 'fear'. i dont have time for fear. sure i'm afraid but i dont let it bother me. if we all acted out of fear alone we'd never leave our house; and its a nice day today :)

how i remember it

2012-01-10T01:18:00.004-11:00

photos by Neal Parks

sometimes i think we were put here by aliens

2012-01-08T02:20:00.004-11:00

sometimes i think we were put here by aliens.

its really wild how you can strive for hours and days on end to find answers to important questions and all of a sudden when you stop thinking about the answer, answers hit you from nowhere.

somehow thats where winter fits in.

you are stuck in the cold during days of extended hours of sleep and you hide from reasons to leave the house. you eat a lot more than you normally would and dont move as much but the worst part is that you (or at least I) question everything in the winter. summer is much more relaxed and you dont care so much about the purpose of things but the winter draws you inward.

i'm a person of hidden paranoias. i have an exterioral defense mechanism that puts on an image of complacency but it seems that there is always a trouble somewhere; almost always, and i'm careful not to jinx trouble by saying her name.

but its got me thinking why? why are we (am i) paranoid and overslept in the winter? i guess i just look at it differently from the obvious which tells us that it is in our animal background to adapt to different climates and conditions but i think there are some answers we can only find when we are in this state.

ironically it hit me in a hot shower which was the first showed i'd had in days. i think we were put here by aliens. its the only answer one can create that you cant argue. why would we be forced to spend so much time asking and arguing over meaningless philosophical questions should they not actually be any different from the bantering of animals? i guess i'm tired of wasting energy and i have been for a while.

somewhere, sometime long ago i became a quiet observer. its in the nature of observers to prone to new discoveries.

sherlock holmes once said, 'i see everthing, that is my curse.'
slug once said, 'i only hear the words for what they mean? know what i mean?'

and i'm still persuaded to believe that it does not cause sadness to not have opinions. *i also live in a country where i have many opinions but am not yet permitted to vote - thus politically and even sociologically i do not have opinions.* maybe its the idealism wearing off, i was never really in it for the money anyway.

i dont really (not a hundred percent at least) believe we were put here by aliens but actually its quite a comforting thought. if there were any shread of me that believes we were put here by a supreme being i'd have to say its been a pretty strange day in the fish tank, or hamster cage, or bird feeder.

things i can hear right now

2012-01-06T10:55:00.002-11:00

ratatat "wildcat" playing at a bar
arya talking to his friends on skype in farsi
a cat yelling
a television that is showing the news
the bathroom sink
wet hands splash
people talking from different distances away
two turkish people having sex downstairs
two people fighting downstairs (maybe its the same room)
a youtube video of a standup commedian
someone tapping on something
laptop keyboard clicking
a doorknob
my toe knuckle cracking
floor squeeking

idiomas, segunda parte

2012-01-05T23:27:00.003-11:00

where i live there are easily five languages echoing through my aparment at any given time. one of my roommates is from Iran and he speaks farsi and english as well as a decent amount of turkish. he has many friends over who typically have a good handle of english yet his girlfriend is from russia. one of his friends has a girlfriend from spain and of course there are the endless masses of kurdish people who frequently pay welcomed visits to our apartment from the cafe downstairs. in reality english isn't the primary language in my life anymore except for when i'm at work however ironically i'm usually explaining things in turkish half of the time anyway.

i once heard from my dear friend back in the states that you should learn a language, if for no other reason, to read the newspaper. i think about him every time i pick up a copy of 'Haber' or 'Cumhuriyet' while waiting for the pleasant moments to pass on the ferryboat connecting the two continents i live on. this language business is becoming a huge role in my life whereas i have taken to charging a decent amount of money for private lessons in my native tongue should i give them in turkish. some people read books to pass the time but i stare at a seven-tabbed window of Google Chrome swapping between two languages that aren't my own while trying to perfect the tongues of my upcoming travel destinations.

..but in this note, which is truly just to myself, i'd like to add that it is absolutely so much fun to learn a new language. in fact, the fears that people have of approaching someone and asking for directions or asking about items in a shop are actually quite the opposite in effect. i love being the goofy foreigner who takes bold steps at speaking a language very different to that of my own and i love the mistakes i make. a slight mistake can be a big one but if you catch yourself you can turn it into a really funny situation.

a few weeks ago i was helping a friend buy tickets to bulgaria and at the bus station he said the word in turkish 'your village' which i misheard as 'sheep' which believe it or not is actually quite close in turkish. i thought he was referring to the confused and nervous foreigner standing next to me who had absolutely no grasp of turkish and i proceeded to tell the man at the bus station that i was his shepheard and he was my lost sheep. of course i caught the error and somehow it worked out to be a story we both took home.

furthermore i feel it is your responsibility as a traveler and as a foreigner to make an attempt to speaking the language of the country you travel to. it is so stupid to watch people point at their mouth and grunt in a restaurant or not even know how to say 'thank you'. i feel that those people have missed the point of travel in general. it is of course our purpose as travelers to learn more about the places we travel and also to represent our own cultures as best as we can. surely we americans dont want to prove that we are knuckle dragging apes any more than we do in other instances.

i love this.. i love this lifestyle and i never want to leave it. it is so cool to experience different corners of the world and through language you can truly dive deeper into realms of humanity that no travel book can offer to you. language is a beautiful new mask that you can wear proudly and i urge everyone (native english speakers especially) to break the already well-known stereotype of being stubbornly monolingual and try to learn the tongues of other countries. it is of course true that language and culture are very similar in the end and you can learn so much from one another.

a very iran new year

2012-01-01T08:37:00.000-11:00

for small creatures such as we...

2012-01-01T03:25:00.005-11:00

although i do think that some questions are pointless i am still reminded of those which have danced in my brain long ago. i never signed up for philosophy and i never question why we are here. i'm not much of a religious man either. it is actually in the curiosity of randomness and how strangely functional it is in our lives that i cant help but wonder a few things. my question, as i said, is not "why we are here?" however "why are we here now?".

i suppose one should first look to the past before forming any thoughts on the present. it was of course several million years ago that we began to faintly resemble who we are today; and in fact some people show much more evidence than others in both their physical appearance and their behaviors. we dont need much to survive but out lives are much more comfortable for obvious reasons with a few added bonuses in life like for example hugs or laser tag.. i for one am not sure how i'd make it through rough days without the 1TL snickers bar habit i have.

furthermore it is perhaps in this freedom that we find a wide variety of paths upon which we can draw for our lives. i've taken an endless path as a traveler and a learner. for so long it has been a recurring phenomenon in my life that i wake up having no idea where i am that i've simply gotten used to it. this is the path i drew. others draw different paths. it is in these differences that i am marveled and much more respectful than i used to be. my path has taken me so far away from my origins that i'm not sure many people recognize me anymore. i dont even act the same or speak the same but i think we are all marveled by the vastness and endlessness paths can be.

i guess my question (or shape of a question) i began writing about was the matter of "why now?" and i really have no answer to this. sometimes i think i was born in the wrong time and i'd be much better off in the times of epic seafaring journeys into the unknown. i'm guiltily disappointed by the coca-cola stands i see in every single village i've ever been to but i shouldn't be.. i'm a bit of a coke fan myself.

actually i feel that we are living in a very wonderful time to be alive. what was not even conceptually possible only a hundred years ago is now part of our reality. i'm marveled greatly by the ability one has to jump on a plane as if it were a portal into the world with virtually limitless possibilities. we can go anywhere and we can travel to the wildest of faraway places to come home and share what we've discovered with each other in that same week. it is in these limitless possibilities that i first became tickled by the idea of being a lifetime traveler. why not, right?

yet... among all this endlessness and vastness and boundlessness i realize how small i am and i've never been saddened by it. i love you for how small and seemingly pointless you our to our earth and species yet you mean the universe to me. i cannot urge you, my friends, enough to wander far away and see this same gem from a different angle and i hope one day you too realize how small you are - there has never been a better time in our history to do so than now.

"for small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." - Carl Sagan

Hasankeyf

2011-12-28T03:21:00.017-11:00

Diyarbakır Kalesi

2011-12-28T03:11:00.006-11:00

Midyat

2011-12-27T23:44:00.004-11:00

The word Midyat is said to have come from Midiat or 'mirror'. The city is refered to as the mirror of worship.

Aziz Gabriel Monastery

ancient life giving water..

2011-12-27T07:08:00.005-11:00

*taken from notes in my journal written december 2011

im no anthropologist. in fact it is in my envy of anthropology and the collection of all information gathered through the years that i am propelled to explore the ancient world to the best of my learning and understanding.

as ive been told we must first create a myth as to why we are here and where we have been before we can understand our purpose today. somewhere in our mythology we have pinpointed many great rivers and other bodies of fresh water to which we credit what would perhaps be the greatest advancement our kind has made: the agricultural revolution. as i sit by the banks of the Tigris River (Dicle Nehri) i dip my fingers into its waters and can almost feel the life this water has offered seep into my skin. i take a splash of it to my face. it was at these banks that our kind first assembled a more sustainable form of life known as farming. we no longer we a wandering species, at least not in the same sense that we once were. our numbers grew as we developed a means of storing food known as the granary.

with the safety of stability we were allowed to expand both outwardly and introspectively; the sense of self. life expectancy became longer and we developed means of caring for our sick instead of leaving the weak behind to be consumed by nature. families grew and we were given different roles and tasks to perform. it was in this selection that our character grew as well as our sense of place from within the community.

perhaps the most curious thing of all was the way that this seemed to happen simultaniously in many places around the world essentially at the same time. great bodies of fresh water offered life and refuge in the same way that it has drawn many animals of different kingdoms since life itself began. as we took these waters into dry land we built farms and its of no surprise that we began to look to the sky in realization that without the great burning star that watches over us none of this would be possible. it is also of no surprise that we began to worship this burning star and make offerings of grain to it as our farms would not survive without the light coming from above.

we began to live in harmony with the earth and we took from it only that which we could give back. our kind was once a very thankful species and its of no wonder that we saw the value of life in such purity. we even made offerings of blood from our own kind that it may soak into the earth and appease whatever forces have allowed us to continue our growth in peace.

i am absolutely humbled by the experiences ive had in this last few days on my quest to touch the waters which advanced my kind into what it is today.

Mardin

2011-12-25T21:52:00.016-11:00

Welcome to Mardin! İ've waited two and a half years to visit this beautiful city!

Very old graves and fragments of wall carvings sometimes laden with anceint Cuneiform script.

Graves written in Osmanlıca from Ottoman Empire times.

Two seated figures from the time of the Assyrian Empire (650-800bc)

fragments of old cave art.

The pathway between Kırklar Kilisesi and Mardin Müzesi.

a foggy view overlooking the lands preceeding Syria.

Mardin's talented Emrah

My home in Mardin!

children outside of Kırklar Kilisesi.

Christmas service in Kırklar Kilisesi.

This picture shows a carving of a woman i chanced upon in Mardin Müzesi and it proves so many things ive always believed. number one, people have always been into tattoos (as you can see from the depictions on her legs) and number two people have always loved women with huge t*ts! This statue is about 10.000 years old and it bears remenance to Venus of Willendorf although its undeservably much less famous. İm in love with her..

ancient cows!

a better shot overlooking syria.

ah.. my beautiful mardin family.. this is baby Yusuf.

grandma and the grandkids :)))

The author and Deli Yusuf!

in my long life i have never seen hospitality that nearly matches the people of eastern Turkey and especially that of my family in Mardin. Her şey için çok teşekkür ederim ailem. Sizi seviyorum ve misafirperverliğiniz için ben teşekkür ederim!

These are two videos i stole from within Kırklar Kilisesi.. you should probably turn your volume down a bit before watching :)

the road to Mesopotamia

2011-12-24T23:27:00.002-11:00

i arrived at the Diyarbakır airport early and bewildered. i hadnt many plans for this trip through the ancient world which im about to embark on but id rather leave things open to uncertainty and chance. originally i figured the airport to be like most others with information centers and maps but only 15 meters from my entrance i was once again outside in a parking lot with the doors locked behind me and no idea how to get to Mardin.

i took a pause of about five good minutes to breathe the new air of this new part of the world when suddenly a very old woman standing next to me tumbled backwards. she was cane bound and something must have given out from under her but myself and a gentleman next to her caught her and helped her back to her seat. it was then that her son witnessed this event and broke conversation with me. i told him i was trying to get to Mardin and he gratefully offered to stack me in his crowded car for a ride to the Otogar which later directed me an hour and a half south to my destination. strange how things come together sometimes.

Mardin is breathtaking and you will see this for yourself when i find an opportunity (perhaps back in istanbul) to upload my many pictures. i arrived on christmas eve to be welcomed by a very very friendly family in relation to a friend of mine i made back in istanbul. the city has lived up to its reputation of a mix between three of the worlds oldest religions and somehow they all live together in harmony and even blend together in some ways.

i was fortunate to spend this morning (christmas morning) in an old church called Kırklar Kilisesi somewhere deep in the clusters of old Mardin. the service was much different from any church service ive ever been to. it was proceeded with two holy men chanting in harmony in what language i believe to be Süryani and towards the end of the procession an enormous sacred fire was lit inside of the stone church with men circling brandishing candles and staffs adorned with golden crosses and religious images. the church was singing and chanting together and always on cue came a haunting roar from the background of that lovely 'lılılılılılı' sound that middle eastern women chant ceremonially at weddings and other events. it was so beautiful and ive actually managed to steal a few two minute videos that i will upload when proper internet access permits.

im staying with this really sweet family who has taken me in selflessly and offered a really old stone lodging for me to make myself comfortable in for the few days i will stay here. today im planning my trip onward through Hasankeyf.

MERRY CHRİSTMAS to all!

english time level 3 weekend pm

2011-12-19T01:20:00.002-11:00

through the eyes of Jetmir İdrizi

2011-12-18T00:49:00.009-11:00

before i lose another journal

2011-12-14T00:14:00.007-11:00

every once in a while you stumble upon infinity

2011-12-08T13:08:00.002-11:00

god, the mathematician, had quite an imagination when she invented the universe.

upon the summit of Zion

2011-12-05T02:29:00.005-11:00

i start this with memory.

they say that smell is the most potent trigger for one's memory, second perhaps being a sound, when in fact i believe sight to be perhaps the most inaccurate. funny how pictures change in our heads yet we unmistakably flash back to beautiful memories upon the slightest hint of scent or the excitement that strikes our brains with just the touch of a hand. and its so curious to me that we have been so successful in preserving photos and images from our past yet it comes so natural to us to preserve our memories in long lost olfactory senses and dusty preservations of intensity such as our first kiss or the feeling of a person sleeping on your chest.

but these are memories, and its in this memories that we find ourselves so disconnected when we travel so far away. somehow memories don't even hold a candle of light to our consciousness when we are in faraway deserts and step upon high mountaintops.

i never saw that coming when i first began traveling; i was told we'd hold these things truer to ourselves.

for sake of avoiding esoteric ramblings i want to share my true experiences with the world, if not for myself alone. as i've said before, you stamp this moments in your personal history when you travel and they seem to connect to each other and form tunnels in the earth between the beautiful volcanoes of Nicaragua to the forbidden landscapes of Shao-Lin in China. you stamp (i stamp) these moments of beauty and connect the faraway collections of beauty that this world of sights and sounds has to offer and the world begins to look more and more like a rubber band ball each time.

i was tickled by an enormous map of the world i chanced upon somewhere in Taksim earlier today. it made me smirk devilishly to the fact that we live in a lifetime where one is able to connect the faraway moments of the world into our own masterpiece and recreate for ourselves our own version of how the world can be perceived. we've fought so many fucking wars over this that its unbelievable. its a shame.

i live in a city (and a country) that has been absolutely wonderful to me. let it be known that i never fell to the ranks of those who take for granted the beauty that has been bestowed upon them. yet this story is just starting. in a few weeks from now i'll be en route to the far southeastern corners of this country to visit Adıyaman, Diyarbakır and of course Mardin, where i have dreamed of visiting since i landed on this island.

whatever you believe in is cool with me just remember that other people believe in different things sometimes. the purpose of national identification is to celebrate our similarities and rejoice in our differences as human.. not to wage war over our lack of understanding.

awake!

2011-11-28T03:14:00.003-11:00

i got to thinking of life and all the fine details that make it so. i thought of new apartments and empty rooms that we fill with our belongings and the furniture that we rearange accordingly. a cold and empty shell slowly turns into a warm place wtih colors just right to suit our tastes; i prefer red bedrooms. on our walls we hang pictures of things we want to share with others, like tattoos on our arms they somehow show the traces of where we've been and what inspires us most.

wake up early and make your bed, it will be a much better day for you.

i walk the crooked backstreets of taksim somewhere on the border with the slightly better neighborhood of Cihangir downhill from my loveable home. i kind of like it when there is that mist of rain that seems to appear out of nowhere in istanbul once every 9 days or so. its days like this i like to take my pen and paper, a little bit tired but i'm mostly inspired.

you shouldn't hold on too tightly to moments as their purpose is to pass. i try really hard to let them do so because as it turns out the survival rate of any moment drops to zero on a long enough scale. so much i wish i could bottle all the love that i've found and keep it in a jar on my bedroom bookshelf but the collection of memories constitutes gathering dust.. i'd rather not have dust on my favorite memories.

sometimes i feel like this party is just getting started. i feel like its that part of some mythical adventure when you first recieve keys to the airship and the world is now yours to explore no matter which direction something has intended you to travel in. i cant tell if i've learned to listen more carefully or to just simply stop listening all together. perhaps that is a luxury of aging; we trade pointless idealist for the gift of freedom (ironically freedom from idealism).

we could learn something from the stragers we pass. its in that absense of idealism that i start to look at people for the guilt that they hide. i see strangers on the bus and i picture them in all of their walks through life and wonder what kind of craziness they hide. when it boils down to it humans are pretty wild animals, blessed with the crave of instinct yet burdened with the curse of morality. its a really interesting situation we've created for ourselves and sometimes i wonder how things could have turned out differently should someone be given the chance to re-roll the dice.

so i make my bed and put on my teacher's face. i'm working hard towards something and i'm fully aware of the consequences, or signed-unwritten contract, pertaining to existing on planet earth. as i've been told and as i've seen tragedy can strike us anywhere. i'm not afraid of dark alleys and the jackals of the street, i'm just smart enough not to be there in the first place. i'll keep my inspiration close to me and walk the back roads of misty rain, pen and paper in hand with a bit of a smile knowing that something has truly blessed me.

slow down, my friends.. i bet things start to get interesting for you.

evenings amongst the iteful ites and langtunes

2011-11-25T10:03:00.010-11:00

to understand more about what intrigues me most

2011-11-14T21:18:00.003-11:00

so many times i've tried to document this overwhelming feeling i have unsuccessfully. perhaps because i'm forced to censor what i write or perhaps because i simply have never been able to find the correct adjectives to explain myself. either way i want to share something.

when you travel, your life moves in two dramatically different directions. the first is obvious, it moves forward as your movements become a traceable path around the earth. the second movement is inward and this creeps up on you with such stealth that you never see it coming. it comes to you when its 3:30 in the morning and youre standing in the crisp night air outside of whatever house, pension or hostel youre staying at far away from when youre from. something hits you just right, perhaps the song in your head or perhaps the beautiful feeling of loneliness. its in these moments rather than the obvious moments of forward motion that you stamp a mark into your memories.

i'd like to share a few of mine.

i think the first one hit me in China in the trip i took immediately after graduating university. i traveled with two close friends and i feel as if that trip acted as a turning point for each of us as we learned not only about another culture but about how we maintain so far away from home. i felt this moment when i went for a midnight sneak-out from my cousins house in Shanghai one night. the shanghai air is really distinct and thick. maybe it was in the poisons of the polluted air that night or perhaps the monster inside of me crawling to get out but i made a hedonistic decision that night to pursue life to a fuller degree. it was like a midnight stroll with the devil where i made a pact to re-examine what i thought of as 'good'. i learned more about what suffering means and i learned a bit more about the connectedness of what makes us human. i think it was then that i realized for the first time that all people of every culture really wants the same thing. and are we not animals? animals aren't that hard to read so why should humans be?

but life took me somewhere far away to a distant island in the south pacific ocean. and if youve ever lived on an island you'd know the effects it has on one's character. god that feeling of being so far away is transcendental. i can still taste the salt on my lips and feel the sea-blasted cargo shorts rubbing against my knees when i walked. i lived in this small village and had these great opportunities to sneak out (wasn't really hard to sneak out if you have no walls) of my fale for a midnight walk with the full moon watching over me. i used to stare at the stillness and the patterns the moon would draw on the recessed tide for hours. this was perhaps the only moment in samoa when you could feel any hint of cool air as a nice break from the constant heat. what do i want in this world? what could i possibly ask from a work that has given me so much and yet here i am among the guiltiest of creatures who take and take until there is nothing more to give. do i want to have children and show them around the world? do i want to forever walk alone with my only children being the cracks forming under my eyelids from all i've seen? nah.. i just laugh it off. something keeps calling me and i keep listening. her voice is soft and beautiful and sweet and she has never let me down.

this was five years ago. so much has happened in between and so many times i've lost and found myself. funny thing is that sometimes i cant tell the difference. it was however in one beautiful moment in Ohrid, Makedonia that i really didn't care which way the forces were pulling. funny as it may seem, it was the song 85 by youngbloodz which was left on repeat on grooveshark by a fellow traveler and close friend of mine so late one drunken night. it was at a hostel, which is such a typical place for a traveler to lose and find his or herself. everything just seeming in its right place that night, or perhaps so out of place that it just made sense, i'm not sure. i sat on the cold night grass with my old friend, the moon and a new friend named Petra who was a small turtle and only inhabitant in the tiny lot behind this ohrid hill-side establishment. things came over me that night. i was transported to closeness of every person whose world i've ever been let inside of. and its true as i've been told.

if you cant say it best, quote someone else - they've already said it better than you:

I stepped I left and I don't regret leaving
and I'll never forget all the things I saw that evening
a glimpse of religion a piece of coming closer
to understanding more about what intrigues me most
I didn't get turned on I just got turned
I wasn't as aroused as I was concerned
for each one of em I've hurt
and every time I've been burned
I've got a lot to teach but even more to learn

-atmosphere

funny things happen in this world of sights and sounds and i'm not sure if we'll ever truly understand it. i'm fine with that. i'm just enjoying the ride and being thankful for everything thats ever happened to me whether introspective and prosperous or dark and chaotic.

the art of Tsaravets, Veliko Tarnovo

2011-11-14T11:51:00.007-11:00

we wanderers..

2011-11-02T01:18:00.004-11:00

ah.. its that feeling of winter coming. like a beautiful sadness or maybe a calm before the storm. winter has this way of testing our capacity for depression while remolding us into something beautiful and rewarding us with the springtime.

in it all i cant help but watch the memories ive made this year turn into stories that we lay to rest on our bookshelves and dusty photo albums. its that feeling you get when you leave a city of which you really arent sure you want to leave. you have to force yourself not to look back and you have to put your emotions on hold for a while as the people you love dearly watch your shadow drift off somewhere.

it doesnt get easier.. actually it gets harder every time.

but we wanderers and aware of the path something greater has set before us. we dont know where we will wake up tomorrow and we dont know if we'll ever see the sunlight ever look so beautiful again. for us time is quite decieving. at first it doesnt seem to even exist at all and then when we come back to visit home we see the gaps we've hidden from; and winter is going to come with or without you.

photos by Jetmir İdrizi (much love, my brother)

for now there is work to be done. im not stopping until the world looks like this.

Halloween in Kadıköy, 2011

2011-10-30T22:59:00.016-11:00

its ok to lose yourself*

2011-10-17T22:02:00.006-11:00

there are times when i want to shake the person next to me. 'do you not realize what you are?' seems to me that we are born at the most amazing time in our history. we are writing stories and creating definitions for humankind that previous generations could never even dream of. we have the ability to flip the map of human-earth upside down and wander this planet aimlessly; albeit we do so under the sole condition that we learn something along the way.

this man is a personal hero of mine. youve never heard of him but you should. his name is Erdem Yücel and he originally hails from Ankara, Turkey. he tells the story of a man with a thirst to see things beyond the hills. his method of transportation was a motorcycle and his destination was a path around the world.

i remember him by a few bits of simple wisdom hes left behind following his travels. 'we are not seeing all the wonders of the world, we are only drawing a line around it.' i remember him also by a bit of insight he shares as to why we travel. humans as we know them have been around for something like two hundered thousand years and its only in the recent ten thousand years have we become more stationary. i assume this is because of our transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture that we have begun to confine ourselves. weve crossed the same paths through central asia although at different times and few people really see things the way i do such as he does. anyway you should find this man, we could all take a leaf from his book.

you cant expect to answer personal questions when you travel.. we find ourselves asking the same questions many months down the road. if youre still asking questions you havent been listening.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

oof.. need i say anything. 'for creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.' finding Carl Sagan is much like finding really good underground hip-hop. nobody gives it to you, it is only found through a searching. people who find carl sagan are looking for something. we are disillusioned by religion and we are affraid that our lack of belief in higher power (or lack of understanding) has left us what some would think to be cold and empty. but in reality there is so much to be joyous for. dont you just want to shake the person next to you and say 'do you even realize we are made of stars!' 'do you not even realize the beautifully complicated structure that makes the human brain much less its endlessness of potential!'

it was actually through Carl Sagan that i first created my own definition of what 'love' or 'life' means to me. in fact we are so small and so seemingly insignificant that it could be tempting to believe we do not matter at all in the universe. however this is desperately incorrect. i love you for every piece of nothing that we both are. in something so small as we humans i see the god in you and i see an endless canvas of potential. you may mean nothing to the world but you mean the world to me.

'travel with an insatiable desire to turn planet human-earth's crown upside down' -CMA

and ive seen it. ive seen smiles bigger than the moon and ive seen acts of humanity upon both ends of the same spectrum. ive seen evil that people couldnt write about without worrying their families and ive seen good in the hearts of people so powerful that nations would lose their borders.

ive traveled and i will always travel until the day comes that the director calls cut. ive come too far to go back to a normal life.. if there is such a thing.

in fact ive often lost myself but its ok to lose yourself

*sometimes its the only way to be found

Level 3 maymunlar!

2011-10-13T03:09:00.001-11:00

an evening with the İteful İtes

2011-10-07T23:56:00.011-11:00

we have a long way to go

2011-10-06T19:34:00.008-11:00

but where does it begin?

ive spun around the sun almost 30 times and ive still so much to learn but i have figured out a thing or two in my short time here. im piecing together some of the tips ive learned along the way as well as the bits of advice people have told me about travel and survival in other countries. actually i think im getting pretty good at it. you can drop me off in a village somewhere with a blindfold and i bet i could find food, friends, a place to sleep and likely a beer but im always looking for ways to improve. i want to dive deeper into other cultures and i want to slow down even more than i have in the past. in retrospect, each year ive managed to add another month onto my travel and perhaps this next trip will be even bigger than i thought.

im going to south america. im moving there. but where im moving there isnt a great deal of money to be made (as ive heard) so for the time being ive dedicated myself to the cycles of work and modest living for at least another seven months. its not such a bad deal being stuck (not stuck) in istanbul for another round, this is of course my favorite city in the world and i absolutely predict a return to istanbul a few years down the road but lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.

im so excited about this. im whole-heartedly setting my ambitions to begin this next trip in san diego and traveling the completeness of mexico and central america into south america all the way to buenos aires; there i said it, and now it will be all i think about for the next seven months. there is work to be done. my spanish is rusty at best and im still in debt financially even after five weeks of employment. ill manage. modest living and mindfulness go very far in this world.

i get this rush when i think about mexico and my times ive spent in central america. things were so much different in that part of the world and although i never compare the places ive been to each other i must say that the vibe in that part of the world is unlike anything ive ever felt here. the people i met on the road out there were among the hardest of travelers i have ever met. it never ceased to amaze me what travelers are capable of and its equally amazing how welcoming people are to the wanderings of strangers passing through their villages.

last i went i found my way to the corners of nicaragua. i previously didnt have intentions of even staying in central america for too long but somehow it became like a temporary home for me. i can only imagine what this trip will bring and i can also only imagine the paths i will chose from buenos aires once i have settled there.

this is the beginning of a brand new chapter in my life and i wont skip ahead to the good stuff. i have a whole winter to get through and i refuse to take for granted the beautiful place i now reside in. this year ill be traveling to eastern turkey to visit some ancient cities and i also predict a few other random excursions around the country before i depart. i owe it to this country; ive been here for more than two years and have so much to see.

as its been said.. for now we toast.. may our cups always runneth over.

here it is.. this is a tentative and basic map ive created showing the ideas i have stewing for this trip. an abridged version of this trip would actually cut from peru directly to buenos aires thus saving most of south america for a different trip perhaps including (of course including!) brazil. i call these 'stews and swims' stews being the ideas cooking on the backburner and swims being the actual journey, sometimes they end up taking different routes however these days im a man of focus and travel discipline. we have a long way to go.

Büyükada

2011-09-29T22:15:00.014-11:00

to live and love in İstanbul

2011-09-23T22:55:00.015-11:00

the day that sun runs out of batteries...

2011-09-21T02:59:00.007-11:00

İn the far east of turkey there is a mountain known as Nemrut which is believed to be the ancient and undiscovered tomb of Antiochus I, king of the Commagene. Although the relics left behind of this ancient satelite to the ancient greeks, there was however a great number of statues that now lay left behind beheaded and scattered amongst the dusty mountain sands. The romans came, conquered and looted thus abandoning this ancient marvel to the mystery of travelers and ponderers of centuries to come.

İn this far, yet central location of the ancient world that i haved resided for two years i still find myself in constant awe of the history we sleep upon. our city stands above layers of untold stories that are simply too intertwined within themselves to be unraveled. the tunneling of a subway between the two continents that embrace istanbul is constantly interrupted with the finding of ancient sea vessels that baffle historians and force new theories about the civilizations that preceeded. even the curious story of how yerebatan was 'discovered' still tickles me; i heard it was chanced upon when a frenchman visited sultanahmet and was invited into a home for fish caught from beneath his hosts' floorboards.

needless to say i have spent two years growing increasingly curious about the world in far eastern turkey. in fact i think ill finally get a chance to check it out in a few short months over break. i could start in mardin and work my way back and forth to Adıyama. its time to travel a bit of this country ive come to love..

2011-09-17T21:41:00.001-11:00

life, love, stress and setbacks

2011-09-14T21:29:00.003-11:00

yeah we pay our debts sometimes..

just popped in to say that i'm doin' alright :)

oh yeah.. and i heard again today that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch you must first create the universe. cant help but feel a bit symbolic; i did wake up this morning and felt the desire to start again from scratch.

you should slow down a bit sometimes, start from the bottom up.

introspection in action.. thanks bhante

this must be the place

2011-08-31T07:59:00.002-11:00

Detroit, Michigan

2011-08-28T06:58:00.004-11:00

this morning, sunday morning, i woke up on my friend's couch to the long-lost and beautiful sounds of church bells. my ears first heard their sounds long before i opened my eyes and i felt something come over me suggesting that a very long chapter of my life had drawn to a close. i knew the next sounds of worship i would hear would be those of the imam's ezen calling from the mosques of a city i have come to know for two years as home.. and i knew that would be the last time i'd see my detroit friends for a long while.

last night was amazing. the first touches of our glasses began with one of those in-depth conversations about a god who we have never seen or heard yet somehow silences all of us. i also saw the shadows of the future looming far in the distance as i looked to what will surely be a very interesting year for myself and those who i have come to know and love. i met with some of the best people this world has created and sank into a few of the best conversations i have ever had.

i know in every walk of this earth that i am blessed.

the night turned into a great night of detroit, finding our way onto the fooftops of an estranged old building, turned loft, turned late night venue and with everything in its right place i became deeply immersed in laughter and hugs.

we come from a different breed. we're the kind of people that make people from the suburbs of the midwest uncomfortable and one could only imagine how someone like us comes off to the people of another culture. we actually care about things too and we see the human species as one of great potential. this life is ours to write a book full of chapters of experience and stories and we appreciate those who take the time to share a few pages.

my travels have taken me to a lot of strange and beautiful places but i'll never again find a place like detroit. i've never met such crazy mother f**kers and i've never seen such unique places to reside. where else can one turn abandonment into such a vessel of art and creativity?

and we feel our time and place.

i remember the first few weeks of my residence in detroit when i used to take long walks down the train tracks near the new center. me and my new friends met a few people perhaps ten years our senior who had found their time and place in detroit and i knew at that moment i would one day be among the experienced of this town.

and here i am.

i've expatriated into a new land and a new life yet one cannot change where he is from. i take with me the soul of my city and the experiences i've found here are among the cracks in my eyelids - i wouldn't trade a single moment.

and now its time to leave. see you again, friends.

the pale blue dot..

2011-08-24T06:13:00.012-11:00

this picture really inspired me. it was taken in february 1990 by Voyager 1 and has since been an icon of how tiny our planet and its inhabitants are. yet somehow i find great comfort in my perception of what defines 'endlessness', my lifetime will not see an end to the exploration of this tiny planet and i'm fine with that. its really not bad being tiny.

as tiny and extremely temporary as we are however there is much love to be found. i think that it is in this nothingness that we can all relate to things that make us feel as if we are a part of something bigger, perhaps the institution of friendship or the importance of community. in that nothingness we find opportunities to run away together into the farthest corners of our pale blue dot to be in each other's company. we shout to the skies as if they cannot hear us when we whisper and sit at the same feast at the same fire. we mark our faces and forget that the existence of time ever touched our lives.

yet it all seems so limitless..

universum

2011-08-23T13:35:00.002-11:00

we wanderers..

2011-08-16T08:29:00.005-11:00

a prophet once said, "don't tell me what a man says, don't tell me what a man knows, tell me where he has traveled."

i had this strange feeling again for the first time in about two months. i was on the train from chicago to detroit, recently departed from my visit to a few of my oldest friends, and suddenly that overwhelming sensation of being alone and separated from the rest of the world took me over. when you dont speak for long periods of time the world becomes a place of sights and sounds. the view from the window of my train cabin shows endless nature cut off by jolting visions of speeding trains blasting by you in the opposite direction. youre alone with your thoughts. you have one and only one reaction to what travels you have just experienced: you smile and nod or you gaze endlessly to the land of regret. i'll not stare off into regret.

coming home is like being a wild animal returned to his own kind. suddenly youre important and your stories somewhat matter to people. youre an ambassador of worldly knowledge and as my father has told me youre responsible for the education to others about the cultures you have visited; to a traveler the world grows bigger but to those we visit it is our job to erase the borders of perception.

i love this job. i love old maps. i love food. i love people with jet-black hair and green eyes. i love the funny languages they speak and i also love the even funnier one i speak. we sit at the table that somewhat resembles a united nations meeting, each of us from different countries. our fathers and grandfathers may have killed each other but we drink together. its an amazing feeling to be seated at that feast.

yet it all seems so limitless.. until you find yourself gazing from the window of a train or nodding off in an empty airport terminal at 4am. youre alone again. your shadow begins to fade from the memories of your companions and you become a story. you hold in your hand the tiny scraps of paper they have written their email addresses on and your shirt smells like their cigarettes but you are gone and nobody knows where you are. i felt this when i left Ohrid. i felt this in albania, sicily the black sea and virtually every place i have wandered away from alone. there is, in fact, a great deal of learning one can endure upon being alone. you will always surprise yourself.

this chapter is about three weeks from drawing to a close and i will have completed four solid months of vigorous travel. i've been to twelve countries and three states. i've met some of the most interesting people this world has to offer and i've worn lines on the sides of my eyes as one wears notches on the side of their belt. i'll return to istanbul and begin a new chapter; one with art, music and lively nights. i'll take residence in a different part of the city, in fact a different continent and there i will bind the pages of what is to be the next chapter of my travels sometime next year.

bless.

Chicago, Illinois

2011-08-14T09:02:00.012-11:00

time and place

2011-08-05T13:00:00.002-11:00

to say things happen for a reason would be an understatement. its not a coincidence.. we are on a schedule...

being a person of simplicity i took a moment to ask myself a strange yet important question: where am i? to any normal person a question like this would seem ridiculous but i'm a man who wakes up having absolutely no idea where i am. i've woken up without opening my eyelids in light of fooling myself when things come into focus. i have strange dreams every night and i often remember them to their fullest.

but where am i? i looked at a calendar. i'm 20:05 on 5 August, 2011. i'm sterling heights michigan. i'm living room, blue couch facing west. one galaxy out of a hundred billion galaxies. and it made me wonder if where i am is simply a connection between time and place.

maybe there is more. maybe i am a light at the end of a long path connecting the present moment and location to the moment and location of my birth, marking every step of my path ive taken along the way. maybe i'm a line on a map in a very confusing path.. a very beautiful path for which i'm thanking every upright step i've taken.

i thought about moments in my past that were very important to me that seemed to happen so fluidly as if by chance, yet you and i know there are no coincidences in nature. i thought about the exact moment i met some of the dearest friends i've ever made and those moments were so fragile that even a pause to tie a shoelace would have spoiled them. time and place met beautifully and to this day our paths continue to travel together.

i've traveled halfway around the world to find those wanderers of my path so that we might walk together again.

so comfortably the days of our years fit into tiny boxes on twelve sheets of paper and so conveniently our maps remind us that 'you are here' and if you put those together you find the precise crossing of time and place that we declare to be a "moment". yet i wonder, does my conciousness operate on the same rules of time and place that we humans are confined to? do we share a conciousness collectively that operates under much more complicated principles? maybe there is a logical explaination to the absence of coincidences in our lives.. maybe we are part of something bigger and we wouldn't have the option to stop to tie our shoes should the oportunity present itself at all.

have you ever done something simply on a hunch?

i do that shit all the time..

Magic Stick, Detroit (pink lightning, noman, black joe louis)

2011-08-05T06:31:00.008-11:00

Barcelona, España

2011-08-04T04:07:00.011-11:00

Madrid, España

2011-08-04T03:58:00.010-11:00