CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The American writer Cormac McCarthy said, “I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.” I have crossed paths with a number of people who have confused my free-spirited, adventurous, caring, and generous personality with a lack of intelligence and weakness. People will test you, play silly games, make sarcastic comments, take jabs at you, and if you let them, will use you, all the while thinking you have no awareness of the situation.
Mae West once said, “Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often,” and Abraham Lincoln said, “The trouble with too many people is they believe the realm of truth always lies within their vision.” I have met quite a few people in my life who were easily shocked, as well as those whose interpretation of events were far from the truth. How life events, especially complicated ones, are perceived, interpreted, and judged by other people depends on their willingness and capability to understand and the type of biases they hold. Living in a society where people easily believe in anything is like a contagious disease. Being a Turkish Immigrant in a town without any representation gave many opportunists and silent bullies a chance to throw a lot of dirt at me. I have seen firsthand what ordinary people are capable of, if given the chance to cause damage to one another.
I have seen quite a few biased people unfairly taking sides without giving their target a chance to explain his or her position. I would love to sit down across from these judgmental people and ask them specific questions that I know for a fact they lack the knowledge to answer. I can already envision them continually saying, “I didn’t know that” after hearing each new fact. The type of mentality many Witch Hunters possessed throughout history is still present in many of our so-called modern societies. The difference is, instead of burning people like in ancient times, these people try to destroy others by judging and gossiping about them.
I think talking about others is a part of everyday life for a good amount of people. Most people do it in hopes of setting the world straight. They try to separate right from wrong based on available facts and their perception of these facts. But at what point does a conversation involving others become gossip? I think the shift comes when it involves negative thoughts and, more importantly, ill intentions.
People who gossip transmit negative information to help themselves feel better, because it leaves less room for their own flaws, shortcomings, and sins to be the topic of discussion. So, if you’re someone who highly values the virtue of understanding, which the truth demands from us, make it a habit to stand up for people who lack representation.
The biggest problem with gossip is the absence of the person who is being torn to pieces — they are not able to defend themself. Anyone who engages in gossip needs to ask themself one important question: Would they want the person they are gossiping with to sit as a juror when a human life might be at stake? What if that life belonged to one of their loved ones? Take your time answering the question. Ideally, we want jurors to be unbiased and to have the ability to understand events. So why not hold people who have made gossiping a daily habit to the same standards?
Someone once said, “People can stand anything except other people’s happiness.” I understood what this quote meant but was unable to fully grasp its meaning until I personally witnessed the lengths people could go to destroy another’s joy. I found myself so many times thinking “I am not the cause of your unhappiness.”
I have met a few people in my life whose main occupation seemed to be seeking out others’ flaws and mistakes. People who are constantly scouting for other people’s flaws usually also hope for them to make mistakes and fail.
I have personally witnessed people constantly looking for ways to ruin others’ joy simply because they were happy. A happy person is not necessarily someone without any difficulties or misery in his or her life. There are many happy people out there who simply don’t believe in taking their problems out on others.
Human population is continually growing with currently over 8 billion people in the world. One of the things I find very disturbing is the serious threats some world leaders make. What gives these people the right to create anxiety and fear to billions of people around the world? Every human on this earth deserves an equal opportunity and chance to enjoy what life has to offer.
It is saddening to see how politics in America has infiltrated the daily lives of ordinary citizens. The requirement to be politically correct in our daily interactions with our fellow humans has put great strain on our relationships with one another and caused many people great stress and anxiety. There is a lot of division and lack of trust in the air these days. Just about everything has become about race, political affiliation, religion, or our views on world events. Racism, bigotry, prejudice, and stereotyping all seem to surround us, and it seems like we have forgotten to notice and focus on our similarities, deciding instead to focus on our differences.
Lack of effective communication and willingness to have honest conversations about our true feelings leads many people to misinterpret, misunderstand, judge, and envy one another. Throughout my years in America, I have become friends with many good people from different backgrounds, cultures, and faiths — including agnostics and atheists — and enjoyed learning many new and positive things from them. I’ve seen bad people come in all forms and from all backgrounds.
I have found myself on different sides of issues at different times, after gaining new facts that changed my perspective. I wasn’t always right, but I always did my best to be fair without any agenda. Having an agenda can make a person turn a blind eye to facts and therefore keep them away from the truth. I think the biggest problem humans have today in terms of why they don’t get along is seeing things as black and white, having fanatical ideologies, and lacking the ability to understand the struggles of others. Progressive societies tend to have individuals with independent thinking ability who rely on facts, outnumbering the people who form opinions and come to conclusions based on gossip. Tribal mentality is what prevents societies from becoming more advanced and freer.
I found myself surrounded by people who engage in sarcasm in an attempt to inform you of their displeasure and disapproval of things about you that they don't fully understand. I've seen such sarcastic behavior displayed in the form of some of the most sneaky and creative ways both in public and at workplace. The jabs people took at me helped me be aware of the level of judgmental and ignorant attitudes that were still strong and present in our societies. I watched these people stay silent and look the other way when their friends or people with protection and large circles engaged in behaviors that could be the topic of discussion for decades. I was one of those people who looked the other way too but not because I had a self-interest in doing so. It was because I would need a lot of facts and details to fully understand the circumstances surrounding these events and I simply had no interest in doing so. I have always aimed to be a nonjudgmental person because I had good awareness of how complex people and the situations they deal with could be. Unless I was prepared to commit a lot of time into fully understanding what somebody was dealing with, I wasn't going to judge them. This is why I refrain from making sarcastic comments to people in an effort to give a sneaky message to them. I don't know their situation, what they're dealing with and their circumstances. I am not wearing their shoes. I think people who easily judge don't value the importance of understanding and personal growth.
Most of us want to be included, acknowledged, and understood. We want others to understand our struggles, challenges, and hardships. But people tend to put up walls and resist anything they’re not familiar with. This is often connected to the fear of the unknown. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand what made people judge those they perceived to be different. What caused them to overlook the sins of some and forgive those who they considered to be part of their group, while fixating on the flaws of anyone they considered an outsider? “Cult mentality” is one of the biggest causes of division among people, because we feel safe in groups. Unfortunately, we sometimes choose this safe feeling over doing what is right for our fellow humans.
Sometimes the mistakes we make in life can overshadow our good nature and can also provide openings for opportunistic people who enjoy causing harm to us, which in turn can set us up for more mistakes. Once you start going down, it can be hard to find hands to help you rise up, while plenty of kicks can be found to keep you on the ground. My advice to people who find themselves in situations where no one seems to care is always to rely on your own good heart, to look for good people (they are always around), and to remember that every day is full of new opportunities. As hard as it can be sometimes, don’t let people change you for the worse. Hope is a very powerful thing and sometimes it’s all we have. Let hope always be part of your life.
Most of my friends in this country have had Christian upbringings. I have met some amazing Christians who taught me the importance of forgiveness and patience. While music and sports have been my main coping mechanisms, a lot of credit also has to go to the books of Proverbs and Job, for giving me the wisdom and strength to deal with life’s challenges. I have enjoyed celebrating Christmas every year in this country and plan on continuing to do so. It’s a special time of the year, and my children love it and so do I. The anticipation of Christmas morning and watching my kids open their presents while listening to Christmas songs by the tree carries many great memories for me. I can never forget my friends who opened their homes to me to celebrate Christmas many years ago, some of whom are no longer around.
So, I find myself indulging in deep thoughts in the company of Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green.” As I look back at my life, I take comfort in the fact that I have always tried to stay true to myself, although there were times I felt confused, sad, disappointed and lost.
I am proud of not giving in to the pressures of the masses, not following the crowds unless things felt right in my heart. For this reason, there were times I stood all alone and poorly understood. I wasn’t afraid to try new things to help me grow and evolve. I made more than a few mistakes along the way, but these contributed to who I am today, and I wouldn’t be who I am without them. I am comfortable with the mistakes I made as we are all human. What I found most disturbing and unfair is the lies people tell and the assumptions people make. I paid a high price for giving much more respect to certain people than they deserved, at times being too easygoing and most importantly not knowing my self-worth for so long. I guess when you focus on the good of people while tolerating a lot of their abuse and toxicity, you can easily find yourself exhausted, damaged, and unappreciated. I enjoyed helping people when I could, donated to multiple charities and others’ personal struggles, tipped cooks, helped hardworking yard guys, helped friends, fed the hungry, and sent money to children’s foundations as far away as Armenia.
I have often tried to encourage people who lost hope and make them smile. For me it has always been the human emotion that was the most important. Being around good people made me feel good and, in some ways, strengthened my faith. Goodness is what makes life worth living.
Some of my best years were in childhood. In many ways I never grew up and have always tried to keep the child in me alive. I consider myself a free thinker and a spiritual person. The fear of being on this earth as a mere coincidence becomes overwhelming at times. When I have my doubts, looking at how innocent my children are helps strengthen my faith in the existence of some higher power.
When I was a kid, I remember reading a book called Butun Cocuklar Gulmeli (All Children Should Laugh) by the Turkish author Hakki Ozkan. I can’t remember exactly what it was about, but I remember enjoying it a lot, and its title says it all.
Our childhood years are the most important times of our lives. All children deserve to be loved, be healthy, enjoy their childhoods, and laugh as often as possible. As a father, I have made it my duty to first keep my kids safe and, second, let them enjoy these golden years fully just like I was fortunate enough to. I remind my children often that there are kids out there without food, water, and shelter.
When I was a kid, my mom was friends with a couple who had a daughter and a son a few years older than his sister. She was just three years old when she was diagnosed with leukemia. My mom gave a lot of support to the family during those challenging times, and she was right by the girl’s side when she passed at just five years old.
During those years when the little girl was getting treatment, the older brother was somewhat neglected and was treated unfairly at times by some family members. I remember playing with him and his cousin, who was also my childhood friend. He was the nicest kid. My mom told me that a few years later, the boy also was diagnosed with leukemia and passed shortly after. Two cute, innocent children were gone, leaving their parents devastated.
Ever since then, this tragic and traumatic event has stayed with me. I started researching years ago to better understand the serious illnesses, especially cancer, faced by children. I wish we could find a cure for cancer and save every sick child out there, so they could spend more time doing what all children should be doing — playing, learning, drawing, and laughing. Until then, perhaps we can all do our share and hope to make a difference in the world.
It’s sunny and 71 degrees out, so I put on my plain white T, my Levi’s 514 blue jeans, and my flip-flops. I put on my $9 Top Gun sunglasses. I am content, grateful, hopeful, much more experienced, hungry to explore, discover, learn, grow, evolve, and mature in an attempt to bring some type of meaning to this life, and as ready as I’ll ever be...
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