beroq
04-14-2009, 11:20 AM
*Please make sure you also read Part I of the story which is somewhere below.
There is a price of being on the road: To contemplate. Everybody thinks but the man whose fate concurs with the roads thinks more deeply than anyone else and goes as deep as possible and mostly hurts himself. He has the time and excuses for these. And even the shortest roads are always long enough for anything. The man who starts off only to walk on, but not to contemplate, finally finds out that what brought him to the beginning of the road is a kind of thinking. The equation is simple: You cannot set out without contemplating about something. You cannot help contemplating after setting out.
Contemplating makes one pay a price. A thinking man remembers what he does not want to remember and this makes him sorry. All the bad experiences he went through; fights, separations, rebellions, heartbreaks and failures -- all come forward and stand right before him. The man has to face them one by one; and that is the very price to pay for.
The man who is on the road and who, unavoidably, has to contemplate remembers some good things. These come alongside the bad things but are indeed less effectual. For man has a natural propensity for giving priority to the things that hurt him.
To be on the road and to head for a certain fate literally sends an invitation card to the man on some point of the road to focus all his attention on his life without putting out much energy.
The road is the history itself. It has never thought of betraying the few courageous men rebelling against the tyrant and the dictator while it is leading them to the small passages under big ramparts. The road has never felt disappointment toward the pale and downtrodden masses that have lost their wholeness through semi-happiness and semi-anger while it sees them off to the kingdom of heaven that they have been dreaming about for ages. The road has never disclosed the weak and fragile sides of the brave people that succeed to stand strong. The road is the most ancient companion of man.
Many cannot figure out how important to be on the road is despite the fact that this act is a far stronger massage than anything else. To be on the road is not to promise, but to fulfill. It is not a simple intention, but a process far exceeding that. It is the progress only made possible with the cooperation between man and nature.
Ekrem did not set off having all those thoughts in his mind, yet he felt them all. And this was a big progress for him. Normally he did not pay much attention to such thoughts. But now he was able to feel some of them very deeply.
Some drastic changes had taken place in him. He had had a strange feeling when he saw his dirty black and white cat walking firmly toward the west horizon painted red by the setting sun. Even when he turned to his friends beside him and said, “There is something strange in this cat of mine,” and when they answered, “He is the black sheep of the town and this is your fault,” that last image of the cat had kept his mind busy for a long time. That evening he could not anticipate that that would be the last time he saw his cat.
But he neither saw him nor did they bring news from him. And, with time, he began to think over this. He made a broad analysis of his life. He knew he was all alone in the long journey of accounting of his life. He could not seek for help from his friends.
All right, he said. Now that I have got to do it on my own, let’s consent to it. Maybe they give me a watery apple in the end.
No one gave him an apple or something else. Ekrem understood that he had to complete his journey with the possibility of having nothing in the end. He did not give up and made every effort to retain his courage. He replied to his friends’ questions with short answers. For a long time, oh, for a very long time, he dived into a huge seclusion. Ekrem lived accordingly for almost forty-two hours, contemplating over his life seriously and determinedly. When he ended the journey in his soul, he was both tired and hungry.
First, he ate a huge meal and then summoned his friends and spoke to them. The people of the town did not know what those men were talking about. Ekrem had said them so many important things.
“Listen to me, my friends,” he had started his address. “I know you wonder what the hell is happening to me. Yes, something did happen to me; there is no way denying it. I do not actually want to deny it as it is already making me happy and satisfied.
Do you know when everything really started? When I saw my poor cat walking toward that way. Then something snapped in me.
I thought about my cat, then about me. Then about my grandfather and my old man. Then I thought about you and then about myself once again. Do you wonder what occurred finally? Nothing. A huge, dirty, sticky nothing. I understood we had kept being nothing for such a long time. Are you consent to this?
I said ‘never’ to this question. And I understood I needed to go. I decided to be on the road to learn something. I do not know what. But I believe it is something we could find on the road.
Some people may think going means nothing but dying. I know it is different for us. We know how to go just as we knew how to come. If we do not want to live as guests in this world, we need to manage this.
My cat told me something. And I told you what he told me. It is you who need to decide it. That’s all I could say.”
This was Ekrem’s farewell speech. His friends knew that Ekrem would not be around any longer. While his friends are pondering over what they just heard and if Ekrem was serious about them all, he set off in the darkness and marched toward the direction that his cat had already chosen to take.
He walked straight until dusk. When there are red lights on the east, he was standing on a smooth hill. He turned his head and looked, scanning the whole horizon. There was no one there. There might be no one there anymore.
There is a price of being on the road: To contemplate. Everybody thinks but the man whose fate concurs with the roads thinks more deeply than anyone else and goes as deep as possible and mostly hurts himself. He has the time and excuses for these. And even the shortest roads are always long enough for anything. The man who starts off only to walk on, but not to contemplate, finally finds out that what brought him to the beginning of the road is a kind of thinking. The equation is simple: You cannot set out without contemplating about something. You cannot help contemplating after setting out.
Contemplating makes one pay a price. A thinking man remembers what he does not want to remember and this makes him sorry. All the bad experiences he went through; fights, separations, rebellions, heartbreaks and failures -- all come forward and stand right before him. The man has to face them one by one; and that is the very price to pay for.
The man who is on the road and who, unavoidably, has to contemplate remembers some good things. These come alongside the bad things but are indeed less effectual. For man has a natural propensity for giving priority to the things that hurt him.
To be on the road and to head for a certain fate literally sends an invitation card to the man on some point of the road to focus all his attention on his life without putting out much energy.
The road is the history itself. It has never thought of betraying the few courageous men rebelling against the tyrant and the dictator while it is leading them to the small passages under big ramparts. The road has never felt disappointment toward the pale and downtrodden masses that have lost their wholeness through semi-happiness and semi-anger while it sees them off to the kingdom of heaven that they have been dreaming about for ages. The road has never disclosed the weak and fragile sides of the brave people that succeed to stand strong. The road is the most ancient companion of man.
Many cannot figure out how important to be on the road is despite the fact that this act is a far stronger massage than anything else. To be on the road is not to promise, but to fulfill. It is not a simple intention, but a process far exceeding that. It is the progress only made possible with the cooperation between man and nature.
Ekrem did not set off having all those thoughts in his mind, yet he felt them all. And this was a big progress for him. Normally he did not pay much attention to such thoughts. But now he was able to feel some of them very deeply.
Some drastic changes had taken place in him. He had had a strange feeling when he saw his dirty black and white cat walking firmly toward the west horizon painted red by the setting sun. Even when he turned to his friends beside him and said, “There is something strange in this cat of mine,” and when they answered, “He is the black sheep of the town and this is your fault,” that last image of the cat had kept his mind busy for a long time. That evening he could not anticipate that that would be the last time he saw his cat.
But he neither saw him nor did they bring news from him. And, with time, he began to think over this. He made a broad analysis of his life. He knew he was all alone in the long journey of accounting of his life. He could not seek for help from his friends.
All right, he said. Now that I have got to do it on my own, let’s consent to it. Maybe they give me a watery apple in the end.
No one gave him an apple or something else. Ekrem understood that he had to complete his journey with the possibility of having nothing in the end. He did not give up and made every effort to retain his courage. He replied to his friends’ questions with short answers. For a long time, oh, for a very long time, he dived into a huge seclusion. Ekrem lived accordingly for almost forty-two hours, contemplating over his life seriously and determinedly. When he ended the journey in his soul, he was both tired and hungry.
First, he ate a huge meal and then summoned his friends and spoke to them. The people of the town did not know what those men were talking about. Ekrem had said them so many important things.
“Listen to me, my friends,” he had started his address. “I know you wonder what the hell is happening to me. Yes, something did happen to me; there is no way denying it. I do not actually want to deny it as it is already making me happy and satisfied.
Do you know when everything really started? When I saw my poor cat walking toward that way. Then something snapped in me.
I thought about my cat, then about me. Then about my grandfather and my old man. Then I thought about you and then about myself once again. Do you wonder what occurred finally? Nothing. A huge, dirty, sticky nothing. I understood we had kept being nothing for such a long time. Are you consent to this?
I said ‘never’ to this question. And I understood I needed to go. I decided to be on the road to learn something. I do not know what. But I believe it is something we could find on the road.
Some people may think going means nothing but dying. I know it is different for us. We know how to go just as we knew how to come. If we do not want to live as guests in this world, we need to manage this.
My cat told me something. And I told you what he told me. It is you who need to decide it. That’s all I could say.”
This was Ekrem’s farewell speech. His friends knew that Ekrem would not be around any longer. While his friends are pondering over what they just heard and if Ekrem was serious about them all, he set off in the darkness and marched toward the direction that his cat had already chosen to take.
He walked straight until dusk. When there are red lights on the east, he was standing on a smooth hill. He turned his head and looked, scanning the whole horizon. There was no one there. There might be no one there anymore.