LARGE PIECES

Hello, my dear friends of life in my heavenly Turkey, whose health is precious, whose hearts are kind, whose souls are beautiful, and who are full of awareness.

In our previous article, we had one-on-one conversations and shared our feelings with our valuable young friends, who are the guarantee of our future. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Now I feel relieved. Thank you for your emails and kind wishes. To answer your questions in the most general way possible, I would like to share an incident I witnessed recently.

While waiting in line at the supermarket, I heard a woman’s screams coming from the back aisles. Since snatching things isn’t a common occurrence inside the store (though you should still protect yourselves), what were those screams about? Our feelings and emotions as a society are so stifled that, believe it or not, no one bothered to turn their heads and ask, “What’s going on? Why is this woman screaming?” The woman was shouting at the top of her lungs, “Please stop! Enough! Enough!” I stepped out of line and went to the back aisles. When I arrived, I saw a four-year-old boy and his mother with a baby in her arms. The little boy had knocked over most of the chips from the food section and was scattering the rest everywhere. When I got there, he was crying and continuing to knock over everything on the next shelf. How had a child that age managed to turn that aisle into a war zone so quickly? I was surprised myself. Imagine his mother. I saw that the little boy had completely taken control of his mother during this incident. The mother was simultaneously begging her son to stop his tantrum, pleading “Don’t do that…!”, and slapping him. She and her young son were having a nervous breakdown. With each slap, the child’s crying and conflict with his mother intensified. Finally giving in, the mother handed the child sweets and chips, muttering and threatening him, “Next time I’ll break your legs, watch out. This is the last time.” Analyzing the behavior, body language, and most importantly, the psychology of the mother and her young son would take too long; so I’ll get to the point. Now, let’s imagine for a moment that this 4-year-old child has grown up and become a 40-year-old man like me. Do you think the scenario has changed? Of course not. It hasn’t. Anyone who dares to criticize this man (pardon, I meant child) in the slightest, or to portray his wrongdoings objectively, is doomed. Woe to them.

Whether you are 4 or 40 years old, whoever you are, if you reject everything as an individual and pretend to be completely innocent, the reckoning you give to your inner world will remain the same. Worse, another debt will be added to your subconscious. When these debts accumulate, your unresolved accounts will tear large pieces from your self-esteem. Goodbye.

WEEKLY AWARENESS NOTE

In behavioral disorders, there’s a model called hypochondria. Individuals who cannot confront anxiety stemming from unresolved subconscious conflicts invent various illnesses to escape this anxiety. You might ask, “What’s the connection?”, but I sometimes feel the need to integrate this model with different behavioral disorders. I think showing a reality- and holistic approach to people experiencing existential angst, and providing explanations in that direction, helps some personality structures confront their anxieties. A friend called me recently and we had a long conversation; it turns out his real intention was to “mention” that he bought a Porsche and ask how I was doing.

First of all, it’s like a cup of coffee offered by those who champion humanism, a gesture of kindness towards their guests; the thought of it causing indigestion in others reminded me of this. I wanted to share it with you, our valued readers.

Uğur Uğural