Dust Cloud

We have left another year behind. It was a dreadful year. A virus we never considered, one that never even crossed our minds, descended right into the middle of our lives. This time, "powerful" countries were affected too, so much so that thousands of elderly people died alone in the heart of Europe without holding the hands of their loved ones; thousands of people across the four corners of the globe were imprisoned in their homes for weeks without ever seeing a single soul... As 2020 ends, it is impossible to forget these horrific agonies and solitudes. And, despite everything, one cannot forget those who lived through it all with a thousand kinds of excess, without skipping a single special day. Welcome, 2021!

We live in an age of consumer madness. Whether we have the means or not, we cannot stop ourselves from buying things. The things we acquire only benefit us; it has been quite some time since we stopped thinking about our neighbours, our friends, or a stranger walking down the street. We have confused selfishness with individuality. We have grown fond of the "snakes that don't bite us." Leaving aside this expression, I won't even involve animals in this piece; those who even notice them are already so few that they might as well not exist!

We all know and repeat that buying things beyond our needs is folly; it is the most exquisite example of feeding the capitalist and imperialist systems we constantly rail against. But, does "buying" only apply to objects? What about human beings? Can they be bought and sold? Sadly, nowadays, it is not only capitalism that buys and sells humans; people buy and sell each other too, and it is not in the way of falling into the fire of passion and selling one's soul in the marketplace of love, as Yunus Emre did.

Lives flow rapidly in cities. City dwellers do not walk; they always run. They invariably have somewhere they need to get to. It is impossible to tell when morning turns into evening. And people in cities are unhappy. Some suppress this situation with shopping and consumer madness, while others obsess over people; they buy humans and sell humans.

Tolstoy captures the essence of the wretched life flowing beneath that 'good' appearance in great cities best: "A man can live in a city for a hundred years and never even realise that he is long dead and rotting." While swimming in rot from head to toe, it is nothing short of denial to ignore how the beauty of New Year's celebrations turns into such madness, how those humble tables are filled with piles of food that will end up in the trash by the end of the day. So much so that even a pandemic and the chaos the world is enduring are no longer an obstacle to this excess and opulence. Keep on consuming, until you are consumed!

There used to be such a thing as honesty, but it belongs to a bygone time; there was no virtue like living with honour, but even that has long since been forgotten. Because people would manufacture that fake intimacy until they got what they wanted, and once they were done, they would have to find new branches to leap onto. Yet, while leaping to these new branches, they also had to shamelessly smear the branch they just broke. In truth, people were always talking about one another; to engage in conversations rich in knowledge, one needed to be knowledgeable, but that was a laborious task—when one could easily spend, showing off one's supposed knowledge by quoting from daily social media accounts, what was the point of putting in the labour and nurturing growth!

Is it only knowledge? It was evident they knew nothing of love or friendship either. Today with one person, tomorrow with another... it made no difference; if you weren't there, it was possible to leap to the next and be as thick as thieves in a matter of days, yet they weren't happy with that either; they lived with that strange taste of existence, ignoring that they were only multiplying their own misery; whose house it was, whose table it was carried no significance; they had let go of the reins once and for all, and hopping and skipping about was theirs alone to do.

Being authentic is better than being fake, just as being honest is better than being a liar. Indeed, a single lie makes a person a liar for a lifetime; its effect is that grand and that potent. In this context, the era didn't merely turn strange; it transformed entirely into a cloud of dust—the eye cannot see the other eye, and the human cannot see the fellow human. Flowers blossoming with the arrival of spring and the spreading fragrant scents might disperse this dust cloud, but that alone is not enough; to be able to see the beauties of the world and the human spirit, a person must first begin from within themselves—provided they have the courage to descend into their own depths... and one should not view the time spent with oneself as mere loneliness. At this exact point, one must also state: to love and know oneself is not to become selfish; on the contrary, it is to know and nurture labour and love; it is never about using up human beings. This distinction must be made correctly…

Another year has passed. As always, the only things that changed were the digits. Today, we opened our eyes to a world shrouded in dust clouds; to a realm covered on all four sides in deceit, trickery, and artificiality. In this order, where nothing—not even the human being—remains unsold, one must stand still and flow like water, remaining clear and transparent. As the Sufis say: "Do not engage with anyone who deals with you; if you do, you will remain in the same place. Circle around them and continue on your path." One must flow like water, silently circling around those who buy, sell, and use up human beings, never falling into errors or delusions.