Hello, I'm Ozan, it is a turkish name that means "a bard, a story-teller and a composer". It is neither my real name nor I'm from Türkiye, but I've always ha...
Modern life throws so many stimuli at us that our deep work capacity is overthrown by the curse of constant context switch. Nowadays, I look at the main character of Memento with awe, "what a good memory he has" I reckon. This is why I love to write stuff I know is available in a thousand blog posts, and a small prompt away as well. I'd write the most inane articles about concepts that are common…
When I know I have the whole day before me to study or work on a project there is this tendency to fill up the space before getting down to work. I would start doing the dishes, cleaning up the house, or reading articles, uncounciously prioritizing anything but starting the task at hand. If I think about having to start there is this strange anxiety that takes over me, because my mind pictures all…
It has always been common understanding that in the arts we placed extreme importance on the technical excellence we see reflected upon the produced object. Meaning, when we appreciated a picture, a painting or written word, perceiving it as flawless would increase our appreciation of it. On the other hand, small mishaps or inconsistencies also added "character" and a human layer to the piece.…
I found this paragraph in a song about a horrible person that I won't even write it here, yet these lines are so powerful that taken outside of context made me think about the despair of life on autopilot, life being lived with a mask on. En costume-cravate dans un bureau sans vie Quelle vie vit-on quand on n'a pas la vie qu'on veut ? Qui sommes-nous quand on n'peut être que c'que l'on peut ?…
Disclaimer: there is absolutely no new information in this post that you haven't heard a thousand times over in your life. Life as an adult (can) suck big time, you've got a whole slew of self imposed-responsibilities that you don't even want but for some reason end up for. The pull of barrel-aged societal wisdom and common sense is so powerful we don't even realize how little free will we have. A…
I'm going to make use of this post for the rant of the rantest, if not ranter. I got my performance review last week. My manager argued that all the senior developers of my team, myself included, and most of the developers on other teams, were being "demoted" one grade from their current titles to one level below, because almost nobody was meeting the "expectations" of the level they were supposed…
Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations", Book 8, Passage 38. If you can see sharp, look and judge wisely. I like the implications of this passage. There are a lot of lectures I can do. How do I even start to interpret it? My initial impulse is to devote all my attention to the second part of the phrase. Look and judge wisely . However it doesn't feel fair, I pompously assume I can see sharp. I mean, I am…
I was watching a youtube video about a man that owned a kissaten for 50 years in Okayama. A sentence the owner said struck me as I've felt that some times in my life: I have a feeling that humans can't make memories without some level of comfort or ease within their mind When you're not with a calm mind, it becomes very difficult to create new memories, which also translates into inability to…
Oh everyone is telling us "don't drive there, it's dangerous, google 'oh dangerous'...psh, whatever, life's for the living. This fucking guy. In a single sentence he's managed to convey a life philosophy that makes me so jealous of him because I just can't help but worry about absolutely everything. Bread gang is an amazing channel and they are absolutely living the life I am too afraid to live.
There are bad days.. and there are legendary bad days. Riddick could not put it into words better. Although nobody tried to murder or eat me, sometimes you just won't have a good day or week. Out of nowhere the feeling of despair pops up and if you're lucky you'll know the reason so you can take some preventive action, or at least react to it to minimize the impact. If you're not, you're up for a…