A Sultan's daughter was once prophesied to die on her 16th birthday from the bite of a snake was locked in a tower on an island in the water to keep her safe. On her 16th birthday her father brought her a basket of fruits and delights as he was excited he had escaped the prophesy. An asp had sneaked into the basket and the Sultan watched as she was bitten and died.
We cannot escape our asps. The fall has made us creatures of sin. We will fall and we will fail. To not prepare, to hide to pretend as though these trials are not coming leaves one wishing they had seen the outside before the bite. We are but grass in a field. We have our season in life and then winter comes. At 22 I am well into Spring and heading towards my Summer. As Solomon tells us, we will be forgotten, generations will pass and our riches will fall to the hands of fools. We have today. We are promised this very hour, this very moment and nothing more. The oldest city in the world stands as a testament to the insignificant nature of humans when compared to the universe. The Bosporus ebbs and flows the same as it did thousands of years ago. The stars laugh at out hubris as they burn so far from our reach. If we were to travel at the speed of light our entire lives we would die of old age before we could ever get close enough to hear wisdom from their years.
A Turkish woman cries about the loss of her mother and father, how she hates her job, feels her life is so empty. At rock bottom, how many people around the world have felt this same story. For a world so big, for people so different, we share the same stories. Despair, love, loss, anger, lust, happiness, hope, shared by men and women across the globe, separated only by geography and language. Separated more simply by will. The willingness to overcome that distance and dialogue. People sing to Rab, God, Isa, Jesus, Allah, all searching for meaning and a never moving anchor. Whether to a god or not, everyone in the world is in search of meaning. I intend to find out where people are searching and what they have found. If willing to listen, I'll share with them what connects me to people I have never before met, yet consider brother and sister. Shadrach, I've pondered so much about life since I've talked to you. So much about who we are meant to be, what we are meant to accomplish. I believe part of that is to bring people across the world together. To show people something that makes it impossible for them to not want to reach out to the ends of the earth and touch a fellow human being and understand.
Life is a series of dreams. Some nightmares, some heart warming, but all beautiful in their creation. We wake up from the dream and somehow it is not as tangible as it was the moment we were there. I am in an Ottoman dream, a world older than I can imagine, one that challenges my youth to overcome its naivete. I am reminded of the song "Old Man River" when I think about its wisdom. Yet, when I wake, the people, the places, the smells, tastes and sounds will all be gone, but I will enjoy every moment I am in it.
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