Making Music – For A Better Monday Style

Making Music

Finding and Pursuing Our True Passion in Life

Although the title of this post is Making Music, this post is, in fact, more about finding and pursuing our true passion in life. This true passion of mine happened to be making rock music, but I believe that it can actually be pretty much anything as long as the true passion factor is there. This is definitely not a “how-to” post. For this starting point, I decided to rather share with you the story of how making rock music and playing in bands acted as a guiding factor and pretty much shaped my entire life. Despite all the sacrifices I’ve chosen to make in order to peruse my dream, it has pretty much brought me all the joy and positive things I highly value in life. Without this passion of mine, I am certain that my professional career and my finances would be better off today, but my life and my personal history would most likely be way duller. Finding my true passion relatively early on was certainly a blessing in order to turn this life that was given to me into an exciting adventure. That said, not having found our true passion yet, and going out there to find it, can turn itself into an exciting and enriching adventure as well. I hope that some elements of my 28-year-old story of pursuing something I am deeply passionate about can contribute to inspiring others to pursue or find their true passion in life.

My First Exposure to John Bonham in Ankara

I had the chance to grow up in a home where music was highly appreciated. My parents (especially my dad) were into the 70s rock and classical music. At a very early age, while we were still living in the Turkish capital Ankara, I was exposed to bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and composers such as Mahler, Beethoven and more. Besides all these great names, I personally was fascinated by what was after fact called the Turkish Psychedelic Rock movement. As a child, I was a great fan of artists such as Barış Manço, Cem Karaca, and Erkin Koray. For me, they were more than just rock stars. I used to perceive them as some kinds of superheroes. Besides the fact that they played great music in a language I could understand, they also had big Turkish mustaches just like my dad did. The ‘stache element alone could have sufficed to raise them to the superhero status for me at that time, but the reality was that they were fascinating in all aspects of their music and image.Continue reading

Writing 101 – For A Better Monday Style

Writing 101

My Personal History with Regards to Writing

Learning How to Write in Turkish

As a child I wasn’t too much interested in school. To the point when I was attending first grade at the elementary school in Ankara Türkiye, halfway through the school year I was the only one in class who still wasn’t able to write. I suspect my school teacher thinking that I was retarded. At one point we had a long religious holiday weekend. Before the recess, the school teacher met with my mom and told her that I was the only one in class who could not read and write. For the holidays my family had plans to go Bursa to visit my uncle’s side of the family. It ended up being vacation time for everyone in the family except for me. My mom turned the Bursa trip into a writing labor camp so  I can move out from my illiterate situation. Even to this day when I think of the actual trip, the only memory I have, is me sitting at the dinner table with my books, and learning how to write in Turkish. Once the holiday was over and it was time for us to go back to Ankara, I had learned how to read and write. In that sense the writing labor camp was a success. Even though, I had the worst time of my life during that actual holiday in Bursa, I am extremely thankful that my mom took the initiative and forced me to learn how to write in my native language.

Learning How to Write in French

A couple years later my family decided to move to the French speaking part of Switzerland. I was a third grader in Türkiye at that time. If you ask me, I was more of a dreamer, and a terrible student, still not very interested in school work, but somehow I was getting good grades and nobody was giving me trouble. Moving to Switzerland meant that in terms of reading and writing I had to start the entire learning process all over again. Continue reading

Journal Entry: December 25th 2017 – I haven’t done anything for 34 hours!

December 25th 2017

34 Hour Rest

Last week I have been eating everyday except for Sunday. As I am writing this post it’s 1:00PM Monday, and I am still fasting. I usually go about my day regularly while fasting. On this fast I wanted to try something I had not done before. I decided to not do anything at all during my fast: not connect to internet, not work on my blogs, not record music, not touch my cell phone, not read. On Saturday night I was still exhausted from moving all my belongings from the old apartment to the new one by foot. All week I have been eating plenty at home and outside of home. On Saturday, I was able to nourish myself all day. I started fasting on Saturday night/ Sunday Morning around 2:00AM. I went to bed and woke up the next morning, maybe afternoon? Since I wasn’t allowing myself to touch any electronic device, I did not know what time it was.Continue reading

Journal Entry: December 22nd 2017 – Moving with Romance

December 22nd 2017

Moving

I am in the process of moving into a new place. I decided to move all my belongings by foot from the old apartment to the new one. At first I wasn’t sure if it will be a total waste of time, or on the contrary this out of the ordinary little adventure could make me experience something different. The new and old apartments are 1.1 km / 0.7 mile apart from one an other. The distance separating the two places represents about 15 min of walk. So far I’ve made seven trips back and forth. I have 90% of my belongings in the new apartment already. Today I am going to clean the old apartment so I can do the check out with the old landlord, and recuperate my deposit tomorrow. The new apartment is excellent. It’s not facing the street. I was able to sleep like a baby for the past couple of nights.Continue reading

Journal Entry: December 20th 2017 – Getting in shape – End of No Facebook – Writing – Living Situation – Compensating -Breathing

December 20th 2017

I am slowly getting back in shape

For the past two weeks I’ve dry-fasted a total number of three days. Two Sundays and one Friday. I have been eating plenty. In addition to my morning yoga, light jogging, and walking activities, I’ve added a bit more physically challenging exercises, and I increased the number of days I go out for a run. I’ve been also using my bike more. My physical activity remains mild, but I feel like I have gained a bit more strength. I am still in the mindset of regeneration, that is why I try to avoid physical activities that may be too taxing for my body. My strategy is to increase my physical activity as my organism is becoming cleaner, more alkaline and  more resilient. I don’t want to steal energy away for regeneration by exercising intensely. Although I think exercising is very beneficial for me, it can also cause fatigue if not adapted to my current situation in terms of my nervous energy capital.Continue reading

Journal Entry: November 20th 2017 – Eating Raw, Eating Cooked – Facebook-Fast – Moving Out Soon

November 20th 2017

Alternating Raw and Cooked Food

It has now been over a month that I’ve been allowing myself some cooked food containing animal products. At home I’ve been eating quasi all raw except for quinoa. I’ve been eating out about three times a week for the last month. I was able to eat some red meat and seafood. My favorite restaurant for the month has been Mumbai, preparing to perfection some northern Indian dishes. I truly have been enjoying every bite of their food. Since eating more traditionally cooked food, I’ve been always feeling good the next day. I even think that having some animal origin food and Indian spices have been boosting my overall energy levels.Continue reading

Journal Entry: November 12th 2017 – Sunday, Tuesday, Friday Dry-Fasting Pattern –

November 12th 2017

Like a Metronome

My current weekly dry-fasting pattern has been acting like metronome on my life lately. I’ve been dry-fasting on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. I’m working from home on two of the dry-fasting days: Tuesdays and Fridays. I am producing for about 10 to 12 hours of pure work per working day. Since I am on a freelancer contract, I only take into account the hours when I am actually in front of the computer working. In terms of food intake, it has been a mix of me preparing raw vegetarian food at home, and going out to eat traditionally cooked food.Continue reading

Journal Entry: September 7th 2017 – I’m feeling like a well-oiled machine

September 7th 2017

 I’m feeling like a well-oiled machine.

I haven’t eaten outside of home for the past 12 days. This week I did a dry-fast for 58 hours. To break my fast I had some lemon juice followed by a litter of home made green juice. I did not eat anything solid for 24 hours. The next day, I made the same juice, and drank about the same quantity of that delicious home made green juice. On both days I had about four table spoons of organic coconut oil after finishing my green juice. Later in the afternoon I ate a very simple fruit salad made with organic bananas, grapefruit and shredded dried coconut. For dinner, I prepared some avocado “maki” rolls. Later on that night, I made some hazelnut milk. Before going to bed I had a jar of hazelnut banana milkshake, by blending the hazelnut milk with an organic banana.Continue reading