Folyosó Spring 2021 - Page 3

Zsófia Szabina Gávris

Have you ever wondered about a Wall? A Wall which separates humanity from living a peaceful and self-developing life?

Humanity has reached a point where other people’s lives and problems are more important than one’s own. We, humans, can no longer concentrate only on our own lives and our own business. Everybody gossips and spreads rumours about other people. Some even stalk on social media or in real life. Humans nowadays have a need to be part of others’ lives. People feel compelled to criticise and estimate others’ looks, acts and opinions. Envy, hatred, evil and malice have unfortunately replaced love, respect, support and loyalty.

The Wall I am talking about consists of the aforementioned characteristics and, sadly, many more besides. The way I see it, for some reason humans are not able to climb this wall or jump over it. To be more precise, I suppose most of the people don’t even try. Besides, for the masses it is too important to be involved in others’ lives.

It would mean a great step forward if humans focused on themselves. If people were more conscious of their own life, own business, and own problems, our world could be a much better one to live in. Self-improvement and self-development should be a priority in our society. Yet these are on the other side of The Wall.  I strongly believe that one day humans will treat each other with love, kindness and respect.

To summarise my thoughts, The Wall of society is yet to be jumped over, but with a different mentality our social culture could do this and more.

Zeynep Cicimen

Sometimes it sounds impossible to see the other side; you just feel what happens there.You trust these feelings and the ideas come into your mind. This makes you feel like you are stuck in the middle of everything: it’s the only way to have a point of view and judge. Yes, our brains need to judge; we have to find a point of view, a mechanism  we can hide behind to come through with all the circumstances offered by “life.” We all build walls in our minds. I build a wall that separates me from my-real-self; my pure feelings, my emotions from my mind. You build a wall with the intention of running away from other people’s decisions, to have the right to say a couple of phrases about your own lifestyle, but you still can’t find your dreams in your mind, wherever you put them before, because “a wall” exists there. You have already forgotten how to find the “real you” in yourself while developing a solid system, “a wall,” to protect yourself; to prove your existence in the world, to show them you leave a trace behind you while passing through changes. Even if that wall were transparent, you wouldn’t have been capable of observing every detail, of hearing every single voice coming from your heart, from your desires. At this point, it’s not an ordinary wall anymore. It is time to say “the wall” right now.

“The Wall”

Which is between you and your-other-self.

Non-transparent, transparent, soft, solid, judgy, isolating, limiting.

Which retains its own existence despite every situation. It has the strange potential to let you into the arms of loneliness while making you feel safe and protected.

You have already constructed “the wall” between yourself and your emotions.

”Inner Wall”

You don’t have the freedom of choosing what to feel; you start to feel whatever you should. Now, there is quite a long distance between your mind and your dreams. As if that were not enough, you can’t see any signboards showing you how many kilometers are left to arrive to yourself, to reach your dreams; to learn where they hide at least. At that point, you have nothing to put into words and no right to confess. All the opinions, the opportunities, the points of view, the mechanisms which protected you (or instead, you pretended they did) and every single confession are blocked. The “Inner Wall” is exactly like “the other side of the Moon.” You can’t see “a part of yourself”; maybe your perceptions aren’t sufficient, they are not designed for defining that unusual thing which is standing there without impairing your integrity (actually it is but you can’t perceive it). Here is the other option: it is your choice whether you are able to see it or not. You reject the other side instinctively: this is your approach of coping with life, of surviving against the conditions, of staying in your own magic. Despite everything, you keep the probability of an “nonexistent wall” in your mind. You had placed it wherever you wanted, which means you are able to demolish it as well. You don’t have to abandon yourself to take a sneak peek at “the other side.” The thing which horrifies you right now is the meaning you attributed to “the wall.” A little whisper of the dilemma: You can’t decide if you want to make a connection with your-other-self or not; but it is obvious that you don’t want to leave this side completely, to break the invisible chain. Perhaps, that’s why “the wall” exists. “The reality you don’t want to get rid of.”

Childhood. Remember all those colourful swings between your first deep breath and the last one. ”The hide-and-seek,” no waiting for the count, catch your-other-self before it hides. Remember that your dreams are transparent, as well as your mind. They suddenly appear in every single minute of your life. The thing you are frightened of getting lost inside is the thing you are frightened of losing the most.

Maybe right now, you and your-other-self are sitting exactly in the same alignment, leaned back against “the wall,” both parts of your heart finding their matches, that voice of a click; they are completing each other softly, “both parts of you” waiting quietly for the end of the storm.

Selin Yelten

Look to your left and then your right. You are probably sitting in a room, surrounded by four walls, more or less. Secured, ordinary and banal. The walls are separating you from other rooms. This room might be in your house or in your workplace. You have your borders to let you focus on whatever you are doing. But why do we need this ? We are all hiding behind walls. We not only hide our actions from other people, but we also hide ourselves from others. 

From the beginning of life one of our main vital needs is shelter. The basic idea of shelter is to have protection from weather and other living creatures. So whether it is mud or brick, there are walls that serve as a protection mechanism. Over time, shelters started to get divided by walls for each individual. These separations are important for personal space. Once upon a time, it was for avoiding animals; nowadays, I believe that the main reason is to avoid people, including ourselves. We enter our rooms and do whatever we want. Room has a significant meaning in here. It symbolizes our own utopia or dystopia. It might be where our biggest nightmares happen or where we dream of the best and feel free.  Let’s think about it. You are at home: When your phone rings, what do you do? You go to your room. When you want to cry, what do you do? You go to your room. When you feel disturbed by other members in the house, what do you do? You go to your room. When you want to gossip about someone, what do you do? You, instinctively, go to your room, where you feel secluded. You feel like whatever happens inside those four walls will stay inside them. Gossip, sexual activities, emotions, secrets….

Each of us has many secrets. Even we might not know what we are hiding, because it could be deep down in our minds. Some of the secrets are highly secured, some of them are just trying to be kept away from those concerned. Walls are a great method to stash away unheard words that must stay unspoken. For example, there are so many walls in a government building. Why are their architectural structures  not simpler? They could have been simpler, but they must not be, because the data has to be protected and kept away from people. If those walls were not there, we could have access to the files and to people. They are hiding, they are refusing to face the people they have affected. They are avoiding seeing the damage they have done. Another example is what happens inside houses. Family secrets are buried in houses. Who would hear if you were living ten meters away from the next-door neighbour and you were shouting at, insulting or hitting an individual that you share your house with? Those walls are where most childhood traumas are trapped. Parents come home and have anger outbursts. Kids come home and pour out their school problems to their parents. But then the heartbreaking conversations and actions begin  behind four walls, and nobody’s soul hears from outside, the real world, where we act as if everything is alright, where we are the actual Hollywood stars.  Walls in houses have multifaceted functions. They create both a safe and independent reunion area and a war area where we reflect the darkest sides of our souls. So we can say walls are a concrete border between our minds, but when we start to integrate into each other’s lives, walls start to disappear and let us see into others’ darkness. “You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.” It is a quote that promotes my thoughts, and it pushes me to think further: that our walls are prisons that we create for ourselves and that there are some free-souled people out there who cannot stand staying confined inside of them. So, we call them thrillseekers instead of happy people, just because they refuse to obey our own boundaries; they realize that true happiness is outside, in nature, where there are still boundaries but luckily not made by humans.

Roza Kaplan

When I was a little girl, I spent weekdays at my grandparents’ house, as my parents had to work. The house was on a slope leading to the top of the highest hill on the island. In the sleepless nights, I watched the city lights beyond the dark sea, leaning against the cold walls. The cold blue walls.

I remember the day they were painted, they were once pink. Pink like strawberry candy. 

I put my ears on the walls and tried to hear the neighbors talking, a vase falling, a door creaking, a phone ringing. I was drawn to the secrets kept by the cold blue walls. I wished to be able to see beyond the walls. The hypocrite walls. Separating people and keeping secrets. 

At that time I didn’t know that I would want to have my own walls in a few years. A room with walls. My walls, my way to hide from the rest of the world. To be free. 

My grandmother talked to herself. She always had something to do in the kitchen. And she always talked. To someone who wasn’t there. To the walls. She talked about her childhood, her memories, her friends, her happiness and her sorrows. The walls had souls. They had names that no one knew but I.

I was seven years old. There were seven parallel universes. There were seven different versions of me in each universe. In those seven parallel universes, each word had seven different meanings. 

There were forty-nine different meanings of “walls.”

I knew all of them. 

Then I grew up. 

There were five definitions of “wall” in the dictionary. “Wall” had five meanings. There was only one universe, the one in which the only version of me lived.

Then I grew up a bit more.

I remember geography classes from elementary school. Turkey is an earthquake zone. 

I remember my parents, grandparents, that man I met in public transport, the elderly lady at the bakery, the neighbor of my aunt … with the bitter expression of people who can’t forget … faces buried in the past, heartbeats of terror … while they were telling me of that day in 1999. And what it had taken from them. Who it had taken from them. 

There was a huge earthquake in a little city near İstanbul. 

Thousands of deaths. Beneath the walls.

They were killed by the walls that had been built to protect them. 

When I was seven years old and when there were seven parallel universes,

I thought that the walls were liars. 
Then I grew up.
At first, I thought that people were lying to themselves about the walls protecting them. 
Then I grew up a bit more. 
I wonder if there is a simple unique reality. 

Naz Arpacı

I haven’t heard the phrase ‘safe and sound’ in a long time; things are slowly getting worse as time goes on. As the problems boost, walls begin to rise up, not only between people but also between countries. Demanding power, people have changed our world to a brutal battlefield where some must be downtrodden and exploited. 

Living in different countries was my milestone; I was able to see Europe and the Middle East through distinct eyes and viewpoints. Realizing the culture conflict, the hatred, the misunderstandings, and much more with my entire being, I learned to ask myself the right questions: what was missing from this world, what caused all this conflict and all this hate? The answer to those reflections was ‘the wall’; walls were the real barrier between souls. People need to understand and acknowledge that our time in this world is limited; why not live without greed, without fear, without grudge? While speaking to someone, I always think twice before saying anything, to filter my thoughts. People who ‘fire from the hip’ cause the walls to rise even higher day after day; I am afraid that we won’t be able to see the sky, seeing only what lies before us.    

In the past, the border walls were built for military purposes and to maintain the territory against threats; they had a concrete meaning between two countries. However, in the present, the border walls are usually built to separate two opposing ideologies (in politics, culture, economy and military), attributing an abstract meaning. Although the purposes are changing gradually over time, border walls continue to be the consequence of international relations. Hearing the word ‘wall’ on the news or anywhere else makes me uncomfortable. Slowly this discomfort turns into pessimism; whereas the walls should be shattered and bridges should be erected, I see the opposite taking place. In Joseph Fort Newton’s words, “Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”