My Last Day in Türkiye

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🙏जब जागो तब सवेरा🙏

My Last Day in Türkiye |
Saturday – August 15, 2026

Have I had a blast here in Türkye? Have I created memories that will last? Will I return, read my "Vacation series"? Well, since I have engaged in the anti-art of photography, read "My Views on Photography and the Camera Obscura", I can assure you that if my memory were to fail me then I have no problems recreating those memories through the hundreds of photographs that I have taken. This stated, I should say that I still consider photography an anti-art, for it essentially does the very opposite of what a true art is supposed to do, and I will even go so far as to proclaim my own guilt in the current solidification of the world. Is a photograph not very still, full of potential but void of life? What is that enchanted essence that the artisan is able to capture in his true images: in his portraits and in his paintings, in his capacity and in his talent, read "Qualification"? At any rate, I believe that I can say with a certain deal of confidence that I indeed will be able to keep memories from this journey, and if not I can rely on photographs; I suppose a man can only remember so much from a trip, and I suppose too that this is a fair point. Now, will I return to Türkiye? Not in the foreseeable future but perhaps in the more distant future, if I am still alive in the more distant future, because I refuse to take these things for granted of course. Besides any such speculations, it clear to me on a personal level, read my "Personal Notes series", that I am not well suited to repeat the same thing without enough time in between; really I do not prefer to jump into the same water twice without having had time to dry, not that I tend to jump into waters much, but this was meant as a metaphor. I suppose too that I cannot state with honesty that I have had a "blast" here in Türkiye, read "Observations About Türkiye", but I can state with some confidence that I have expanded my own horizon and that I have also been able to expand my own understanding of a home, because, as I have also stated elsewhere, a home is much more than the confines of your immediate house: a home is the extension of your life and really without that home, you could not be, without that home you would essentially become functionally unable to do anything – this is a real home and not that individualistic conception of a home, that manicahal and mendacious confusion between a house and a home, between the material and and the whole, read "The Problem of Borders". I suppose that is something that, again, has been on display here in Türkiye and here in the Near East overall: a certain sense of home that stretches beyond the walls of the house; a conception of a home that is not like a prison, and of course in the West most homes have tended to shrink for quite a while now, which is also worth noting, read "The End of History".

    I have certainly had issues here in Türkiye, as I have mentioned in the past and as I have linked to above, but those issues are in my view a matter of two currents, one of the currents much weaker than the other: the first current has to do with the Europeanization of Türkiye, read "Modernity Breaking Through" and "In The End", and this current has been sure to cause plenty of infantile disorders, and really this is a growing current; and the second current, though much weaker, is that of a still Eastern tendency among people in Türkiye, especially the older generations, and this current has tended to cause a certain friction, a certain clash of civilizations and of cultures, and on the surface it does appear that this second and weaker current has won, but in my view this is only a matter of appearances, not of reality, read "Kemalism" and "Disintegration". I suppose that the current political landscape in Türkiye and in the Near East overall is that of a kind of upheaval against a lot of emotions, but this is also a somewhat Westernised and simplistic view of the problem, for these issues run much deeper, and as usual the young people are always standing on the edge of the day and staring into the wilderness and into the darkness, something that most elders here and indeed in most of the Near East, appear to not engage in. But leaving the politics of the matter aside for just a moment: I should also admit that it is quite obvious that most countries in Europe are quite sick and diseased when indeed the fact that most young people in Europe are of a foreign background, read "The Problem of Immigration". Now, some may say that this point is rather political, and while this may be true, I must admit that I do not consider immigration, migration, primarily a matter of mechanics, read "Mechanical Procedures"; but indeed, you do very rarely see the native populations of most Western countries these days, which is a point that I believe will surely amaze future historians when they look back on this peculiar time in history, perhaps if they are able to do so that is.

    Whatever happens here in Türkiye, I shall return to my abode and to the place where I "permanently" reside, or really where I reside indefinitely, and I suppose that this will be a rather sad thing on personal level, but it must be so, for that is the law of the land, and we may disagree with those laws, but in the end I stand powerless against the monstrous conceptions of the state and its many tentacles, tentacles that are now reaching further beyond what it has ever been able to reach before – truly monstrous. Again, I am not someone who subscribes to the idea that it is always better to return to your (my in this case) immediate surroundings; in fact I believe this mania to be a real delusion that people convince themselves of. If you have ever traveled, if only for a short distance, ask yourself this: why did I decide to go on this journey? If you decided to travel out of some kind of necessity, then the above point may be moot, but if you decided to travel because you felt a certain need to go, perhaps you felt a certain calling, then you would be foolish to think that you are now ready to return, and really the sad fact is that you are likely not ready to return, and in fact you may never be ready to return. Again, if you choose to lie to yourself, then this is your problem, but as long as you keep lying to yourself, you will never actually "return home". Now, I must resign myself to my fate, and it has come to my attention that my flight is soon leaving. So, I leave you behind Türkiye, so long.

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – August 15, 2026.