I don't want to just survive, I want to live!...

I thought a lot about what I should write this week. 

A TV series that caused an uproar?

A tribute to the recently passed ‘Valentine's Day’?

The fact that we are experiencing spring in the middle of winter and how worrying that actually is?… 

Or,

How the burdens on our lives are increasing day by day?

The situation of the guy who says ‘I only buy 50 Lira worth!’ while diesel has reached 45 TL? 

A mass of people, whom I can barely bring myself to call human, heartlessly taking the life of a cat with kicks?

The fact that we are buried under 10 million cubic meters of soil following the landslide at the gold mine? 

How things done under the guise of religion were overlooked in the Adnan documentary, and how a handful of people trying to fight back were attempted to be discredited? 

Last week, I wrote an article titled ‘How Do You Buy Your Conscience?’. 

‘The biggest difference between humans and other living beings is the ability to reason and the sense of moral responsibility.’ I said. Every day, we witness ourselves drifting further away from this. Ha! This is not something unique to our country, of course. But as we move away from justice and democracy, it becomes even more destructive for us. 

Massacres, murders, fraud, injustices, thefts, abuses, children living in inequality… 

People always make jokes about Norway, or Denmark… 

Ours is an agenda they wouldn't even see in a year… 

The difference between living and surviving. 

We always hear this criticism. Yes, I do it too sometimes. 

‘No one is speaking up! The buyer is satisfied, the seller is satisfied’ 

As I said, living and surviving. In countries where democracy and justice function healthily, societies can raise their voices in the face of an event. They use their right to protest regarding the environment and even change laws. Because those democracies offer their citizens the means to live, for basic needs, education, and health. And because they participate in that protest, they are not at risk of being deprived of these. 

Politicians are also always aware that they have come to those offices for the benefit of the public and the country. If they forget, there is the judiciary, after all… 

Shall we look at us? 

For us, the most effective decision-making authority is social media… 

In the face of an injustice, if that topic trends, for example, an incident of violence, the person released can suddenly be taken back into custody. 

Or, for a word or behavior that a group does not like and which is not considered a crime according to the law, someone can suddenly be arrested through the intervention of troll armies. 

Constantly rising prices, rents, doctors who cannot be found, the education system that is constantly changing, the increasing security problem, the end of the month that never comes… 

And every night, perhaps as we go to bed, a prayer of ‘Thank God, we survived today too’… 

Inside a console game full of traps, the retiree, the minimum wage earner, the worker, the civil servant, the tradesman, the teacher, the journalist, the activist, the feminist, the student, the woman, the disabled person… all passing a new level every day. 

Psychological Counselor and Author Tunç Tataker shared the following on X: 

'We are trying to explain to a society that does not know the difference between 'surviving' and 'living', and that has become accustomed to being grateful for just surviving, that there is a magnificent concept called 'living', and that they should demand to live beyond just surviving, and that this is their most fundamental right.’

Do we really remember what ‘Living’ was?