It is time to spread the stories of the founding generation by word of mouth

This morning, while I was undergoing a minor ear procedure, a flurry of sentences filled my ears. Would I have wanted to be one of those who "sleep on their ear" (ignore things)? As I write this, my aching right ear says "definitely yes," while my heart gives the answer "definitely no."

There is a segment of people called "those who sleep on their ear." Those who brush problems aside. However, they are the ones who prick up their ears and speak out after an injustice touches them personally. I call them the indifferent. It is an idiom that describes them; "Sleeping on one's ear."

Even if not in a metaphorical sense, with three stitches in my ear, I have become one of the "ear-cut" ones. I left myself in the skillful hands of Turkey's legendary plastic surgeon, Prof. Dr. Ömer Özkan. I am very grateful to him and his team.

How strange life is; in 2020, I filmed our EFSANELER (LEGENDS) documentary's protagonist, Professor Ömer, in the same operating room during an organ transplant surgery. He had performed a world first. He enabled his patient, who was born without a uterus, to become a mother by performing a cadaveric uterine transplant. They named the baby Ömer. Since that day, two more patients at Akdeniz University have been reunited with their miracle babies through uterine transplants.

The baby girl was named after Özlenen Özkan, the companion and wife of Ömer Özkan, one of the important surgeons in the world of organ transplantation, and also the rector of Akdeniz University. Since that day, the Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine continues to make a name for itself with firsts.

Sacrifice and hard work make a difference. This morning, the news that a "heart" that set out from Konya early in the day would be transplanted into a patient in intensive care made everyone in the hospital happy. I congratulate Professor Ömer and his team from the bottom of my heart.

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I encountered many young people among the patients at the hospital. I pricked up my ears to their conversations in the cafeteria. The main topic of conversation was unemployment. One of them was a teacher who could not be appointed. (He was an art teacher. His wife was also waiting to be appointed.) He had a folder with him. He took out the calligraphy works he had skillfully crafted and showed them to his friend. "I earn my bread by selling these," he said. His friend turned to him and looked at him with sadness. "At least you found a way," he said. "I am eating from my parents' sustenance. It weighs heavily on me..."

It was impossible to brush off the conversation between the two friends. Their chat touched me deeply. The number of young people who cannot dream of a future, who have accepted being "home-bound youth" in their most productive age, with no job and no purpose, is not 1,000, not 10,000; exactly 3 million young people between the ages of 15-24 are sitting at home. Worst of all, due to unemployment, young people are also disconnecting from social life. Long hours spent at home, away from the outside world, damage the self-confidence of young people. Economic dependence on the family, loss of self-confidence, and reluctance in future planning lead to depression and other psychological disorders in the long run.

Is it to call it fate and bow down to what exists? Or is it to take a step? Instead of waiting for someone to save us, it is time to listen to the stories of the first generation of the Republic, who created miracles out of impossibilities in the past. They were supposed to be the lost generation of a poor country that had just emerged from war, but they succeeded in becoming the founding generation. Perhaps it is time to spread the stories of that founding generation, our grandfathers, by word of mouth. While our ears have become rusty with that phrase I never liked, especially the one constantly on the tongues of young people, "There is nothing to do," it is time to nudge each other and pull each other's ears. "Stand up and take at least one step!"