I charged my car battery! This might sound unimportant to you, but it was a
big deal for me. My father was a handyman and I helped him a lot on different
projects throughout my childhood. So in theory I have a good grasp of how to use
tools. But it was not enough. One also needs to be willing to do this kind of
stuff, which I was not. My experiences of doing projects at home with my father
primarily taught me that a project never goes according to plan. There are
always edge cases that lead you away from the happy path, and it’s always easier
to hire someone else to be responsible for them. But more and more I feel like
the immortal insight of Ozan Akyol, a Turkish comedian, is spot on: “You call an
expert. They come and you immediately realize that they’re just another guy.”
I was in Antalya, Turkey for the company offsite last week. This is a reflection on the past week. photo dump.
The worst type of leader is the one who needs to be the leader. The second worst
type is the one who just can’t accept that they are the leader.
I’m a leader. Writing this fills me with dread because it sounds megalomaniacal
to my ears. However, it’s true. I am a leader. I’ve been a leader for some
time—I’ve been the technical lead of my team for the last three years. Although
they had been calling me that for some time, I think I never really assumed
it. I always treated it like a symbolic title that they needed to give me not
because I deserved it but because conditions demanded it. Somebody had to fill
the void, and no one else was going to.
I’m writing this in haste before packing my laptop for travel. This will be a short one.
The bust is finished! I’m calling it “Syzygy”.
We finished A Knight of Seven Kingdoms. I loved it!
We started watching the new season of The Boys.
I talked about my recent inability to read in analysis. Unsurprisingly, I started reading again. I’ll probably finish the current read tomorrow on the plane.
After 2 weeks of hiatus I was finally in the atelier again to work on my
sculpture. I think the bust is coming to an end. I feel the resistance to
continue working on it. One part of me says “I’m bored of this, I want to work
on something new,” while another part says “this is 80% finished and I know the
last 20% is the hardest part.” I honestly don’t know what to do. Anyway this is
how it looks right now:
If you think that it looks odd, it was intentional. It’s a bust, half female and half male.
We were watching Pluribus for the last 10 days and finished the first season
today. I have mixed feelings about the show. I especially found the first few
episodes hard to watch because I couldn’t stand Carol. It got easier towards
the end of the season but I can’t say that I loved the show. Nevertheless, it
was an interesting watch. I especially liked the depiction of the collective
power that humans possess. It’s eerie to think about the connection between our
individuality and the problem of coordinating with others. I read a
take
(Turkish) that said the show is trying to teach communism to American masses
but I disagree. Although the world becomes communist in a few hours after
everyone gets “infected,” Pluribus’ virus is not of communism but McLuhan’s. It
turns the world into the global village:
2026 is definitely the year of blogging for me. I already published twice as many posts as I did last year. Last Friday I published a post in my technical blog in the same vein as this post: a reflection on the week. Today I posted another one there about the women who shaped me in my career. Happy Women’s Day to all women around the world!
I’m writing this while my neighborhood is under siege by law enforcement. There’s a bunch of police officers in every corner just because the women of Istanbul want to have a rally to celebrate March 8, express their anger and mourn the losses of their fellow sisters who were killed by men.
This was a really busy week. I worked more than 8 full-focus hours every
single weekday. This means I probably spent more than 10 hours in front of the
computer. It’s a lot! Thankfully this week was a 4-day week so I had time to
rest.
On Friday I spent the whole day working on my sculpture. The bust is coming
along. I decided to do something strange (as I usually do) and make it half
female and half male. I don’t know how I will do the transition smoothly in the
middle of the face but we’ll see.
This is the 8th week since I created hypersubject.net. The effects of this experiment are already tangible. Compared to last year, I have already spent twice as many hours working on my blog(s) and nearly half that time writing even though we are only two months into 2026. I have already published 12 posts this year, which is far more than my total output for all of 2025.
