Sezen Ahıskal's Blog

In her latest interview, Sezen Ahıskal is discussing everything from her favorite authors to her most weird habits of writing with Awesome Gang - an established book blog. 

To read the full interview in English, you may visit here. 

I should be honest with you. Even though the concept of keeping a ‘clean’ house or living an earth-friendly lifestyle is around for a long while now, these days I am realizing that I haven’t really paid much attention to it after all because I thought either I was too busy for it or the solutions were too expensive for me. So, other than recycling, responsible consumption and planting some herbs in my pots, I was pretty much doing nothing.

This year though, something amazing happened and I was introduced to the concept of sustainability, which I come to understand that it is the most important concept of our time and our future because of one simple but harsh truth; we have reached the planetary boundaries.

The more I got acquainted with the concept, the more it attracted me like it was a suspense novel because the facts I have come across, the issues I realize and the possible solutions that were laid before me were all too imperative for the survival of us and our children. The more I read, the more I felt the need to learn more and a sense f excruciating guilt sat on my chest because I felt like that I was a little too late to the party.

While my interest so far was mostly in responsible consumption due to Minimalism, lately I realize that it is a crucial part of something bigger than itself;

A Sustainable Lifestyle.

The concept of sustainability comes with, of course, the 17goals that United Nations set for 2030 to come through many challenges that the world is experiencing right now and will be handling in the quite near future. They are the agreed upon attitudes towards key issues which the whole world, including non-profits, companies, and governments, is working on at this very moment with all they have and we, the ordinary human beings, should be contributing to that in any way we can.

It is critical that we leave no one behind while moving forward to our future.

Though as the minimalists, we are no strangers to the concept of thinking responsibly when it comes to consuming as well as acting considerately when it comes to producing, sharing, learning, forming relations; I believe it is critical for us to make the main connection between minimalism and sustainability and take one more step towards defining the boundaries of our responsible living duties.

We should be asking to ourselves,

What is it that one thing I choose to ignore because it is more convenient or cheaper or fancier?

Then, once the answer presented itself to us, we should try and find a way to act on it in our financial, physical and personal boundaries.

And you’re absolutely right to think that in our age, living responsibly is a huge effort. It takes time to consider options, to hunt down right products or services, avoid evil ones, and to make better choices.

But it is also a lot easier than it used to be, thanks to the digital transformation of businesses and moreover, even though it requires a certain level of commitment, it is still possible to maintain such lifestyle.

There is only one definitive factor here though, having a strong grip on the concept of sustainability.

What is sustainable development?

It is basically a balancing effort.

It is here to meet the needs of the present without compromising on the well-being of the future generations. It is founded on the respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.

This framework was developed simply because the business-as-usual system of the world we live in right now, is not compatible enough to provide us a better future. The way we choose to consume, to ignore and to continue living is neither responsible nor possible anymore. 

The sources we have on Earth are limited and the population is projected to become anywhere between 8.1 billion to 10.6 billion people by 2050, meaning that we need to change the way we all operate and fit into the planetary boundaries.

Though they are positioned as the enablers of this future plan; this is an issue beyond governments, continents, and nations. This is both a very personal and a global responsibility.

A first, that cannot be overlooked because of personal choices, suitability, or preferences.

How Do I Contribute? I am nothing but a simple human being.

Well, easy.

Though there are exactly 17 goals defined by the United Nations in terms of sustainable development, I believe there is one among them that is worth giving a try without feeling exhausted and frustrated by the degree of efforts but instead coming out the other end feeling invigorated and satisfied.

Goal Number 12. Responsible Consumption.

A.K.A – Minimalism.

Living with intentionality is what minimalism is based on and it can be applied to many issues such as our day-to-day consumption habits, our media usage patterns, and our nutrition choices. If one can adopt the minimalist way of thinking on matters, then I believe they are just one step away from creating an enormous and positive impact on both their own lives and the lives around them by simply living responsibly.

1.Eliminate & Donate

Decluttering is the first and most essential part of practicing a responsible lifestyle. So, go ahead and dig into your living space. Sort your belongings and decide if each one of them is necessary. Personally, I used a month-long game of the Minimalists to do so. Check it out here.

 

Then either sell, recycle or donate the stuff that is unnecessary in your life. Providing better futures to all your redundant belongings is the second step. Do not just throw them away, especially if they contain certain appliances such as batteries. Make sure the electronics find themselves either new homes or proper recycling opportunities.

2.Reuse & Repair

When sorting, make sure you are not throwing away something with a backup thought in your mind that you might buy a new one instead of trying to fix it. Not functioning devices and broken items can usually be repaired with the smallest efforts. Try to make your belongings last longer before you toss them.  

3. Ask Responsible Questions

Be aware of how you shop, live, and spend your time as well as the footprint you create by asking questions.

-         Do I really need this?

-         What happens if I don’t buy this?

-         Is there a cleaner/simpler solution that can provide for my needs?

And as a final issue on our sustainability and minimalism efforts, I feel the need to note that we need to pick our battles. Even the SDGs are combined thematically, and we need to do the same. We need to observe our daily routines carefully and try to integrate these new ways of living slowly but steadily. Remembering that a comprehensive change can only come through a well-defined, gradual and ironic enough, a sustainable behavioral change only. 

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

Have you ever been in that moment where you have over 1000 digital friends and you still have no one to talk to when times are hard?

One of my all-time favorite, girls-night-in with lots of cookies kind of movie has an extremely observant scene about our age and how difficult it makes us to 'connect' with each other. And by connecting, I do not mean being able to talk to each other more efficiently than the era before this one.

What I mean is that new style of social interaction where we get to hear about each other, spectate each other, and like each other over advanced forms of technology which are in fact, not able to transmit any real human interaction as well as emotions, body language, and any specific mood. 

The state where comments fill in for conversations, likes fill in for compliments and accepted friendships fill in for meeting new people but not being able to have the same positive impact as they should because these things are originally meant to happen face to face and over drinks, not screens. 

The amount of our connectivity though has a particularly negative impact on our personal lives because of two main reasons;

1. Scrolling and scrolling all day long, we live under the impression that everyone but us is very lucky or wealthy or skinny or successful.

The only real reason behind that is this: We do not share our low moments. And without a doubt, we all have them but since no one is sharing those, they become almost invisible. When you scroll at this moment, the things you get to see are gourmet dinners, destination heavens, designer clothes and so on. You do not see fights with best friends, disagreements with bosses, or self-awareness of our insecurities.

This makes us feel alone because we do not get the feeling like we 'fit in' anymore which is the basic need of a human being who lives in a community. Instead, we feel like everyone else is partying and we are alone, suffering at home. Just like the nights where you spend the new year's eve alone. 

2. We think we have a lot of friends who just adore us only because they've liked our photo and even in some cases, just because they have 'seen' it, but really, we don't have anyone to talk to. 

Are we really? I mean, just because someone has seen our post, we feel like we have received some kind of an approval from our peers, family and the world. Did we really just set our standards that low? 

And while we are quite fine with setting them so low, why are we so depressed to find out that those digital friends of ours are not really willing to perform what friends would usually do. They are not willing to meet us, listen to us and help us when we need them because their prerequisites were not these to become friends with us. Instead, they had liked, shared, commented or put some emoticons in our recent posts.  It is like they were hired under a different job description and naturally, they are now rejecting additional workloads. 

When these two reasons combine and enter our lives, the inevitable result is that we feel disconnected and alone even though we have thousands of 'friends'. We feel like we are constantly being rejected by many different technologies throughout the day and these platforms themselves turn into magic mirrors where the longer we look the more we face our miserable lives. 

Well, so now you probably think where the solution to this problem is and you are right. We definitely need one. From my recent experience with my media detox, I believe the answer lies in awareness first because even without a change of behavior, awareness reduces the impact of any issue on our mental health. When we know the possible outcome of something, it is a little less surprising when that really happens. 

So, if you think you cannot unsubscribe or deactivate just yet, know the possible harms coming your way. Be aware so that you are not caught unguarded. Simple it may sound, but for starters, it is more than enough.

And before you go, as a reminder please take a moment to watch the scene I mentioned earlier where Mary, the character played by Drew Barrymore seems to agree with us all that this whole thing is very exhausting. Enjoy!

Click here to watch the scene. 

 

A couple of days ago, after finishing the whole series of Seinfeld (again!), I was wondering in my Netflix with the hopes of coming across something original and up-to-date when I stumbled upon the first episode of David Letterman's new show.

"My Next Guest Needs No Introduction."

The exciting guest of the first episode was Barack Obama and the last time I had watched him being interviewed was on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, which I enjoyed very much. So, I thought, why not? And clicked the button. 

Halfway through the episode, the subject of the conversation started to revolve around the social media and Barack Obama had made one of the best deductions about it I have heard so far. I do not want to give a huge spoiler here by sharing the whole conversation, so I am just going to share the sentence that hit me most and move on to my point.

"If you are getting all your information of algorithms being sent through a phone and it is just enforcing whatever biases you have which is the pattern. [...] Whatever bias you had, that's where you were being sent (online) and that is more and more reinforced over time. That's what is happening with these Facebook pages that more and more people are getting their news from. At a certain point, you just live in a bubble."

They went on discussing the effects of this problem on a political level on the show but here I'd like to take a minute to let the thoughts sink in because this all starts on a much more personal level. 

Because today we truly are living in a bubble where every piece of information before us is organized in a certain way that is based on our previous searching, clicking and sharing history. We give out this information with the hope of receiving 'better' services or it is simply collected from us without our consent. Not being software engineers, digital analysts or any other profession that can pull off being capable enough to protect every online move we ever do, we end up becoming the 'Bubble Boy'. 

As Obama pointed out in the later parts of the show, I also believe that this is a solvable problem yet it needs a quite a lot of attention and personal adaptation. It needs our self-awareness. It needs a certain level of behavioral changes in our daily lives.

Yet before all, we need to understand one simple fact that is the longer we share and spectate on the web, the longer we will be spectated. Thus using the technology in a more sensible way, for communication purposes mostly or for practical reasons only, we still have the chance to reach a point where we do not have to ignore social media completely but instead, we get to do something amazing with it. And that is my only hope on this matter. 

In her recent interview, Sezen Ahıskal is discussing the motivations behind her social media detox as well as the ups and downs of media minimalism with BantMag| a well-established art magazine in Turkey. 

To read the full interview in Turkish, you may visit here. 

Say you've read the BLACKOUT and now you're feeling a bit intrigued to perform your very own media detox for 28 whole days. What are you going to do next?

I know from first-hand experience that the moment before you start was the worst moment to be experiencing because, at that particular moment, you have no real belief in the system even though you see some possibility of making it a success. You have no real motivation to go and change a habit of your you've held on for so long, because well, that's always extremely hard and not really a thing to be excited about, at least not until you change it. And, you are not sure if you can do it. Like many of us out there, I have my own personal perfectionist crazy person living inside me and I know how it feels to stand before a great step forward and feel frightened that it might lead me to failure. 

This I believe is a huge factor standing in the way of every progress there ever was and is, and it should be avoided. Not that I am a Wonderwoman in that area myself, but you know it, I know it. Everyone knows it that we should ignore that fear and just jump in. 

Though I may seem like a pushy personal trainer at this moment who is trying way too hard to convince you that you need to do that ridiculous number of sit-ups for the sake of being able to do sit-ups better next time only, I assure you, I know that an inner journey takes more than just a significant amount of repetition. Whenever I see myself overcoming an important issue for me, whether it is just drinking more water every day or something bigger like quitting my nail-biting habit, I see that there was a journey behind my change of behavior. Of course, me trying to do it every day helped but the main change came from a certain understanding I gained along the way or via a transforming experience. I see that the beforehand mental adjustment I get to live is almost crucial for the real change. Thus, when attempting an important change in your life, I believe one should always know what to expect from it and I made something for you below just to hopefully help your journey.

Below is the ‘almost’ daily progress of my blackout journey. It includes important issues to tackle, certain feelings that might come up and some useful questions for you to check out before you start yours yet, of course, it is representing my journey, so it has some elements that might not fit your entirely. For instance, the day where I tend to observe more of the cultural aspects by decoding minimalism in an eastern culture. In episodes like these, I urge you to look at the core of the subject first. How do you think your culture ends up affecting you? Ask the relevant questions freely and if you feel like you need more answers, just drop me a line from the contact page.

Day 1

 

How Did It All Started?

 

·        Discovering Minimalism in a broader sense.

·        Decluttering is extremely helpful because, at the very least, it is keeping me away from my phone.

·        What is the purpose of this item/service/app? Do I really need it?

·        Try to remember the rules of the game.

 

Day 3

 

Scrolling Through Life

 

·        Accepting that I am addicted to my screens more than I thought.

·        From which circumstances my addiction thrives?

·        Short Moments Problem

 

Day 7

 

A True Self without Media Exposure

 

·        What am I going to do with all the free time I have now?

·        1% Rule: What kind of a user I was?

·        The Fear of Missing Out (on everything)

·        Social Media 101

·        The Concept of True Self

 

Day 12

 

The Day of the ‘Peek’

 

·        This was a legitimate relapse and it may happen to you too, but just keep your calm and try to examine it. Why did it happen?

·        Five major feelings that comes our way while using social media.

·        Three questions to ask while consuming social content.

 

Day 15

 

Becoming a Media Minimalist in the Middle East

 

·        The land of the crowded families.

·        Managing the expectations is hard.

·        Three defense systems to apply.

 

Day 18

 

Advertising is in the Details

 

·        The lifecycle of every branded content.

·        Less Is More

·        The Grand Illusion

·        If you wish to have a detoxed mind, you need to understand how advertising works to avoid it efficiently.

 

Day 21

 

Say Hello to Regression

 

·        A blackout is almost painful yet equally rewarding at the end.

·        Keeping the promises, you made to yourself.

·        What is the next step?

 

Day 28

 

Epilogue

·        What Changed?

·        What Stayed the Same?

·        What Were the Factors?

·        Finally, What Now?

 

 

 

Photo by Kym Ellis on Unsplash

People ask this to me every time I mention my book:

How did you do the blackout?

Well, let me explain this with the author's note I already placed in my book because I believe this is an important issue to read beforehand.This way maybe you could do the same during your own blackout and we can evaluate our results together! Wouldn't that be just great?

Author’s Note

Well, hello there! So glad, you’ve stopped by! I wanted to take a moment before we start to give you a sort of guidance for the book and a little advice on how to make the most out of it while reading.

First, I would like to explain to you the nature of this experiment and how I turned its contents into this book. When I first decided to do the 28-day media blackout, my one and only goal was to find a way to cure myself of my social media addiction. To do that, I needed to see all the facts clearly.

So, as part of the experiment, I decided to take notes each day, concentrating on specific issues. How did I feel that day? What new reactions and emotions had I discovered within myself? How was my rehabilitation progressing? I recorded all of my moods, feelings, observations, and the relevant decisions I made along the way for 28 straight days.

On top of note-taking, I sat down every other day to study my notes more analytically and more mindfully. I wrote journal-like pages to help me gather every reflection the experiment prompted. Some days these observations were similar and even quite boring, but I had many epiphanies along the way. I observed patterns in my behavior during the experiment, investigated possible reasons behind them, and even researched media consumption habits on various platforms. After detailed observation, disciplined note-taking, and careful research, I combined everything into one meaningful journey.

The book you are about to experience has a linear flow starting from day one of my experiment, which will allow you to experience the whole journey as I did. The subsequent chapters each represent individual, important days in the experiment where I had rather critical progress.

To help you get the most out of this experiment, I have inserted boxes called Action Items after almost every chapter. These Action Items explain the solutions I attempted and the problems they tried to solve. They are here to remind us both of what to take away as we move forward in the book.

If you’d like to take the 28-day media blackout challenge, I also took the liberty of adding an appendix – including such information as environmental factors & background, a problems & solutions dictionary, and an FAQ section – to make sure your every possible question is answered before you finish reading.

Whether you decided to perform the experiment on your own or to just read along, feel free to contact me with any question you might have at www.theblackoutjourney.com.

Once again, I wish us both the best of luck in our endeavor to create better lives!

So, you've read it. If you still have questions to ask please feel free to reach out via contact page in the footer of this website. 

Cheers!

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu on Unsplash

Test, one, two, three. Test. Test!

Well, hello world!

This is Sezen and I am writing you from a wonderful place where my dreams have come true. Stepping into the early days of 2018, I am happy to announce that my debut title BLACKOUT is now out, ready for its readers, and I must say that there is nothing more amazing in the whole world than finally keeping a promise to one's self. Sitting down with my pajamas every day and writing, and thinking, and editing enough so that people can read it. So that it would become my first book.

The journey of BLACKOUT has begun early in the last summer with 28 days long media detox experiment and starting from that exact moment, I watched myself evolving into a new person. Leaving other people and my never-ending comparison with them behind, adapting my screen addiction into something at least a bit more healthier and gaining the awareness I longed for some time, now I am ready for another year ahead. Feeling proud. Brave. Even happier. 

The idea of having people read what I wrote is still a bit young and I am trying to adjust because well, who am I to tell people to do something anyway? But I believe we humans grow and change with the stories of those around us and it is important to produce the useful, the important and the caring content as much as we can in this modern age of almost constant negativity and endless fake positivity.

I also believe that we need to take a moment from the chaos and that is exactly what I did during my blackout. I left the building for a brief period of time and came back as the hero I always needed to put my life back together. This small and even rather too easy experiment created a miracle and turned my skeptic mind around. It made me realize all my fundamental mistakes while spending 'now'. The most important time of the day, every day. 

My only wish now is to hopefully help someone experience the same refreshing wind of change. I believe that is all it takes. One reader. One woman or man. Gaining their willpower and happiness back from the depressing arms of social media.

So, here I am. Ready to share what I have been through in my own struggle and ready to help you out in any way I can. And I am more than glad that you've stopped by. This blog is not only better but even more meaningful when you are here, and you are reading, and you are sharing. 

It is certainly a wonderful time to be alive!

Cheers,

Sezen

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash