The Hagia Sophia

 "Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"

 

The history of Istanbul is completely bonkers. 

Standing on the edge of both Europe and Asia, acting as a bridge between the two, wars and battles were fought constantly for the city and the land it occupied. On this ground you get the sense of it's grand importance. Looking around at the land and the scenery, you can tell why this city served as the capital for three major empires (the Roman, Latin, and Ottomans). At one point the largest city in the world, and referred to as simply "The City" there is nothing diminutive about Istanbul. It is quite factually, the living witness to the rise and fall of numerous empires and rulers. 

Taksim Square

The Ancient Istiklal Street 

 

This history is never more apparent then when you stand in front of the Hagia Sophia. 

The Hagia Sophia 

It's name means Holy Wisdom in Greek. It was first erected as a Byzantine (Eastern Roman empire) christian church after Constantine I legalized Christianity and made Constantinople the capital of the empire.

It was built into the grand structure it still represents today by Justinian I, where it stood as the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years. 

 

When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman empire, it was converted to a Mosque, and the Christian images it contained began to share room with Muslim calligraphy and images until the Christian ones were plastered over. Today all the images are seen together, creating a stark reminder of the contentious nature of humanity. In Muslim practice, they do not lie to display images of saints or prophets so the issue of covering these pictures is ever present. 

 

It was converted to a museum when Turkiye's first president (Ataturk), came into power as a way to usher the city of Istanbul into modern relevance. It has since been converted back into a mosque in a somewhat controversial move by the current administration. Some say this was a purely political move to appeal to the religious fundamentals. The great Blue Mosque is right next door.  

 

The 'call to prayer' is something that can be jarring the first time you hear it. I always remember the first time I experienced it as a young-ish backpacker in a Muslim neighbourhood of Phuket, Thailand. I was staying in a sweltering hot hotel room in the heart of the island city and couldn't sleep. At about 7:00 am (they start at the first sign of the sun) I heard a surreal and almost ghostly cry from a very powerful speaker that could be heard for miles across the city. 

I immediately went out onto the balcony to listen to this. Having never heard it before I was stunned into silence. 

After living in Thailand for a few months, and then now spending 2 weeks in a very Muslim Turkiye, the call to prayer kind of blends into the various chaos of the rest of the city. 

 But man, standing in front of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and all the incredibly palpable history of Istanbul, it hit me hard. 

  

  
 

The Istanbul Trip

"Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah"

 

This trip did not call to me like those of the past. This trip did surprise me in many ways and I can safely say that Istanbul is a city full of awesome history and rich culture. A culture that will sting you repeatedly if you let it. But those are always the best ones. Constant safety is a boring venture. I want to explore and find the pulse of a place and you can't do that exclusively from the 7th floor of the Marriott.

Rather than any plans, I booked my flight (w/ return), and my hotel for one night when I landed. That has got to be the way to explore a city as big as Istanbul. Force yourself to find a place to stay, even if it's a shit-hole you survive the one night and move on 

Night one I touched down at about 2:30am and texted my prearranged hotel shuttle driver. I asked to go to the hotel as I was bagged from the 16 hours of travel I had just completed, and realized I booked the hotel down the street. From the other airport. On the other side of the city. 

 

I flew into SAW, my hotel was next to IST

 I was so tired I took the private shuttle across the city of Istanbul (it took about an hour and 15 minutes with little traffic). Costly mistake for sure, but not the end of the world. I made it and the hotel was perfect to crash in and figure it out the next day. 

 

Sick ride though

 

 

This trip turned into a series of excellent lessons on how to travel alone. It wasn't the most difficult destination to figure out, but it wasn't the easiest either. The tourism thing is heavily developed but the money makers in Istanbul know how to hustle you out of any extra cash floating around your pockets. There are some obvious scams, and some that are not so obvious. It seems like everyone is concurrently both into developed sales pitches while also just trying to earn some Turkish Liras and get by. The further away you get from the touristy old-city, the more chill the people get and the less everything seems to cost.  

First Sunrise

Anyways I woke up, ate some breakfast and got a ride to the airport I did not fly in on so I could reset and figure out where I was to go in this massive city first. I took the metro from the airport directly into Taksim Square, which seems like the natural starting point into the heart of Istanbul. 

 

First class public transportation

Pano of Taksim Square

 

 

I quickly found a seedy hostel to lock my backpack up so I could walk around. The street I touched down on, Istiklal, was packed as I'm sure it is most days/nights and I just wandered down it and through the many side streets for hours until I was tired enough to crash. This is when I regretted going cheap on the hostel as I was stuck in a room with several drunk Iranian dudes who were not quiet when they clambered in at about 3:00am. And then I got stung by a rogue mosquito about 17 times during the night. Needless to say I didn't sleep a bit. Didn't care really. 

Shared the bottom pink bed with Istanbul's most blood thirsty mosquito

I'd avoid Xalila Hostel if you are ever around Taksim

The first two nights were in the books, I was in freakin' Istanbul and I had about 12 days left.

 

A letter to the Future

 

Hello future Dan,

This is present Dan writing to send you some much needed inspiration and motivation to KEEP GOING!

We are going to start with a little reminder of why life is good right now, and what we had to sacrifice and build to get to this point.

First and foremost, we hit subscribe on the theory that “you have to do hard things to make life easy.”

When you were diagnosed with Cancer, when your sister unexpectedly passed, when some of your closest friends called the cops on you for getting angry and sending some regrettable texts (which was all on you for not controlling your emotions), and your best friends trashed your yard on your 40^th bday and then blacklisted you from their lives after bringing it up… you could have easily thrown in the towel. Even one of those things could potentially send someone into an unrecoverable tailspin.

But you used it for good in your life instead of the other way around, you went to work on yourself and you eliminated the negative people, influences and situations from your life in almost totality. The people from the past that you kept, you defined boundaries and changed how those relationships affected you. You understood that the only person that can truly affect you and truly initiate change is YOU. That is no small feat, as you read this please recognize that you put in the work to make this life better.

You focused on the good things in life; you went to the gym hard and now look in the mirror (you are getting jacked!) Look at your emotional control (you can handle situations and relationships in a much healthier way). You cut out the constant drinking and partying (and added some healthier diet factors) that was making you tired and hungover most weekends. This all allowed you to focus on the things that matter (your family and the healthier relationships in your life).

The last thing I should mention, which is more a symptom of the change than the change itself, is you started loving yourself. You haven’t felt that in a long time (if ever) and that is absolutely huge for you. You should be proud of how far you’ve come and how you’ve committed to all these changes in life and mentality. I want to both thank you and encourage you to keep loving yourself. You always had this inside, it just took some drastic events to pull it out of you, thank you for taking the path that allowed that to happen.

You are doing it, so KEEP GOING Dan. Keep the change, don’t look back, keep fighting hard for the good life. It’s worth it in every sense.

Love,

Present Dan

People are awesome.

 For all the trouble people have caused over the years. I do not hate people, In fact I remain just as enthralled by them as I was 20 years ago. People are awesome, there is so much love in the world, in the right places. Yup, there are hateful scenes and places as well, but those are easy enough to avoid. 

For a long time, I tried to win over the hateful people. I know now that is a fool's errand, those people find other hateful people and I can never be that. As much as they can damper a guy's perspective, usually it doesn't take long to notice something in humanity that snaps me back to the truth that people are awesome. 

Just don't go to Swigs pub and grill in Cedarbrae, Calgary. That place is a cesspool of hate if I've ever seen one. Rotten to the core. Took me long enough to realize though, and took me a while to get the stink off me from working and being around it for so long. 

They aren't like us though. Thank fuck. 

 Set aside some time and watch this. 

  

Darkest before the Dawn

 I don't feel good today, I feel alone and unwanted. I feel used. I think I've chased off anyone who holds any love for me in a way that I've lost all my supports and am flapping in a violent stormcloud. It doesn't feel good. 

I am in a dark place and at a dark moment in my life. 

I know I will get through this though. Just a few months and my life should open back up again. I have to remain vigilant and keep moving forward. I've come too far to stop now and only come this far. 

I can and will survive this, I've survived worse and battled through tough times before. This one seems bleak in the moment but I will get through. I have to, I have an amazing 10 year old son that is relying on me getting through this. 

I have so much to be grateful for. A roof over my head, enough money to survive, a means of transportation, mostly healthy. 

I can do this. 

Keep moving forward.  

6. To my Son: Never give up

 Things will get hard!

 Your life will include hardships and struggle constantly. Everyone's does. There will be times where you don't feel like you are getting what you deserve or life is throwing you a bunch of curveballs. It will be an easy thing to want to stop trying and give up. DO NOT GIVE UP. 

You didn't come this far, to only come this far. All your life you have been working towards this moment, and the next moment in your life. And you have done and accomplished so much. Often when things seem the most helpless is when your spirit will shine through and you'll get what you deserve, but only if you keep trying. If you stop trying you will get what you deserve as well. 

 Keep moving forward, little by little, day by day, and you will achieve what you want, I promise. If you give up, you admit defeat... you admit to those who doubted you or wanted you to fail, that they were right.  

This will happen multiple times over the course of your life. I am 41 as I write this and I'm still battling many hardships. I am almost through though and I have had many chances to give up. I can't give up so I can give you the life you deserve. If I give up I am not giving you the opportunities that you deserve. 

 You are an amazing person. You will go far in life, you have a great work ethic and an even better head on your shoulders, you are caring and funny and helpful in all the right ways. 

 Keep moving forward and life will work out fine. 

 Love you so much, 

Dad

 

The Good Ending.

Has every story been told? Is there anything original left to say or are we just rehashing Gilgamesh and Shakespeare over and over and over? The masters lived before us and it's now up to us to create something recognizable from their ancient ashes. 

No, I think not. Individually, we each tell our own story as best we can. Creating something entertaining to others should be an entirely secondary endeavour towards creating a story each of us can be proud of and be remembered by. Everybody loves an underdog but everyone is the underdog in their own story. We have to fight to tell our own story and claw for every inch we can. There is something original within us, each of us. It is up to us individually to write the good ending or the bad one. 

 My underdog story is likely only known to myself as I surely have a ton of people in my past who would like to see me fail. To them, I am not an underdog but rather just a mutt who deserves the worst in life. I have surely done some people wrong in my past as the only thing I was ever really good at was writing and fighting. So I'd write about my problems and create problems to write about. Whether those problems were real or imaginary is anyone's guess. 

 But I'm done feeling sorry for myself. Beating myself up over the issues I've caused has run it's course. To those I've hurt, I do apologize but it's time to move on and get back to writing the good ending. 

 New beginnings mean a different story, a different path, and a different way of living that story within itself. Every step taken from now forward must be a measured and intent filled one. That could be a massive leap one day or a toe across the line others, but there is no time left for looking back or following the rear view mirage of days passed. 

Time for the good ending to start.