Dear ArtTmodernmiami readers…
Dear sensitive souls!
Here I am.
What a strange time we are living in. Events, events…the pace is making us dizzy. This month, we are together again with a sequel. As the world continues to shake, I share with you the soul-soothing formulas of those who have survived.
My first article, published last month, attracted far more attention than expected. I received many messages. Now it’s time for the second part.
This series of articles, which I prepared with the participation of inspiring names from the world of art and culture, was shaped in the shadow of the waves of protests, demonstrations, and extraordinary developments in countries arising from oppressive, anti-democratic regimes that erupted simultaneously worldwide. And suddenly, as humanity, we found ourselves in unfamiliar emotional states.
In these days when authority and oppressive regimes are becoming increasingly visible, concepts such as “rights,” “law,” “justice,” and “freedom” will sooner or later regain meaning. These gains are too precious to be lost on behalf of all humanity.
In these times, everyone has their plan of action and way of holding on. We need to hold on to our formulas more tightly to remain robust in the face of challenging circumstances.
Now you will say: “You ask this question to everyone, but what would you answer if you were asked this question?”
Let me be frank: In the last days of December 2024, I turned inward and made some decisions. I wanted to reacquaint myself with my inner world and chart a course for my life’s journey without severing my connection with the outside world. It was a process of rebuilding myself.
If I need to give concrete examples:
I switched to a serious sports and nutrition regimen. I attended a digital media training camp related to my work; I wanted to keep up with the changing world and social media dynamics. I also met Qigong practices based on ancient Chinese medicine, which I have been interested in for a long time. I started to receive training on this subject, and I have been in a serious discipline for a while to position this teaching in my life.
This process is still ongoing. Some of it is completed, some of it is in progress. But I can say this with peace of mind: Thanks to all of this, I feel stronger both physically and mentally, time has become more fluid, life more bearable. Most importantly, I am now in charge of my mind, not letting it drag me down.
In this age when our tolerance threshold is lowering and we are choosing to walk with fewer people, family, friendship, hobbies, work, and small routines, our formulas really play a saving role.
I’m telling you…
Let’s leave you alone with this month’s participants. I hope you will find something of yourself…
Those who read my article last month will remember. I asked the same question to each of my fellow participants:
How do you cope with this challenging world order and all that is happening?
Is there a formula or a method that you apply in this process?
AYSE TOLGA / AUTHOR – EXPRESSION COACH – ACTRESS
Kamil Cakir: Meeting years ago, through a mutual friend, opening your first shop, Aisha in Cihangir, and the successful and well-managed career that has come to this day. Well done, my hat is off to you, Ayşe. How quickly the years go by.
Ayse Tolga: Yes, the years have passed quickly, Kamil, but we haven’t passed each other. Thank you, I’m fine. I’m trying to be good. These are difficult times. And I can say the following about the mood of these times we are in:
As we all get caught up in the pace of modern life, how we balance and strengthen our body and mind becomes more important than ever. As a wellness expert, I focus on achieving a holistic balance to maximize my quality of life and make conscious choices to make this balance sustainable.
Kamil Cakir: How do you cope with this challenging world order and all that is happening? Is there a formula or a method that you apply in this process?
Ayse Tolga: First of all, I believe in the power of good nutrition. I maintain my physical and mental energy by giving my body the right nutrients it needs. In addition, breathing exercises help to balance my nervous system and increase my mental clarity.
Exercise is indispensable for me. I understand its positive impact on the body’s biological systems, which is why I have always incorporated sports into my life. While I focus on building strength through weight training, I also prioritize spending time in nature. Taking walks in the forest, connecting with the earth, and enjoying the outdoors are excellent ways to reduce stress levels and boost my immune system. Walking barefoot on the ground helps balance the body’s electromagnetic charge and promotes a sense of calm.
Also, when I work with people, I recommend somatic exercises to support their spiritual and mental health. Increasing body awareness is a very effective method for emotional regulation and coping with stress.
Losing our connection with nature directly affects our mental and physical health. That’s why I prefer to move not only in gyms but also outdoors, in nature, feeling the energy of trees and soil. Nature is our greatest healer, and the more we return to it, the more balanced we become.
A strong body, a calm mind, and a spirit in touch with nature…
This is my formula for all that is going on!
BULUT REYHANOGLU / FILM – DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER
Kamil Cakir: Dear Bulut, the humblest person I know in life and the epitome of countless experiences, endeavors, and a dynamic life… How are you? Is everything okay? What would you say about your current situation and mood?
Bulut Reyhanoglu: Hi Kamil… I am fine. I am in a constant struggle to be well.
As humanity, we are in a process of great transformation, and we all bear the burden of this in different ways. Crises test us both individually and collectively.
I feel up and down, but basically motivated. Challenges can sometimes be exhausting, but I feel that I get stronger as I work and produce concrete solutions. Dealing with social responsibility projects gives me great meaning. Being active at work, benefiting someone, sometimes changing something, even if it is small, keeps my motivation alive.
Kamil Cakir: So, how do you cope with this chaotic world order and all that is going on? Is there a formula or method that you can share with our readers and apply in this process?
Bulut Reyhanoglu: Focus and balance are important to me. I try to stick to my daily routines, focus on my work, and go out into nature when I feel empty. Sports, walking, and being in one-on-one contact with people also help me maintain balance. I can say that I try to keep my inner world intact without getting caught up in the chaos of the outside world.
When it comes to coping with difficulties, I think that my experiences prepare me for the next process, and I don’t stop hoping.
Talking about what motivates me, especially social responsibility projects and creating concrete solutions, seems to be the things that inspire me the most. I am interested in issues such as the earthquake zone and the homeless, and I feel more meaningful when I can touch people’s lives. I have initiatives and a constant effort in this regard.
EBRU CEYLAN / ARTIST – ART ECONOMIST
Kamil Cakir: It is very nice to be in this project with you, with the state of being acquainted from the past. Ebrucum, how are you?
Ebru Ceylan: Hi Kamil, I’m fine, how are you? It’s nice to meet you again as an old friend. That alone makes me feel good right now. Some days I’m very good and some days I’m in between an indifferent “okay”. I guess the average is the answer to “I could be better”.
Kamil Cakir: Ebru, you are in art. How does this affect your mood and your work?
Ebru Ceylan: I ask myself this question every day and try not to let it affect me. Many of my artist friends and I are in a constant battle with this state of mind. Of course, as professionals, our focus muscle is strong and we try to realize our work with great delicacy. When the artist’s inner morbidities, the pain he/she already experiences without questioning, and the feelings he/she cannot express come together, the world can turn into a cage for him/her, at least for me.
In the last few years, perhaps due to aging or the shifting ethical and cultural perceptions in society, this situation has become more challenging. Every day, I find myself patting myself on the back and asking, “What’s the point? What does it matter?” I never used to ask that question before. I turn to my family, my friends, and my business partners. They pick me up when I fall apart.
Kamil Çakir: Let’s come to our main question… How do you cope with this challenging world order we live in and all that is going on? Is there a formula or method you apply in this process?
Ebru Ceylan: It is an isolated life. I try to access the right information, but I take care not to be involved in anything that can create tension. I try as much as I can not to see, read, or support anything that contains elements of violence. I don’t mean avoiding where there is a need to react.
I have moved my relationships to safer areas. Of course, it is difficult to do this alone, with a formula. I am lucky that my family and friends are very supportive in my personal life. On the business side, the support of Ulaş Mollaoğlu, who is both my investor and my friend, keeps me afloat, even if only a little, so that I can do my job in the existing order.
The biggest test is patience. Work in the field of culture and the arts involves processes that require a great deal of patience and do not progress quickly. At this point, I try to keep myself stable, not to lose my focus, and to do what I do in the best way possible. I don’t know any other way.
As you know, I work in neuroscience as a field at the same time. You will laugh, but I do a lot of measurements about myself, what I feel, what I am stimulated by. I try to keep myself in a positive frame of mind as much as possible and not throw in the towel. For example, I’ve been doing this for a few days, and it’s been good. I started to share the works of my favorite artist friends. You may say what will come of it, but I’m tired of seeing tense negative content on social media all the time. Yes, we live in a challenging world, but when we constantly witness it audibly, visually, and when we are surrounded by it, we get into a lower and lower mood. For me, this is an approach that will at least make us say that there are good things that will arouse good feelings in each other. A holistic effort to feel good without focusing only on one’s area. Listening, reading, and seeing good things feels like meditation. Because when bad things happen, we experience the shame of hiding happiness and showing artistic works, which I think we need perhaps the most in such processes. To remember.
HAKAN HELVACIOĞLU / INTERIOR ARCHITECT – DESIGNER
Kamil Çakir: Unending love, respect, and friendship from years and years ago. Common friendships, common places, and common meeting points – a friendship built on our tastes and lifestyles. Dear Hakan, how are you?
Hakan Helvacioglu: First of all, let me say hello. I want to say “I am fine” as a matter of habit, but I have never said it with a feeling of guilt. Are we really fine?
Doesn’t the definition of being good sound as hollow as “the definition of being a good person”? Causes all kinds of negativity, commits almost all 5 sins, but is called “essentially a good person” …. Humanity has never been so shallow and low.
I don’t know if it is the greed, the urge to stand up and survive in the shrinking rights to life, that makes it so bad, or have we lost our humanity, with the majority losing morality and conscience, while greed exists in every era?
Kamil Çakir: You are absolutely right, Hakan… How does this situation affect your mood at work?
Hakan Helvacioglu: While we live in a period of perception where everything that happens globally affects us, I felt the necessity of distraction and feeling good by dedicating myself to work, produce, and create to protect myself from the negativity around us. Realizing that we are lucky, I was grateful that I had talents, that I could exist with them, that my career existed thanks to them, and that I could earn my living in this way. I am aware that I am in the lucky minority… But do I think that my future is guaranteed? I have given up on the career plan. We all worry about whether I can move forward, improve my opportunities, and possibly maintain them at the same level.
In this situation, it is obvious that being stuck in this state of mind is not going to get us anywhere. Isn’t it the easiest and most understandable attitude to keep ourselves GOOD in every sense, to resist to be a good person, to think good, to produce good, to remember that good is right, to spread it around as goodness, to make us feel goodness with your presence and perhaps to remind us of it? As we resist, we will realize that we are not alone, as we come side by side, we will become WE, not I, and we will multiply. Then we will remember the power of sharing and supporting, we will see it, we will understand its effects. The most important thing is not to give up. Isn’t the purpose of the Good-Bad balance to mobilize? We cannot appreciate one without the other.
Kamil Çakir: Hakan, how do you cope with this challenging world order and all that is happening? Is there a formula or method you apply in this process?
Hakan Helvacioglu: Touching lives, sharing humbly within our means, is also good for our souls. Supporting a student, completing his/her deficiency or sharing knowledge and experience, guiding, giving hope…
Paving the way for a colleague, making his/her life easier.
While emphasizing the inadequacy of education, enabling vocational high schools and university students to study together, to experience each other’s possibilities and methods, to repair and reconcile their relations in a social sense.
To create more accessible and comfortable living spaces for the elderly and to create funds for this…
To create projects with the support and unity of social groups and NGOs, to produce effective solutions, and to heal our wounds and deficits…
To show and prove to street children that another life is possible and to bring them to life.
Rehabilitating our strays with more conscientious (I can’t say humanitarian) methods, ensuring their remaining short lives with love and compassion, taking them under control over time with sterilization…
Although taking measures for the protection of women and children and building resistance seems to belong to our geography, it is a big problem globally. Domestic violence and abuse, even thousands of missing children…
Keeping social awareness alive, and NGOs are the biggest solution for us to remain HUMAN!
ABAY ALPEREN KAPLAN / FOUNDER OF QIGONG ACADEMY – INSTRUCTOR
Kamil Çakir: On the way, I set out for a change in my life with the new year, our paths crossed with Qigong, based on ancient Chinese Medicine, which I have been interested in recently. Dear teacher, how are you?
Abay Alperen Kaplan: Thank you for asking; in general, I am fine, or it would be more accurate to say that I try to be fine and keep hope.
Kamil Çakir: Having received such an answer, I would like to ask you this. How does the current state of mind affect your work and you?
Abay Alperen Kaplan: The rapidly changing and transforming living conditions and uncertainties worldwide affect and worry me, of course, like everyone who has someone or something they value in life.
Kamil Çakir: So, Abay, how do you cope with this challenging world order and all that is going on? I am sure the readers of ArtTmodernmiami will be curious: Is there a formula or method that a person who has placed Qigong at the center of his life applies in this process?
Abay Alperen Kaplan: I can’t say that I cope with all this perfectly or that I have any special methods, but I would like to mention two main elements that give me strength.
First element: Health First!
They say that man has a thousand and one problems until he loses his health. When he loses his health, he has only one problem. Based on this approach, I care to protect my health so that I can keep walking no matter what the conditions are. I also make it more sustainable with the principle of majority instead of perfection.
Second element: Focus on What You Can Control!
Amid all these uncertainties, focusing on oneself and what one can control reduces anxiety to some extent and gives one hope and confidence. I ask for strength for the things I can change and patience for the things I cannot.”
I combine these two elements at one point in my life: Qigong!
Qigong, which I have been practicing since childhood, has been a powerful tool for me to maintain both my physical and mental health. This practice, which has been in my life for many years, makes it easier for me to cope with the chaos of life.
Qigong has strengthened my physical stamina and mental focus. This helps me to feel less anxiety in everyday life and helps me to recover quickly in difficult times.
No matter how challenging times are, Qigong helps me get back on my feet faster and hold on to life more firmly.
So, Qigong is not only a relaxation tool for me, but also a source of strength and balance!
Artist – Designer
