There are some sentences that don't end as soon as you read them. You fall into them. They echo, multiply, call you back to yourself. That sentence left by Aziz Nesin in Zübük is like such an abyss:
“I know we have a rotten society. No matter how hard we try, we cannot remain solid people in this rotten society.”
You stop for a moment. Your breath gets short. Because this word describes you, not others. Like dirt that doesn't wash off even if you wash your hands, the stain of the age you live in is on you. Whether you realize it or not.
What we call decay does not come upon us suddenly one morning. It is silent. It is patient. First, words deteriorate; “right” is bent, “wrong” is made up. Then the gaze changes; the eyes do not see the truth, do not want to see it. And finally one becomes alienated from oneself. The face he sees when he looks in the mirror is everything he once did not want to be.
The biggest mistake of man is that he thinks he is on the outside. But decay does not start on the outside, but right in the middle. In a silence. In an acceptance. In saying “let the snake that doesn't touch me live a thousand lives”. At that moment, a small piece breaks off inside us. And we diminish without realizing it.
But still... is everything so dark?
Perhaps the real issue is not not to rot, but to realize that you are rotting. Because the person who realizes is still alive. He still aches. He is still ashamed. And a heart that can be ashamed is not yet completely lost.
A society can decay. Values can erode. Truth can be drowned in the noise of the crowds. And yet, somewhere, when a person quietly stands up for the truth... there is still hope. A small, fragile but stubborn hope.
Maybe we will not remain intact, as Nesin said. Maybe we will also be scratched, broken, tired in this decay. But it is another thing to disappear completely. It is another to surrender.
And this is where man is tested the most: How long he can keep his inner purity in a polluted world.
Because sometimes the whole point is -
How long did you stay human when everything was rotting?