Motivation / güdülenme

At 52, what is my motivation to learn Turkish? The proximate cause is my best friend's residence in Turkey. The next time I visit, I want to be versed enough in Turkish to talk with strangers as well as with my friend's family and friends.

Beyond that, I find it a fascinating hobby. It's a relaxing extension of my work as a computer programmer. In my work, I am constantly learning new languages. However, they're highly technical, of course. As such, there's a small number of people with whom I can share that language. In contrast, Turkish can be shared with about 200 million people. I like that.

What I also like is that this hobby keeps me mentally sharp. It's like going to the gym and doing weight training. You don't start with the heaviest weights. You work up to them...gradually.

Also, like being at the gym, you don't worry about what the guy next to you is doing. He may be an Arnold S. compared to your 90 pound weakling effort. To focus on that is to drop context, specifically your personal context. So, holding your own in this case means holding your own context. Holding that, you just stick to it and keep pushing yourself to do more and more each day.

Beyond that, I am a lifelong advocate of reason. I have always marveled at the capacity of the human mind and what it can accomplish. My 50+ years have only deepened that conviction. I don't mean just in terms of learning technical stuff and languages. I mean everything, every aspect of life, especially when it comes to morality and emotions, aspects too often relegated to the subjective, mystic realm.

That doesn't mean it's easy. Far from it. It just means that it's possible...with the appropriate effort tempered and guided by a rational, long range perspective.

Armed with that spirit, I'm overcome a rough childhood, dealt with a weak education by educating myself continually after formal schooling, pushed myself across years to unravel the philosophic mess I absorbed from America's culture and to learn a wholly new one grounded solidly in reality, taught myself a set of programming languages sufficiently well enough to make a good living with them and much more.

And the more now includes learning this fascinating language and the intriguing history of its homeland.

Maşallah!