Sinanation

I remember the days when I would drive her crazy. Her hair cut short, her tiny sneakers on, her cheeks peach red she would run into the living room her eyes sparkling with the grandeur of the Christmas tree. “Sinan are you decorating the tree!” she would yell her voice trembling with her tiny heart pounding with excitement. She would come back her hands washed and stand next to my feet waiting for an order to hang an ornament on the pine tree. Annoyed by her tiny presence, careless of her excitement I would pick a tiny damaged red ball from a bunch of huge ones and ask her to put it in a place where no one can see. I was an immature brother too selfish to observe his sister’s incredible spirit and blossom.

Even though the age difference, I have always been addicted to her company. She was my cabin crew when I turned my bed into an airplane. She was my gatekeeper when I turned the living room sofa into a cave of wonders. She was my avid shopper when I turned my room into a shop of weird gadgets. She was my forced wingman when I watched horror movies. She was my financier when I ran out of my weekly allowance. She was always there for me (although sometimes unwillingly). She has changed a lot since then, but never ceased to stand beside me for the good and the bad.

It took me a while to catch up after I left for college. 8 years away from home overseas, I kept thinking it was only her voice that changed. First she was smart enough to decorate the tree before I made it home. Then came the high heels. I was shorter. Then the trips to the hairdressers. I was bolder. Then the switch to a healthy diet. I was chubbier. I no longer dived into her room without knocking. She was strong enough to watch the horror movies alone in a dark room (although she might end up sneaking to grandma’s after the movie). I would have never imagined her to grow up so fast. Never imagined to be the one taking advice. Never imagined to be the one so proud of her decisions and determination. I felt privileged to be the cavalier to my tall, sexy and confident sister. We had our ups and downs, but she has always been the princess of our home.

On my most recent trip back, she found his prince to become the queen of her own home. I am heavy with emotions, motivated with pride, happy with her happiness and somber with farewell. Her engagement was the first step. Her wedding will be the next to a new life she is set to build up with her husband. Her address might change, but she will always be a call away from me to bug her anytime, anywhere. This time I promise to be a little more mature and call during reasonable hours.

Congrats to my princess, Ayse and her prince I welcome as a brother, Serkan.

A heart that is worth a thousand words, a thousand guts, a thousand kisses, a thousand fights, a thousand make-ups, a thousand welcomes and a thousand farewells… It comes surprisingly soon, unexpectedly easy. Delivered on a ripped piece of paper with a borrowed pen. It is surrounded by daylight, music, food and wine. It is brought to life at a small restaurant in New York. You are having the most intriguing conversation with an Italian girl sitting at the table next to yours. You tell her about your Italian business partner and she starts teaching you the language. Your pronunciation makes her laugh. You both enjoy each other’s company in this overly-crowded and eventful restaurant you both happen to be in. An accidental acquittance, a pleasant conversation, a short piece of reminiscence  stored in your ever-expanding library…

This little piece of evidence popped out of my blazer’s inside pocket and pulled me back a few years to Le Bilboquet. One saturday, one brunch, some tuna tartare, a medium rare filet mignon and too many glasses of the famous rosé. That was how it all started…

Girls think it is so easy. Gather a few cute friends. Blow-dry the hair. Put on the make-up, a cute smile with a flirty mimic, some short tight skirts, sexy tops and high heels. Once out the door, they are ready to conquer the nightlife in New York. 80% of the bouncers will be happy to let them in and mingle with us poor guys who are forced to drink at least a few bottles of alcohol at a table with a fake sexy waitress who is looking to suck out the limits on our credit cards.

Do not tell us that we can (maybe) avoid a table reservation. We don’t have the luxury, the character or the patience to deny the rules of the game. It takes ratios, bribes, credit cards and a totally superficial acquaintance to make it to the famous club where you want to dance us until bedtime.

The moment we are behind that red velvet rope we are reminded that we are there to be spiritually abused and financially raped. We get the attitude from the host who probably can not come close to the education, vision and culture we have been injected with over the years. We become the victim in front of an “average Joe” looking to abuse all the power he/she has been surprisingly given as the person who decides who to let into this luscious club that will only be popular for a few more months. We are constantly asked how many is in our party as we watch weird guys cutting through the line with their whole clan. We point towards the faces of our friends hoping they will pass the “beauty” test. We overhear the bouncers deciding the faith of our night by asking each other “what do you think?” with an extremely arrogant face. We wait. We ask for attention like a helpless puppy although a lion roars “you are too good for this” inside, grabbing onto our male ego. We are finally slapped with the sentence “I.D.s out!”. We hug although we despise. We shake hands although we hate the deal.

Each time we walk up to that club door we have cramps thinking about the next step. Yet, we walk the line with the prospect of a fun night with close friends. We take the attitude with the hope of a kiss from a girl we fancy. Alcohol helps only to ease the tension built up at the start of a night out in the city.

We pay the bill with a bad hangover and a regret that reminds us how we will pull through another night out in the city that never sleeps.

Yasmin brought this quote to my attention yesterday. She says it is currently her most favorite and I think she has all the reasons to make it so. It summarizes all the things I wanted to say in Precious in one single sentence. Its author is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known by his pen name, Mark Twain.

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.

Yet again the Valentine ’s Day is here. Singles and couples, we will all drown in reds, pinks, hearts, candies, balloons, teddy bears, lingerie, over-sized gift cards, massage oils and kinky sex toys. Restaurants will have those romantic courses which are always paired with red wine. Deserts will be flaming hot with melted chocolate and strawberries. Hotels will be promoting their erotic night getaways. Same plain rooms will be decorated with a few rose petals and a bottle of champagne to be sold at a higher rate. Clubs and bars, the hunting grounds of the singles will do everything in their power to avoid the romantic and try to make a little profit from the lonely ones who will be looking to escape the so called fairy tale.

Single or not, I feel like we are all on the same page. Singles try to erase the day from the calendar not because of the people who are celebrating it, but because of the scenery. Couples on the other hand are faced with a bigger dilemma. They are desperately looking for ways to be original in their celebration of the Valentine’s and after a few trials, are out of ideas. They just can’t go to the same restaurant they have been eating at for the past few months. It is just awkward to see the same surroundings and faces painted in red, covered in candle lights. Teddy bears and candies should have already been left alone after high school. Why the hotel when you can go back to the bed you have been sleeping happily for so long? Why the sexy lingerie when they could be worn any day, any time? Single or not, I feel like we all on the same page. We would rather be romantic when we are not told to be…when we don’t have everything around us yelling it so loud that we can’t even hear our own voice.

With that in mind, I wish everyone (especially Hallmark) a happy Valentine’s Day.

This is an amazing post written by my friend, mentor and business partner Andrea on his blog http://thewaterrat.com/

I enjoyed it so much that I had to share it on Sinanation too. All credits to Andrea and his secret book on body parts.

The buttocks have quite unfairly become the joke region of the human body. They make people laugh; they are a popular subject for dirty jokes. The behind, the back side, the bum, the buns, the arse, the rump, the bottom – whatever name they are given, the buttocks are looked upon as either ridiculous or obscene. Even when they are considered an erotic zone, because of their proximity with the genitals, they are more likely to be pinched or slapped than caressed.

It’s easy to see how this negative attitude has come about. The buttocks are not alone. Between them lurks the anus, through which must pass, day after day, all our solid waste matter and - even more notoriously – the occasional emission of gas. Furthermore, when we bend down the genitals swing into view, also framed by the twin curves of the buttocks. So there is no escaping excretory and sexual associations.

It follows from this that to display the buttocks is interpreted either as a gross insult – a symbolic act of defecation on an enemy – or as a gross obscenity – a shameless presentation of sexual organs.

The buttocks display is sometimes made more abusive by the addition of the phrase ‘kiss my arse’. Taken at face value this is insulting because it demands a humiliating act of subordination. But there is more to it than that: the Greeks believed that the buttocks were the most beautiful part of the human anatomy. The human hemispheres were so different from the tough patches of hardened skin on the lean-bottomed apes that the Greeks saw them, quite correctly, as supremely human and non-bestial. The curvaceous Goddess of Love, Aphrodite Kallipygos – the ‘Goddess with Beautiful Buttocks’ – was said to have a behind more aesthetically pleasing than any other part of her anatomy.

It was argued that if rounded buttocks were the hallmark distinguishing mankind from the beasts, then the monsters of darkness must lack this particular anatomical feature. Early Europeans believed that the devil, even though he could assume human form, could never complete the transformation because he could never manage to simulate the rounded human buttocks. Historically, the devil was depicted as having another face instead of the buttocks. This second face is the one which was supposed to be kissed by witches as part of the ritual of the Sabbath.  The concept of arse-kissing survived and the popular phrase was incorporated in the modern insult.

The females of apes have brightly colored rumps. Their hind quarters become increasingly conspicuous and swollen as the time of ovulation approaches, then recede again as it passes. This means that a male can tell at a glance whether a female is sexually active.

Human females are different. Their rumps do not rise and fall with their menstrual cycles. Their buttocks remain protuberant throughout. Matching this, sexuality also remains high. As part of her pair-bonding system, the human female has extended her sexiness so that she’s always potentially responsive to the male (mhhhh…).  The female’s sex signal is accentuated by two other properties: the backward rotation of the pelvis and the sway of the hips in walking. The typical female has a more arched back than the male. When she walks, the different leg and hip design of the female skeleton produces a greater undulation in the buttock region. She wiggles as she walks.

The females of our early ancestors were much bigger-buttock-ed than their modern counterparts as evidence from ancient skeletons points out. One possible explanation of this is that our ancestors mated from behind. As we evolved into erect posture and our rump muscles bulged into buttocks, the swollen shape became the main sex signal. Females with larger rumps sent the stronger sex signals so that this condition started to increase until the buttocks became huge. The huge buttocks started however to interfere with the sexual act. The males solved the problem by switching to frontal copulation. As part of this new approach, the female breasts became permanently swollen as mimics of the large hemispherical buttocks. This later version of the human female, better balanced and more agile, was at a considerable advantage over the fat-laden earlier model, which was gradually replaced.

The presentation of the buttocks in a humble bent-over posture has had an enduring role as an appeasement gesture. In this respect there is no difference between the ape and human individual. In all cases the ‘presenter’ is saying “I offer myself in the passive female role. Please show your dominance by mounting me instead of attacking me”. The dominant individuals rarely attack such a subordinate, either ignoring it, or else mounting it briefly and making a few formalized pelvic thrusts.

Between lovers, buttock clasping is common in both courtship and copulation itself. It is this sexual linkage, again, that causes the occasional furore over the notorious Italian pursuit of bottom-pinching. Any attractive girl walking the streets of an Italian city is liable to have her buttocks pinched by admiring strangers.

I had the pleasure of chatting with a close friend about the aftermath of a typical breakup. Our debate lead me to write this short observation of what I see as the dynamics behind the “male move on process” and the confusion of the female within all this tornado of testosterone and emotion. I thank her for challenging me into this intense, but rather comforting debate.

Just like the chromosomes that create sex, the views of a female and male differ greatly towards the episodes that come about after a breakup. As all of us who had the pleasure of dating are aware, breakups are almost always unfinished businesses. There is always one party in the game that whispers quietly outside, but yells furiously inside “I am not done!”. In this case our views of ghosts as souls who are stuck on the Earth because of unfinished businesses applies completely to the partner who is not done with the relationship. Nobody would want the world to know that he or she is that weak, confused, angry and helpless partner waiting on the side long after the relationship is over. Thus, begins the period where both sides retrieve back to their original clans, far away from the little tent they built during their happy days together. With the prospect of having the old single days back, the male and the female steps into the gang in which, he and she once played a major role.

The male is back in the Tribe of Y-chromosomal Adam.

He fights his urges to care whether the ex has moved on and he is well-aware that she will sooner or later. Like many of his buddies he believes the best official way to declare independence and strength is to find another girl (as many name “the rebound girl”) to decorate his loneliness and support his fun endeavors. The weakness is camouflaged with the best outfit and the tribe members are there to witness it.

After the break up, the male sees Y-chromosomal Adam as the members-only, sacred ground where nobody he has cut ties with are welcome. He is there to be attended to and focused on. Going back to the old days, having the best careless fun, sharing, supporting and relaxing are the main goals of the recently separated.

Yet, there is a miscalculation in the male’s expectation. Over the period that he has gallantly and happily hung out with his partner, he has (willingly or unwillingly) forced his tribe partners to embrace and respect the female (whom he now sees as history). He is perplexed to see the history showing up at his front door. He feels betrayed to see his tribe hanging out with the woman he grew apart with. He thinks “this girl is not over me and still manages to find a way to stay in touch through my gang”. He shivers with the thought of having to watch her have fun within his sacred grounds and move on in front of his eyes. The girl on the other hand wishes to stay friends knowing that the “rebound girl” is already there to cut off any prior emotional ties. She swallows the pain and puts on a good face. She enjoys the company of her “accidental” tribe. She shows up around Y-chromosomal Adam for the formation and the continual of a mature and respectful acquaintance.

He grows furious, taking it out on the people he came to rely on. He blames them for not caring as much. Insensitivity and betrayal are to be gotten rid of. He is blinded with the breakouts of the macho testesterone flowing inside him. He is scared of the emotions he witnessed and sedated with much difficulty, resurfacing. He needs time and hopes to get rid of the addiction with the hope of rejuvenating the days before “the couple”. Back in the Tribe of Y-chromosomal Adam… Away from his special female…Close to all the unrefined urges of his manhood and gangstership.

Humankind has always been selfish and territorial. We are the most intelligent creatures on Earth, but we are also very fragile. The power of nature over and the influence of another being on us contradicts with our survival instincts.

Unlike other creatures on Earth survival has a totally different meaning for humans. Survival for us is not just staying alive. It is taking control, making the life around us obey us. That is why we have never actually been content. We have never been satisfied with the things we are blessed with. Like a Pepsi commercial we have never stopped “asking for more”. That is why the questions that start with “What if”s have haunted all of us since our creation. Unfortunately this obsession got even stronger with the introduction of personalized technology in our lives. This technology has pushed us into individualism and turned our lives into self-proclaimed monarchies. We are no longer as patient. We are no longer as giving. We reached a point where we can no longer shelter anyone else in our private kingdoms. Relationships started to fall apart while marriages end up in divorces.

Walkman and its new generation cousins, the MP3 players are one of the best examples to such personalized technology. They have brought two things to our lives. First they brought more control in the sense that their users no longer had to put up with radio stations where there is almost no control over the songs played. Second they influenced individualism, allowing users to put on their earphones in any setting they wanted. Face to face interaction has been minimized. Computers and the Internet are other examples to this technology. New age computers have minimized our tolerance to patience by addicting us to “command and control”. Requests started to be fulfilled with just the push of a button. Discussions and enduring efforts are no longer required. The Internet tied us to a chair and brought the world to us. We no longer go to the supermarket to pick the freshest food. We no longer go to the shops to pick clothes or furniture. We are stuck behind closed doors, standing in front of a screen. Outgoing no longer. We are fully-equipped and self-sufficient kings of our own kingdoms with our only companions, the technological devices.

Most of us try hard to break the habit. We push ourselves to find a person to share it all with. Yet most of the time most of us fail. We slowly start to realize that the technological advances we created to serve us have turned us into the servants. They became our favorite companions. They made us believe that we only have room for ourselves inside our little self-proclaimed kingdoms. As Apple has ingeniously summarized it for all of us: We all became addicted to “I” and let go of “we”.

Sometimes we get so stuck that we forget about the things that matter the most to us. From work to relationships we end up spending all our effort on something that will eventually lead us nowhere. Sometimes it is not up to us to make a change.

The more energy we put on work might not come back to us with a promotion. The more time we spend talking to that girl we like so much might not end up with a steady relationship. We have to know the facts and read the signs well before it is too late. Before it is too late to do the stuff that do not really define us and get back to the person or the project we once cared for so much. We all know that is a difficult task to accomplish. Sometimes we just want to give it a try. We close our eyes and plug our ears to all the cautions. We go deeper and deeper to test the limits of our abilities. We hold tight to destiny and believe nature will find a way. We don’t let go until our pants catch on fire. When we finally get the idea to put off the fire, we are left with that heavy regret of not focusing on something else which or someone else who could have given us all that we were yearning for in the first place. And that regret pushes us to a frenzy, making us do all the things we used to criticize other people for.

With relationships there will always be one side which is trying harder. One side that loves more than the other. One side that will sacrifice more than the other to make things work. At the end of the day there is one question we have to ask yourselves: “Can we honestly tell ourselves that the other side is trying to make it work for us?” Unless the answer is yes, we have to quit pretending and care enough about ourselves to save the time and energy for something else that will benefit us in the longterm. We all know that this decision takes time to sink in, but the faster, the better it will be for us.

With work and other projects that we believe in so much, we have to make it a priority to calculate the amount of control we have on the matter. There is one question to be asked “Will all this effort make a positive change for us?” It might not be a promotion, but an inner satisfaction or a better relationship with our superiors. Those kinds of achievements are surely worth trying for. Yet, if we can no longer see a positive change for ourselves as a result of our efforts we have to take a pause and redesign our priorities.

We have to keep trying and keep innovating until we make the best use of our precious time. We should know that as long as we don’t care for our own nobody else will. We are all too good to dedicate ourselves to things that will not make us better.

Workday…time for lunch. The weather is great and it feels good to get outside the office. Stretch the legs a little, shop the store displays with your eyes. What could be better than seeing beautiful girls out on the street, enjoying the sun and the warm weather? Think twice. Being closer to most of the modeling agencies in New York has thought me a lot about these few hand-picked girls that make it to the runways. It is as if they go through a brainwash once they step into the agency. They are thought to never smile again or maybe smile if it is unmistakably necessary. Maybe it is the attitude they impose on themselves. Maybe they deny to look approachable. Maybe they have bad teeth. Maybe they see the regular streets of the city as runways and the pedestrians as the designers or clothing line owners who might pick them for a show or catalogue. The unhappy, extremely serious and tall beautiful girl. It should the plate number for models just like the plate number for an M.D.’s car.