It's Not Normal

  

Not Normal, So Wouldn't Be Normalized...

With her light brown eyes fixed on the horizon, she was feeling a gentle breeze on her skin in the quiet of the morning. She had completed her morning walk. Taking a sip of coffee she put to her thermos, she savored the start of the day accompanied by the chirping of birds. Her greatest dream was to live in a house with a garden, far from everyone, quiet and peaceful...

Having lived in an apartment building since childhood, she thought that the house with a garden she had moved into had been a source of joy for her ever since the day she moved in. She was very surprised not to see anyone else on the walking path. “How can people live in a neighborhood like this and stay cooped up in their homes during these beautiful morning hours?” she said to herself. “People...” she said to herself. “People... how can they make things that are actually not normal seem normal...”

As she thought about the houses she had lived in, she remembered his university days... Actually, they had experienced something similar back then. She and her dorm mate had decided to move into a house, and while walking along the seashore, a piece of paper in the window of a not-so-new apartment caught her eye: “For Rent…” This house, which they could never have imagined, had a sea view, with a glass front facing the sea, and was very close to the faculty. They thought about the rent for such a house and realized that they would not rent it to students because of its condition, but they said, “Let's ask anyway...” What happened?

The landlord who is Black Sea-born liked them and agreed to rent the apartment to these two students, even though there were no other students in the building, and at a reasonable price, much more reasonable than what their friends paying elsewhere. Actually, this situation, and this apartment, were anything but normal.

In the early months, they would have breakfast every morning on their balcony overlooking the sea and sip coffee in their armchairs facing the sea after returning from class. Friends who came to visit were occasionally amazed by this view. After a while, this beautiful apartment, with its curtains never opened because the sun was too strong, turned into a balcony only used when friends came over. As soon as they got home, they would go straight to their rooms, sometimes not seeing the sea for weeks. The view was still just as beautiful, but for them it had long since become normal.

Experiential Design Teaching says: People tend to normalize things they are exposed to in the long term.

Just as…

·        a person with healthy eyes being able to see every morning..

·        how the peach tree they ate juicy peaches from in summer turns into a dry branch in winter and is used for firewood…

·        ⁠⁠ how turning on the tap is enough to get clean water every day…

·        ⁠ how they can access oxygen, the most essential thing, without paying anything...

·        ⁠ not needing outside help to grasp something with our hands...

And many more miracles that aren’t realized easily although they are just in front of us.

Humankind could normalize even these miracles because they encountered them so often. Until they were taken away... Until those eyes stopped seeing, that tree stopped bearing fruit, that water stopped flowing, that oxygen became insufficient, those hands stopped grasping...

How could a person who normalizes a miracle not normalize the house with a garden they live in? All of these were very pleasing things to the soul; they were easy to normalize. Humans were creatures who could easily normalize the gestures made towards them, the opportunities given to them.

Their eyes, or what those eyes saw...

Their ears, or what those ears heard...

Their hands, or what those hands could grasp...

So how was it possible to normalize an oppression that grew worse with each passing day? How was it possible that their feelings diminished over time in the face of the most painful images humanity could see?

·        Families who pack their entire world into a backpack and are constantly displaced...

·        A father returning home ashamed because he couldn't find food for his family...

·        Nearly all of the people left homeless under 70,000 tons of bombs...

·        100 people being killed one morning while praying...

·        A child crying not for a toy but for “water…”

Was all this really normal, could it be normalized? How could life go on as if nothing had happened despite all this...

What is happening in Gaza today are events that require those who witness this oppression to react. Everyone should react to the best of their ability, to the best of their intellect, to the best of their conscience.

The last thing anyone should do is normalize this because what is happening is anything but normal...

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Deneyimsel Tasarım Öğretisi, geçmiş deneyimlerden yola çıkarak, geleceğimizi tasarlamaya yönelik stratejiler üreten bir bilgi topluluğudur. 

 İnsanın daha mutlu, daha başarılı, daha iyi ilişkilerinin olması için yöntemler sunar.

"Kim Kimdir", "İlişkilerde Ustalık" ve "Başarı Psikolojisi" Programları ile bu amaca katkı sağlar.

Deneyimsel Tasarım Öğretisinde anlatılan tüm bilgiler, gerçek bilgiler olup, tüm zamanlar, tüm konular ve tüm insanlar için geçerlidir.

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"İnsanoğlu, yeryüzünde var olduğundan beri,

En büyük dostu ve düşmanı hiç değişmedi.

Aynadaki kişi!

Tek başına neler yapabileceğini keşfet!"

Yahya Hamurcu

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