Levent Ülgen | TEDxIzmir

 Nadya Alasad Reviewer: Saliha Karatepeli Now, sir, I finished primary school when I was 12. I asked my father for a bicycle as a gift for graduating  from primary school. I knew he won’t buy it because our financial situation is not so good, he has no money to buy me at least a bike and he’s a nervous, angry man. And yet I plucked up my courage, and asked for the gift. 

He said Okay I was very surprised, okay - such sentence from dad.

He said Okay, but let’s do this, There’s a construction next door.

Go there and find yourself a job, work. Save money, I’ll complete it and well buy the bike. This must be some horseplay! So my friends will play ball in the summer, they’ll knock around and play, while I will work there!

I got up in the morning, I said, Okay, I’ll work. I went and immediately spoke with the construction contractor. He said Come tomorrow, well see what kind of job we can find for you.

When I left the next day, I had a bucket of lime,  slaked lime and a brush. They gave me to a master. I was lining the apartment next door, of 4 floors and 8 apartments, in my child-state and of course my height doesn’t catch up somewhere lime gets into my eye, my eyes are swollen, like bloodshot. So every night, my mother would dress my wounds while crying.

Dad says he doesn’t care, let him work. Look how nicely he works, he says. All summer, I pulled the liner of that apartment and worked a lot with that master. Then the job was over, I went to the contractor. I said I want my money. He said Sure and gave me money. Bicycle money is out. Great! I don’t even need my father,

I’ll buy that bike.

I said Here, my money is ready, well go tomorrow and buy the bike.

I’m so sure, now he said Lets buy it, but...

Summer is over. School will start, snow, winter, rain, mud. You won’t be able to ride  this bike... I mean. It’s the best that we buy it  with this money next year. I understood that that bike won’t be bought for me, so even though I saved the money it won’t be bought and I started to cry from anger but he said Wait!

You’ve worked all summer, and you’ve worked so hard. Let’s do this. The money is yours you can buy whatever you want with this money he said. I can get what I want, great! I like it, everything I want, everything. The first weekend in Kızılay, people of Ankara know, we were in the Ülke Alan Passage I bought myself a very beautiful suit, a shorts, elastic leggings, spikes and a leather soccer ball. Now, don’t underestimate because it’s a hell of a thing to buy leather soccer balls in those times, especially for such low-income families. And when I come to the neighborhood, I’m the king there because I have a ball.

I can set up the team I want with that ball, the team would be mine.

I have the ball so I have the power. And that summer, I recognized labor.

I realized what handwork is and the power of my hard work.

I really liked that a lot.

Many years later when my father died, my mother confessed; my father  didn’t buy me that bike on purpose, he didn’t let me buy it on purpose . Because, again, those who know Ankara, Dikmen, Dikmen of Ankara is in a very steep place, very sloping. He used to say to mother - it wasn’t so - he said Woman. If I buy this bike for this boy, this boy is crazy and naughty. 

He’ll try to ride down the slope, goes there, goes under the truck and dies, I’ll be in trouble. Instead of me crying, let him cry because he doesn’t have a bike So I never had a bike but I learned labor at that age the value of my effort, its worth, I learned the strength of my effort. Since that day, my most valuable thing is my labor, the only weapon I have is my effort.

Then university years started. On the one hand, I study physics, science. On the other hand I’m dealing with theater, art. But I am confused, and very confused. Will I be an artist, a scientist or a physicist?

What will I do if I am a physicist?

If I become an artist, actors state is obvious. I’m very, very confused, I don’t know what I will do. By the way, I have a grandfather. I didn’t hear a single Kurdish word from his mouth, but his nickname is Kurdish Hasan, they  came from the southeast by tumbrel, so it must be that; Kurdish Hasan, but I did not hear one Kurdish word. As you can see Kurdish Hassan is a truck driver not even a primary school graduate, but he also loves his profession. 

Every time he finishes voyage, he cleans up to the last screw of his trucks engine and makes it crisp. He’ll never let his kids and grandchildren get near his truck because, had say, You’ll go to school, you won’t be a truck driver like me But every evening when he comes home from the garage, he dresses perfectly; a suit, on bottom pleated double leg trousers, his shirt tied up until the end on his head a cap, a flat cap or his fedora, topcoat according to the season, his coat and he comes home with his crisp sparkling shoes. 

However, after dinner, my grandfather receives the report of the day during tea coffee and fruit sessions and everyone tells him what happened and what is over. Then the grandchildren go to bed. Were always mad about that. Turns out it wasn’t so, he loved us at night. Had caress our hair while we sleep. Had say, for the male child not to be spoiled and soft.

Then I got to know to another man. My teacher, Cüneyt Gökçer. Almost the same age as my grandfather. Well, there is a wooden sword on his waist made in his workshop again, with his hair and beard made of horsehair and tail, he goes on stage every evening and says, I’m king, and what not!

He keeps shouting, screaming in the middle. Now, I’m extremely confused, what am I supposed to do?

One day, Cüneyt Gökçer came with a wooden suitcase, which you know, opened it up, and there was the photos of all the roles he played until that day. He played kings, sultans, professors, businessmen, hobos, hundreds of photos.

Then I started to think well through. I said, Isn’t the labor mine? It is. Can I use my labor wherever I want? Yes. Is effort my weapon? Then this job is worth the effort. I choose this job Isn’t it the choices we make that determine us anyway?

And I decided to be an actor that day. I put physics and grandfather aside and went after Cüneyt Gökçer. Yes, I was lucky because I studied  physics, science and I studied theater, so I studied art, and the common aspect of these two has always caught my eye. It may look very different, but both have a common path, the exit point, the dynamo of progress is the same question: What if it isn’t so?

Always that question. Asking this question has always been a part of my work because while acting, staging a play, we always ask this; what if it’s not so? What if it’s something else?

But to ask this question, it takes some courage, it needs some darkness, it embodies the desire to reach the future. 

What if it isn’t so? What if the world is not flat but round?

What if it isn’t so? What if there’s no such thing as death?

Or if time is more than just a dream and illusion?

What if all this life were living is a computer game?

What if there is no god?

But those who developed our civilization have always asked this question.

What if there is another solution, another perspective?

What if the great idea, the best idea that no one thought of,

fell behind a closet? 

Scientists have proved or claimed that years ago, millions of years ago, the universe came into being, followed by the creation of the earth, and about 150,000 years later, the creature called human beings came into the world. The first and only thing human beings have done is to claim the land and cut each other. 

Scientists, artists and revolutionaries have always been the ones who opposed the tyrannical administrations that started with ownership. They all had what if it’s not so suspicion. From Sumer to Egypt, from Hippocrates to Euripides, from Ibn Sina to Copernicus, to Shakespeare to Chekhov, to Brecht, to Da Vinci to Einstein, to Steve Jobs,  to Aziz NE sin, a lot of scientists, philosophers and artists asked this question: What if it isn’t so?

They probably knew very, very well that new ways of producing solutions starts by asking questions. They have never stopped asking the question - what if it isn’t so, with unfailing confidence and instinct. To ask the question what if it isn’t so is really a question of courage. There have been times when you may have to pay heavy prices. Because this question angers many ruler ship, many norms, many established orders. What if it isn’t so?

The history of humanity is full of bloody fate of those who seek the answer to this question. Those who executed Socrates, those who tortured Giordano Bruno, who burned our intellectuals in Sivas, those who massacred dozens of our people who are unafraid of speaking and writing  the truths like Uğur Mumcu. Those who intend to refute Nazım Hikmet and Mandela in prison the ones who shot Che Guevara and hung Sheikh Bedwetting and Pir Sultan Abdal they are the ones who fear this question.

Don’t want to develop, advance and solve the unknown. We shouldn’t be afraid to ask this question at any cost. Indeed, this question is the turning point of our lives. Because we have one life, and we have to live it the way we want. Let’s ask questions, be skeptical and creative. Let’s not instantly believe those who say that there’s a desert behind the mountain. I mean, if there isn’t, wed do sports, wed climb the mountain, is it bad?

Maybe there’s no desert behind that mountain. Maybe the person who told us climbed that mountain and when he got up it was the wrong season, he was inattentive or he was lying to us. So let’s not hesitate to see for ourselves. Because there’s no harm in experiencing, yes. Let’s not mind don’t bring new habits to the old village or whatever happens to people, whether it comes out of curiosity or out of curiosity

Let’s never stop asking what if it isn’t so?

Because why? What if it isn’t so?

What if it isn’t so?

What if Pasha, who went to Samsun on May 19, isn’t a traitor?

What if the ones who accused of treason today are not traitors, but those who accuse them are real traitors?

Thank you.

International Space Station work