Intro
Welcome to the first ever Weekstarter sent from another city. I’m here for a series of workshops focused on digital safety for children and parents since last week — doing one workshop a day, each in a different neighbourhood. It’s a bit chaotic and disorganized but still glad that I have a chance to do something helpful like that. Plus this project takes me to the parts of the city most people either don’t know or actively avoid. Which are places where people can really take advantage of something like that — if only the municipality was better at outreach and organization stuff.
Spending a long time like this in İzmir also means that I’m able to see my mother and brother, and two old friends from high school who I really love and both now live here. Meaning I’m way more social than my usual self.
Greetings from İzmir. I’m in the last hour of the first day of the week. Hope you’re all doing well.
Mission Control
Inbox: 473 (I need to figure out how to keep my inbox in control while traveling.)
RSS Reader: 2131
Upcoming Events/Travel in Next 30 Days: 0 (Going back home doesn’t count.)
- I have at least one workshop per day until Friday, then I’m flying back home.
- Not sure how much extra time I’ll have this week but I have an article idea to work on for an outlet.
- It would be nice if I can put some time aside to plan my December.
Check my Now page if you want to see what I’m up to in a more detailed way.
Caring Too Much
There’s a big mistake I keep making when I do any kind of work with civil society. I’m always ending up the person who thinks everything in detail, puts the most amount of thought and work but almost no one else does and it all goes to waste. It’s especially a norm for Turkey but I keep making the same mistake and regretting it afterwards.
I’m not sure why everyone else is like that but especially the organizations or the people on the receiving end of the work does that. And even though I care about the work I do, I end up feeling like I wasted my time and energy. Sometimes people not doing the bare minimum as a participant to get something out of the work, sometimes it’s the organizations not doing their part and we end up not being able to do the work as planned. But it always happens and I always end up feeling like this.
I don’t want to sound too cynical but one reason I can think of is that they’re not giving anything for this and this makes them care less about the work I (or we) do. Whether we like it or not, most people are conditioned to care more about the stuff they give something in return — whether it’s money or something else. But this isn’t the case for the kinds of work I do in these scenarios. In the end, I feel happy if I see the 10% of the effort I put into the work from the other side, which is quite depressing.
What’s even worse is the fact that a similar attitude exists on the side that funds these works. They always make sure they’re giving the bare minimum to the people who does the real work, looking for excuses to make budget cuts wherever they can. So when the people working in those organizations makes sure everything they do gets paid through those budgets, I end up spending hours in public transport and paying it from my pocket.
I’m not writing all of this to say that I’ll stop doing that. I know it’s impossible for me. I’ll always end up being the one who cares too much about anything I do, no matter how the people on the receiving end feels. But I should probably be more selective about the type and amount of work I do on this side because it’s getting really exhausting. I know it’s not an easy work but knowing that most people you work with doesn’t value the work you do or care about the things you’re doing as much as you do makes it much more draining.
Song of the Week
Just before starting this week’s post, I thought “I haven’t been listening to Soundgarden for a while.” So I decided I should share one of my favorite songs of them with you.
Reading Log
My usual readings are disrupted by the travel so I have only one quote for you this week from KSR’s The Ministry for the Future. The book I should’ve been finished long time ago but finally making my way through.
“They worked all over the world (including in the Ministry for the Future’s offices) trying to calculate the gains and losses of this event in some way that could be entered into a single balance sheet and defended. But it couldn’t be done, except in ways so filled with assumptions that each estimate was revealed to be an ideological statement of the viewer’s priorities and values. A speculative fiction.”
Outro
That’s all from me for this week. I wanted to do something longer since I missed the last week’s post but I need to wake up really early tomorrow and honestly a bit tired to get something useful out of my brain.
Take care of yourselves and I’ll see you around!
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