 Hello all, and welcome to the newcomers at Bilkent. Summer vacation has
passed so fast that I still can't believe that we're starting again. So, take a deep
breath and welcome back to real life. I hope you enjoyed the summer and will also enjoy
this fall term. As all of us know, and our new fellow students will learn, we need
inspiration and imagination to achieve during the term. To evoke some thoughts in your
mind, and also some imagination in your dreams, I want to share with you my opinions of an
article written by Can Dündar. Here, in summary, is the story he told.
A young director was searching for a talented, good-looking actress, one who would be at
ease in front of the camera and was also highly creative, for his new film. He put an
advertisement in the newspaper announcing that he would be conducting auditions for
actresses with those qualities.
The day after the initial auditions, he had just sat down with a cup of coffee when a
young actress named Emilie Muller entered the room. After a little introductory
conversation, the director decided to try asking Emilie to talk about every single item in
her bag. She explained each item by telling a story about why it was in her bag or what
its importance was to her. This took 15 minutes. The director thanked Emilie and told her
to leave her phone number. But only moments later, he noticed that she had forgotten her
bag. In a rush, he went and asked his assistant to run out and catch Emilie to give it to
her. The assistant, looking at the bag, said that it was hers. The director suddenly
realized that he had found the actress for whom he was searching.
This story came from a 20-minute black-and-white movie, "Emilie Muller," that
Mr. Dündar had seen at a French film festival. The film's message was, “There's no
greater power than that of the imagination.”
Imagination is one of the most powerful tools given to humanity. It's a tool that has
guided us to create new objects, to find out there are many ways to facilitate our lives,
to build airplanes, to become doctors, writers, singers...and even to fall in love. But do
we use it very often?
Try to think just when the last time was that you imagined saving the world, changing the
established order, making innovations or even simply becoming a parent --or, when the last
time was that you took out some colored pencils and drew a picture using only your
imagination and creativity.
Mine was just after reading Can Dündar's article. I had closed my eyes and given a couple
of minutes to letting the thoughts flow in my mind. It was a really relaxing but also a
useful time. While I was imagining, I noticed that I was also dreaming about the future.
And, very different and creative ideas were coming to me. I become aware that this process
was not just simple dreaming, it was also planning and forming new ideas, which connects
imagining with creating. As the new generation, whose creativity society needs, I hope all
of us can use our imaginations, as Emile did.
So, let's have a highly imaginative term--until next week, best of luck!
Sıla Türkü Kural (EE/III)
turku@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
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