Observations From the Edge

Insignificant others

Welcome back, ladies and gentleman, to yet another semester in our unearthly wonderful institution. This week - besides being the first week of school and one of the last weeks of winter - also happens to possess a very, very extraordinary peculiarity. It hosts a most admired and resented event, a day like no other that empties the purse of many in the name of the holy. It makes the fortunate feel safe and special in their sparkly bubble of illusion, and drives the deprived into fits of delusion. It's Lover's Day, or Valentines Day as the rest of the planet prefers to call it.

Whatever concept Saint Valentine may have envisioned, it has become obsolete. Thus, I think our contemporary approach works better. You can't find a more just cause to spend your well earned salary on than to celebrate the wonderful relationship with your loved one. After all, we as humans only exist as long as we're engaged in a romantic encounter with a fellow sentient human being. It has been, is, and will forever and ever be love, and only love, that makes us real. Nothing else matters. Only love gives us the notion of being a part of something larger than life and universal. It forms binding ties and never dies. It gives identity! With it we feel eternal glory and righteously mighty - like a puzzle piece that has finally found its place in the endless plains of an otherwise boring board. It is the best code binary logic has to offer, the best cake to bake, the greatest chemical to make. It is so amazingly awesome that it shouldn't belong to our wasteland of a planet.

In this spirit of utter joy that love brings about in its magnificently gripping glitter that glows gorges, gargoyles, and grinches, I would very much like to present the most distinguished Bilkent folk a humble project that I developed during the semester break. I named it "Smite the Skeptic." It is very easy to implement, and if need be, implant. The project upholds the higher values that Valentine’s Day tries so hard to remind us of - that love is sacred, and the few scarred may not scare it away and desecrate it.

Thus, I hereby say goodbye to the non-believers of love! From now on, he who doesn't celebrate the most holy day of our patron saint, refuses to appreciate the aesthetic perfection of romantic comedies, fails to spend at least half of his income on gifts and/or falls short of falling in love shall be beaten to perfection with extra hollow bamboo sticks. Those who hold the hectically heretic belief that love is merely composed of lusty, carnal desires and is nothing more than a series of fancy, complex chemical processes shall also be subject to the same treatment. These measures may seem violent and harsh, but in fact, they are very peaceful - like violins and hash. Mine might appear to be a crude crusade, but anything is acceptable when it comes to the end that mends all. To the abyss with thee, seemingly sarcastic skeptics of love! Onward Knights of Saint Valentine!

Onur Çelik (AMER/II)
o_celik@ug.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr