The Mornings I Wish to Wake Up To...

A solitary self confronting time and existence

The Metaphor of Time’s Weight

Sometimes a day does not flow like hours on a clock, but like a weight. Time becomes an almost irresistible force. You wake up, look into the mirror, and realize that the lines on your face have deepened not only with age, but with accumulated questions. A journey inward may seem ordinary from the outside: going to work or school, talking to people, producing, consuming—in short, becoming part of the social system. Yet inside, there is another life: an inner climate where meaning diminishes, words fall short, time itself cannot bend everything, and reason is constantly tested.

What I seek to describe here is precisely this inner climate—the invisible fractures of daily life, the small yet lasting tremors, the great wave in which I sometimes drown and call “rebellion,” and sometimes dismiss as mere “impatience.” Because existence is often not a sequence of answers, but a long corridor where questions pile up one after another.

“Gnothi Seauton” (Know Thyself)

There is an ancient maxim: Know thyself. A phrase as short as graffiti on a wall, yet a task that takes a lifetime. To know oneself is to recognize where anger is born, at which sentence despair raises its head, and how a memory transforms into a word. Sometimes it also means accepting this: to be is not always a story of shining success; on some days, it is simply endurance.

Modern individuals are constantly pushed to become “something more”: more successful, more social, more productive, more positive. Yet on some nights, life consists of nothing more than waking up to another morning. Finishing a conversation, overcoming a worry, getting through a day—these seemingly small acts become real struggles within the inner world.

The Gaze of Others and the Shrinking Self

Jean-Paul Sartre’s sharp sentence echoes in the mind: “Hell is other people.” When I first heard it, I objected. Later I understood: what he points to is not the presence of others, but the moments when we are condemned to their gaze. When we try to fit ourselves into the molds of others’ judgments, hell begins—because once the self turns into a display window, it collapses inward.

The Stoic Call: Returning to What We Can Control

At this point, the calm yet firm warning of the Stoics comes into play: “Return to what you can control.” Whenever I read Marcus Aurelius, I feel the same thing: the storm of life often rages not outside, but within. It is not events themselves that exhaust us, but the meanings we attach to them, the way we magnify them in our minds.

This is not a denial of pain. It is an effort to make pain manageable. We do not always control events, but we often control the shape of our response. Sometimes the greatest progress is not “feeling better,” but learning to fall apart less within the same feeling.

The Dark Question and the Seriousness of Life

At times, philosophy touches humanity’s darkest question. Albert Camus famously wrote: “There is only one truly serious philosophical problem: suicide.” To mention this is not to glorify darkness, but to take life seriously. Camus was not praising death; he was honestly describing the abyss we face while searching for life’s “why.”

What I call “despair” is often born from this unanswered “why.” Still, people survive not always because they find answers, but because they keep walking. On many days, what keeps us standing is not great achievements or the meanings we attach to them, but the continuity created by small disciplines.

Living with Questions: Genuine Patience

On this journey, what I need most is not hastily offered consolation, but genuine patience. Rainer Maria Rilke’s voice arrives softly yet clearly: “Live the questions.” Some questions matter not because they are answered one day, but because they teach us how to transform.

For this reason, instead of suppressing the rebellion within me, I try to listen to it, understand it, and learn from it. Rebellion is not always destructive; sometimes it is instructive. It reveals my limits, my deficiencies, my fears. One does not truly meet oneself only in moments of well-being—the real encounter begins where one falls apart.

“There Is a Self Within Me, Deeper Than Me”

The ancient voice of Anatolia, Yunus Emre, opens the layers within us in a single sentence: “There is a self within me, deeper than me.” It reminds us that what we call the “self” is not a single, unified whole. One part of me seeks harmony with everyday order; another recognizes its emptiness and objects. One part wants “more,” while another says, “even this is too heavy.” This tension is the ordinary reality of modern existence.

Writing: Not an Escape, but a Confrontation

Writing is not an escape for me; it is a form of confrontation. In a decaying society, sometimes only words can establish a sense of order—drawing the chaos of emotion into the realm of thought. I want this text to be not a list of complaints, but a testimony.

My fundamental belief is this: meaning does not descend from the sky; it is built on earth through small human acts. A good sentence, a principled stance, a hand extended to another, courage that is not postponed—these may not shine like grand ideals, but they are often what keep a person standing.

How Shall We Exist? (The Mornings I Wish to Wake Up To)

Finally, the universal question from Hamlet whispers in my ear: “To be, or not to be.” This question reminds me that the issue is not merely existing, but deciding how to exist.

Even in the midst of my despair, today I choose this: to keep walking without denying emotion, without turning rebellion into an idol, without forcing meaning into existence. To keep writing. To keep conversing with that “deeper self” within me. Perhaps this is the truest achievement of all: to try, again and again, to rebuild oneself without shame or exhaustion from the place where one has broken.

From the outside, the story of the “unattached” may appear as defeat. But from within, it is a long struggle for honesty against life itself. And I do not want to lose that honesty. Now, standing at the heart of existential pain, I no longer seek meaning alone—I seek the mornings I wish to wake up to.