Six years of writing... easy to say, right? Every single anniversary, I find myself questioning a different angle of this whole endeavor. Like, in last year's post, carrying over anxieties from the year before, I genuinely questioned whether anything I wrote about the state of the world even mattered. So, I completely dropped the anxiety and just adopted a "write whatever you want, whenever" mentality. Actually, it paid off. I was able to put out 21 blog posts. 1.7 posts a month isn't too shabby, I guess. But this year, there are other things bugging me. Before I dive into the boring stuff, though, let me update the 'best of the year' list along with the previous years:
I was actually a bit torn about my favorite post this year. I really liked The philosophy of not knowing and Details are deserved through seeking and Pretending and Lies. I also think I managed to write some pretty decent pieces on heavy topics like justice and the economy. Maybe forcing myself to sit down and write helps me discover things actually worth examining, making questions like "what else is there to write?" or "is this even worth writing?" slowly fade away.
I also apparently hit my 100th blog post this year. And guess what? It’s about a RAG system that, as of May 2026, literally no one else in the world has an exact copy of. What's a RAG system? The details don't matter. It's essentially an AI adaptation that reads through what I know and talks just like me. But the real challenge here wasn't the AI integration itself. The real struggle was transferring a wealth of knowledge meaningfully into text and having it touch upon so many aspects of life. If you want to try it out, its name is NUMAIN. But that’s only if you are even curious...
And here comes the question that's been bugging me the most this year: Why was all of this even written? As I’ve said before, blogging can just be a hobby. I can write whenever I have free time outside of work, without expecting a single dime in return. But at the same time, I’m trying not to limit it to a hobby; I’m trying to open new perspectives for people. I have a purpose and I'm actually producing something. But is anyone even reading this? I have no idea, because I don't track clicks. But you can't help but ask yourself: Why am I writing?
There's this highly over-discussed concept in the world called the supply-demand balance. People put out a product, and if there's no demand, they immediately label it as a failure. They judge the success or quality of a product purely by the number of buyers, or whether it even has any. Everything is viewed through this cheap commercial lens. That's exactly why some people ask things like, "Is anyone even reading it? Is it making you money? What's in it for me?" Obviously, this isn't a problem unique to me. We have this collective disease of thinking that the search for meaning is hidden in external validation. I once heard a great quote: "If you are blind, how is that the sun's fault?" The meaning or value of something isn't measured by the reaction it gets or how it's perceived. You simply cannot find the meaning of life, the meaning of God, the meaning of your daily work, or the meaning of some good act by looking at them through a purely transactional, commercial perspective.
So, the point of writing a blog isn't about being read, being valued, or getting some kind of return. You can be a columnist for a newspaper or a magazine for a paycheck, and if you don't get paid or if the money isn't enough, you can just quit. But if you start writing a blog, you don't just quit because it's not getting read. The very act of starting is a contract with yourself. A 'commitment', if you will.
Of course, it's pretty meaningless for a person to just pat themselves on the back for what they know or what they've done. I can't evaluate my wiritings myself. What really matters is the urge to find and acquire what is better and more useful. Once you start, it's a process that will ruthlessly expose your flaws, one after another. In a way, it takes guts. Most people don't want to face their shortcomings. That's exactly why you see so few people genuinely dedicated to self-improvement.
Just like I observed last year, things aren't looking too bright this year either, both in Turkey and globally. Some of my posts actually summarized this mess. When you look at the grand scheme of things, humanity has started to regress simply because it lacks the intellect and the wit required for true progress. And we try to cover it up with suger coating. Nobody stops to think why the crisis happened in the first place, and nobody bothers to fix it. Everyone is just trying to be the opportunist who profits off the disaster. This is a collective collapse; you can't just start fixing it piece by piece. But you'll probably mock the people who has words for it :)
I’m guessing I’ll have some posts on pretty subjective topics this year. There are those highly controversial issues where absolutely everyone thinks they have the best valid opinion. But there's one upcoming post that's going to be a "me VS all of you" scenario :) The title will be "The all mighty St. Supply and Demand" Honestly, if I’m still at it and writing by next year, I already suspect it could be the best post of the year.
It must be a skill I've acquired from years of writing, but I can actually wrap up some of my posts in a single sitting now. But that's only possible because there's a solid train of thought already there. When you want to discuss or dissect a topic, you have to be able to question it from one end to the other. Constantly learning, tiring your brain, and writing sharpens this ability. It also makes you realize, "Oh, turns out I didn't know a damn thing about this". To get to all that, you first have to dive in and actually stimulate your brain. Like I said, once you start, the rest follows. I've got plenty of topics lined up for this year. The world isn't exactly standing still anyway, so it keeps handing out material too. See you in the next post...
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