ThirstyFish

Photographed this at the entrance of a fish restaurant in Alacati. This roughly translates as: "You drink Raki not to find answers, but to forget the question." I truly wish it was so easy to "forget".

There are two issues at play here. Once you experience something or acquire and image of something, you have no say in selectively forgetting what you don't want to remember. There is no "erase" button in human memory. Therefore we try to "forget" something by constantly attempting to keep ourselves and our minds busy with something else, but that works only to a degree. Sometimes through a trigger and sometimes simply out of the blue, I remember my childhood experiences, or a television commercial I had seen many many years ago - the energizer bunny. That's why advertising is so effective; One can not simply "unsee" what one has seen, "unexperience" what one has experienced.

The second issue is addiction. I'm sure you've heard of America's addiction epidemic by now. If we define "truth" as objective and "reality" as subjective, then, when your experience of reality constantly sucks, what do you do? You try to distance yourself from "your reality" by trying to "forget". And by doing so, you distance yourself from "yourself" even further, and from any semblance of truth - whatever it may be. You embrace your drug of choice, whether that be raki, or opioids, or television, or even the "gym". Yet, the "questions" do not go away, they just seem to haunt you more.

More rantings, if you are interested:

Here in the United States, we promote an extreme culture of competition. Almost everything is a race, a competition - we are conditioned to "win". But for every "winner", there are numerous "losers". This takes a toll on nearly everyone, especially the young. Seeing this, educators have come up with a so called solution, declaring every youngster to be a "winner". But one can not fool everyone; Deep down, losers know they are "losers". Instead of declaring that not everything is, or has to be, a competition, we hold competition to be almost a "self-evident truth". Hence, bullying, body-shaming, hectoring, avarice, unworthiness and rape culture. This degenerate culture of extreme competition constantly reminds us that we are inadequate, inept, incompetent and lacking. No wonder people want to escape and forget "their reality".