I recall, it has been seven years from now, my beloved friends Zeynep Sevil, İdil and I were having breakfast when all of a sudden Zeynep Sevil latched on: “I wish there were a magazine where I could publish papers about how spirituality is manifested in daily life, but unfortunately there is none. If only there was one, then I would be able to share my thoughts, my writing”. That was a time when I, myself, have also begun to publish some of my writing in magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Esquire; but still, there was no suitable media for the spiritual content. So, I answered Zeynep Sevil: “That is something that I have had in my mind for a while, yet, you are right; such a magazine does not exist.” İdil, who is an advertiser, added: “Then, why don’t you start your own magazine Hasan?” I replied: “But I cannot afford that; how I can manage to publish a magazine without money?” What İdil suggested has led the way to a series of events that ended up in publishing The Wise, saying: “You know you can also publish an online magazine, it does not have to be a hardcopy.” At that moment something hit my mind, and I said “Yes, why not!”
The next day, immediately I started working on that and one and a half months later, on 20.May.2004, the first issue of derKi.com went online. On the launch of the magazine, the very first objective was to publish papers in which spirituality was manifested in daily life. There were a great many of articles with spiritual content, but most of them were theoretical. They were not speaking of daily life: of how spirituality is reflected in our real lives. Yet, as “the souls that dwell on earth”, our aim was to express our respective experiences in written so that we would share them with our companions. It has been seven years since we have started our journey and we will go on and on…
One of the most significant and core aims of publishing derKi.com in the first place was to have a common ground with our fellow travelers “on the road to the self-discovery” in all over the globe. We are people from Anatolia – Turkey; we are living in a place where Asia, Europe and Africa meet geographically; where numerous civilizations have settled. Like you share your lives with us, through the books written by you or the films shot by you; we also would like to share our experiences with you through this magazine. This is how The Wise is born. The seven years’ dream has come true. It was the motive to share that the magazine you have just started to read was born. You cannot imagine the joy of sharing these writings with you. I hope we would be able to touch your lives, I hope we would be fellow travelers on our journey; our lives. Only when being a “human” would be our pleasant common ground – regardless of nationality, religion, language and race – then we would be able to become integrated and the world would be a different place. In order to make this happen, all of us have to contribute to the symphony by playing our own instruments. I hope you would fancy the music we make – our melody.
The Wise is the English version of the national magazine derKi.com that we open up to the world. We have started our journey under the name of derKi in Turkey; now that we have a new route we thought it would be better to have a brand new name pulsated with energy. Hope the name got through to you.
There are a number of people that I would like to thank, who contributed in the making of The Wise. First of all, I would like to thank all authors of derKi. Along these seven years we have produced around two thousand five hundred essays with them. Second, I would like to thank our committed translators Feride Sabuncuoğlu, Nur Banu Uğurlu, Sibel Oltulu et al. It is a hard job to translate an essay from Turkish to English and still maintain the meaning of the original. They have undertaken such challenge. Also, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our dear English editor – Beatrice Vanni. She put a vast amount of effort in this. I would further like to express my thanks to our devoted graphic designer Tuğçe Gerek. Last but not least, I would like to thank my beloved wife Talia and my sweet children Sonsuz and Dünya, who supported me day and night while I was working in my room, with kisses & hugs. Further, in the presence of you, I would also like to express my gratitude for this precious people, not only for their enormous effort in the making of this magazine, but that I have the chance to walk together in this path
I would like to thank warmly to someone special. When The Wise project came up, I sent her an e-mail and right after she agreed to sponsor the project. She claimed nothing at all – no demands, no explanations, nothing in written. Dearest Nesrin Sertel. We have built the car but you are the one to supply the fuel. Without your support we may not be able to come so far in such a short span of time. Thank you so much.
By your leave, I also would like to thank myself. As you will be able to read in my essay “I Entrust My Career To The Universe” in the coming issues, the journey, from the making of derKi to The Wise, was indeed a journey of self sacrifice. Still, I was able to listen to my soul and arrive at here despite my fears. Moreover, I was able to guide people to here as well, who have trust in me. Indeed, our journey has just started. Therefore, I would like to convey my sincere thanks to myself.
Up till now, we have accompanied the Turkish reader –our fellow travelers – with our essays. We tried to reach them and touch their lives. Now, it is time to reach out and touch our fellow beings in the whole globe. Reach out your arms; firstly, we would like to hug you and then we would like to share our life experiences with you. There is a lot to share…
Come on, let’s go The Wise…
