I want it, but what do I want? Mom, don’t interfere, I have my own identity. You can’t restrict my freedom, Mom. But what is freedom? What is identity? What about rebellion? What about willpower? Who knows, if I knew, maybe it wouldn’t be like this. Dad, I’m in love, marriage can’t happen without love. I want a love marriage. What is love? What is marriage? Then what is love? What if they are opposites? I’m bored, bro. I want to have fun. Let’s go out tonight. What is fun? What is pleasure? What is happiness? What if they are opposites?

My child, a person should have some ambition. You have to be ambitious if you want to succeed.

What is ambition? What about determination?

What if determination is the only thing that leads to success?

And if I’m blaming your ambition for your failure.

Be a little understanding, my dear. The environment is corrupt, morality is gone. There can’t be so many rules. Show some mercy to this child…

What is mercy? What is understanding?

What about compromise?

Maybe when you say you’ll show mercy, you’re actually compromising? Cafer, be a little more polite… At least be more polite to your wife in public. What will people say? Won’t they call you rude? Don’t embarrass me… This is a very respectable place, look!

So should Cafer be polite or courteous? Are being polite and being courteous the same thing? What if Cafer were a very polite but uncourteous man—would you still love him? How can you know the difference between being polite and being courteous without understanding the concepts?

There’s hearing the concepts, and there’s understanding the concepts.

Humans are very desirous creatures. They can desire anything, but do they know what they want? Because humans are so desirous, they also have free will. Free will means the right to choose. And humans make choices between their desires. With each choice, their future is shaped. They live their future and the present according to their choices, and their behaviors are shaped accordingly. Everything was created with options so that humans can make choices. Opposites are necessary for me to be able to choose. Because there is no choice between two identical things. In order to be useful, successful, and happy, I must make the right choice. Then I need to know very well what I am choosing and what I am doing. How can you make the right choice without knowing what you want? If you cannot define what you want, it is unclear where that desire will lead you.

Entering the unknown is not an adventure. Even in the most extreme adventure, you know the risk you are taking. Your loss is clear. But in the unknown, there is no accounting for the damage you will see. That is why a person must be able to define what they want. Maybe then your decision will change. And so will your entire future.

You can’t know the cost of something you can’t define. I want it, but I can’t measure my loss, I don’t know the cost—is it good? Is it bad? I can’t tell. When you don’t know what the concept is, you’re easily deceived. Then you can be given false definitions and misguided directions.

People either deceive themselves or are deceived.

When concepts are unknown, people argue a lot and cannot agree. Because when they don’t know what a concept is, they start to interpret it. If we don’t know what it means to be a family in our home, and everyone has their own definition, and those definitions are wrong, then we have no chance of being a family. When everyone is ignorant, they interpret, and the concept becomes an interpretation, and then we always argue. When I want to be free, I make mistake after mistake, and I argue with everyone who tries to pull me toward the truth. I yell at them. I belittle them for not knowing. I accuse them of not understanding. Because I have a passion for freedom, but I don’t really know what it is. In the end, I end up in a place where I am not free at all. I am a slave to my desires. And worse, a dependent person has no chance of being happy. There is no chance of success. Thus, because of a desire I cannot define, I am ruining my own future with my own hands. Yet how justified I felt. It all started with not knowing what concepts are.

Because I didn’t know, I was deceived. When they told me to be free, I turned into a very rebellious person. That’s why people must learn concepts. They shouldn’t assume they know what they hear.

Those who know what things are don’t argue and develop proper behavior by making the right choices.

They don’t lose control over managing their lives. Because they aren’t deceived.

Words should not be taken lightly. Everything began with concepts and is shaped by them. We begin learning with words. We speak with those words. We express our desires. We develop our behavior. We are shaped and we create our inner world. Then we go to school, where we hear new words every day. We constantly hear things on television and in series. We act as if we know the meaning of all these words we hear so often. Then our inner world becomes filled with interpretations, mistakes, fakes, and unknowns. Truths become mixed with falsehoods. How can a person with such an inner world be a useful person?

Imagine a meal that contains real wheat flour, real eggs, real natural and clean oil, and meat from animals raised in a natural environment. You eat it with peace of mind, and your body benefits from it. Your stomach doesn’t get upset, and no toxic substances remain in your body that could cause serious health issues in the future.

Now imagine the same meal made with materials contaminated with chemical and hormone-laced toxic drugs. The same meal made with fake ingredients. The same meal—my stomach is full, but I don’t benefit from it. One day, I will suffer harm. Not understanding these concepts and internalizing them in our inner world also leads us to become fake. Living without learning these concepts causes me to live by rote, and thus I progress without learning.

Yet, life itself is composed of everything we learn at every moment. Because life is learning.