Day 18 of 32 – My Purpose

Sorry I haven’t been posting these last couple of days, I’ve been kind of busy trying to discover my life’s purpose and something this important isn’t going to happen overnight – it takes a whole weekend to reveal itself. I read once that a man without a purpose is like a fish out of water – flopping all over the place trying to not die too quickly. Most people go thorough life with minimal direction and until today I was one of them.

Here’s what happened.

This morning as I was leaving the apartment I decided to take a walk upstairs to find out exactly what sort of renovations they’ve been doing to the top floor of the building I’ve been staying in. I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it already, but every morning since I arrived in Istanbul (save two) my “alarm clock” has been the (honest-to-god) jackhammering of concrete one floor above my room.

I though about complaining (to whom, I’m not sure) but then I realized the irony of my situation – renting a room with a massive construction project taking place on the floor above – and decided to let it go. The hunter has become the hunted, so the expression turns.

Anyway, when I got up there I found that the entire top floor of the building is being completely renovated. I spoke with the architect (the seventh one on this trip – that’s good luck right?) and she showed me the whole project. It’s going to look great when it’s done (I’ll put some pictures up later).

So it was while I was inspecting one of the unfinished bathrooms when I saw the roughed-in Geberit wall-mounted toilet – it was at that moment when my true purpose revealed itself. I’ve been told that for many men their purpose is uncovered only after dancing naked (and drunk) in the woods for several hours. I tried that on Saturday and nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Things were revealed, but “purpose” was not among them (if the official police report is to be believed).

So it was this morning, in an unfinished bathroom, as I was staring at the tiled wall where the toilet is going to be installed, that my vision quest came to its (logical) conclusion:

My purpose is to bring back to Canada with me the secret of the Turkish toilets.

I’ll explain the details later but I will say this one thing now – I was not planning on writing about toilets on this trip. I honestly didn’t think Turkey would have anything meaningful to add to the subject. But I was wrong. So very wrong.

More to come.

And thank you Turkey, thank you for giving meaning to my life.

And also for not confiscating my passport on Saturday. I need it to get home.

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