"Someone hear me!" I shouted into the void. Yet the one I was shouting to was me, and the one not listening was also me. This was the bitterest form of loneliness: playing hide-and-seek with your own ghost.
— Forgetting the Color of Nothingness
Essays
Standalone pieces on psychology, language, and the things we carry without knowing.
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The Best Ideas Come When You Let Go Default Mode Network and the art of not thinking -
The Empathy Paradox Outside every story but our own -
It Is Either from Love or Fear Fear wears love's face — and speaks its language -
Why Do Unfinished Things Haunt Us? The Zeigarnik–Lacan trap we all fall into -
Jung's Golden Shadow Why we envy the things we forbid ourselves the most -
Our Defense Mechanisms: Protectors or Dungeon Masters? Have we handed over the keys to our own prisons? -
Will AI Be Enough for Us? A reflection on AI's promise and the warmth it can't replicate -
Why Do We Say Hello? Transactional Analysis and the hidden games in our relationships
The On Series
Seven essays on what we build inside ourselves — and why.
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On Lying Not being caught carries its own sentence. -
On Perceiving Misperception is a corridor whose architect burned the blueprint. -
On Looking A room full of directors and no audience. -
On Forgiveness Forgiveness is a corridor, handing out a permit at the exit door. -
On Beauty5 of 7
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On Longing6 of 7
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On Silence7 of 7
Unified by a corridor metaphor and a movement from the external to the solitary.
Moris
The one who made it to the cover
About
Hakan Altun
I teach at Yeditepe University in İstanbul and write philosophical personal essays in English for an international audience. My work circles around perception, forgiveness, beauty, and the quiet architectures of self-deception — the corridors we build without noticing the walls.
I live in a city that insists on being looked at. Most of what I write is an attempt to look back.
Find me