"And say (in prayer): 'My Lord, let me enter (into whatever I undertake) in truthfulness and sincerity, and let me exit (from whatever I leave) in truthfulness and sincerity; and grant me, from Your presence, a sustaining power, a support!'" (Al-Isra, 80)

It's customary to write an introduction to beginnings. That turned out to be an interesting sentence. A somewhat low one, too. Never mind — let this piece be our preface, then.

Prefaces are strange things. Strange, as in foreign — the word itself is a stranger among us, borrowed and ill-fitting. I'm attempting a small pun here, gesturing at two of its senses at once.

Prefaces are strange, are odd, because they are the first piece on a site where no piece has ever been published before, and yet they hand out promises. A blog, unlike a book, is not something whose preface gets written only once it's finished. It's written along the way, threaded through as it goes, and it never finishes. When there is nothing yet on the blog, the preface is there. Perhaps it is the binding thread that runs through all the pieces — promising to hold them together without regard for how large the pile grows. And yet writing cannot be given a shape in advance; it is writing itself that shapes its vessel. So the writing will change as it goes, and the writer, and the site, will change with it. The preface, meanwhile, seems to be both the herald of this change and the obstacle standing in front of it. So let us set this preface down here as a string of promises and introductions that is itself certain to change. Change will come, but it will start from here. This preface will be the herald of a change that can be watched and followed, rather than an unsteady, unsupported lurch.

Prefaces are strange, utterly alone out there, because they are a site's first piece and are condemned to remain on the last page. Perhaps months later even the author forgets the preface. And yet it is the spine that carries the whole site on its back, waiting for its reader, findable only by a few curious souls searching through the dusty server chips. Perhaps it is written precisely in order to be forgotten. Or knowing full well that it will be forgotten... As I said, it is the site's binding thread. It reveals its existence only in the togetherness of the pages. Or it can only be seen by being sought out and found.

Prefaces also tell you something about the author. In fact, a preface's absence signals something about the author just as much as its presence would. The preface is the first indirect contact between the reader and the site, and the author. What it signals about the author's personality, style, and method will not escape a careful reader's eye. So, for now, I'll save talking about myself for the "about" page, hide behind this preface, and leave myself to the reader's imagination. Of course, you're free to adopt the reading practice of separating the work from its author and say "what do I care about you" — that's your right. Anyway, rather than talk about myself, in this piece I'll talk about what I want to do with this site. Actually, it can be put briefly: to write. That is my promise, ladies and gentlemen.

I've opened plenty of blogs before, written blog-like pieces on various platforms, but I never managed to sustain any of them. Some died after the first post, some after a handful of posts, and others once that blog's mission — or the mission I'd assigned it — was complete, and it passed into history.

Twitter (X), meanwhile, doesn't fully satisfy my urge to write. It feels less like a place of production than a place of discharge — somewhere people quickly empty out their momentary feelings or thoughts and watch them disappear into the feed. It's full of ideas lost among heaps upon heaps of other ideas. Here, though, there is a spine to hold the pieces together. That's my hope, anyway.

Anyway, after those vanished blogs and tweets, I want this blog to last a lifetime. I have a desire to write for many years to come. We'll see — tomorrow will bring what it brings.

So what do I plan to do on this site until that tomorrow arrives? I'll write — but write what? Anything containing thought falls within this site's, and my own, sphere of interest. I'll approach some subjects with amateur curiosity and others with professional discipline: philosophy, sociology, literature, psychology, art, cinema, religion, idle banter... Plenty of intellectual and un-intellectual pursuits will pass through this site.

And what won't pass through here? Empty and trivial pursuits will have no place on this site. The news of the day will find no room here. This site will have its own agenda, and it will think and produce upon that agenda alone.

What do I expect from it? Pieces with depth, worthwhile pursuits, a handful of real readers. I expect nothing beyond that.

Let's close, then, with a line from Oğuz Atay:

"Here I am, dear reader. And where are you?" (Günlük [Diary], Atay)