“Is there a place in your memory where your dark and light paths crossed?”
I was 12.
At the very back of a second-hand bookstore, surrounded by donated old books.
The ones that others had already marked and abandoned.
I was searching for the cleanest one, the least marked, the one that could prepare me for the exam that felt like my only exit.
I couldn’t afford a new one. We lost everything in a bankruptcy a few years before.
To a child, watching a family business that carries your own name, “Umut Medical” and its journey toward collapse changes the way you look at the world.
Asking my mother for book money felt unfair after all the life changing conditions.
Hiding the Past with Your Palm
The only way for me to study was to cover the used pages of donated books with my palm, hiding the previous owner’s answers so I could find my own answer.
It wasn’t fun, but my priority wasn’t having fun. To be honest, it wasn’t developing me; it made me feel a little more helpless.
It’s interesting when I look back now.
In that unmotivating darkness, life offered me a light one day.
Two mothers recognized my situation. They helped me. I was with the books that I was dreaming to have and to study for my exams on that winter evening.
That day, everything changed.
Then, I passed the exam with a score far beyond my expectations in two months.
A good high school. A scholarship. A prestigious university.
I might share the details another time but I still returned to bookstores and libraries.
This time, with a hope…
The survival mode 🙂
By 18, I was studying biomedical engineering on a full scholarship in a private university. To afford my textbooks, I returned to the second-hand booksellers. A conversation about textbooks turned into a business deal. I began selling books which was part of the “underground” markets and even I was scammed by the same seller. Long story short, I survived… 🙂
While studying, I moved into digital printing, finding digital copies of those books, printing them and creating an income flow with high margins. Higher than before…
Books had moved to a different dimension for me. They were saving me in every sense.
I wasn’t just reading them anymore; I was selling them too.
But it was not enough. I had to save our life.
The Laboratory where I made money
I began to make money from words. Created a business with no budget, writing research papers and essays for others.
It all happened in the university library.
While writing for others to earn a living, I began to look at the bookshelves differently.
From engineering and toward the brain, psychology, communication, self-growth and physiology.
Books were no longer just tools for earning money or saving my life…
They became places to get lost, to discover and to have awareness.
Into the Soul
This journey continued with a new circle that I discovered. I was writing both formal works and my own stories. To myself.
Years later, I created a personal blog.
I began sharing stories behind the photos I took.
Then, I realized these stories were actually connected to my own stories.
It made sense, in a way.
Because I was writing and shooting them from my own perspective. Then, a question…
“Why don’t you turn this into a book?”
The Mirror
Today, as I write these pages, I have two published books. However, I still haven’t been able to finish that book I aim…
For a long time, I thought this was a failure of discipline. But looking at my journey, maybe this story was not meant to be completed, only lived.
Maybe it was never about the final page. Maybe it was a mirror.. Maybe a reminder of the search for the hope, the light.
Back to the first question…
Today, I have the chance to travel more across the world. In every city I visit, I’ve made it a habit to find a second-hand bookstore. I look for an interesting donated book and bring it home with me.
It is kind of my way of remembering where the light first began…
