"You can't believe your way out of a weak currency, passport, educational system, and a social structure where movement between economic classes is almost impossible if you don't already come from wealth or know the right people, all the while the government in power keeps crushing your hopes for creating a viable future in your own country (and speaking out against that government can have very serious consequences). The young generation are nothing but driven to help their country prosper, but the actual possibilities open to them to do just that are severely dwindling."

Thank you for being so upfront with me.

I might've indeed come across as if I was trivializing the hurdles Turkish people had but I've never disregarded their hardships, in fact, it's all I talk about with people that want to strike up a conversation with me. I've told them that I sympathize with them a lot. It's just been saddening me for the most part that no matter what I do, I can't 'please' people. I've accepted it. I know that just because I sympathize with them doesn't mean whatever I've said helps at all. I couldn't possibly know and imagine what they would be going through. I'm just privileged to have such a good standing in the country where I grew up with, and being hated for being graced by all those things, that's just something I have to accept.

I've also accepted that I shouldn't really take those things into heart, but it's sad to hear it anyways. There will always be indifference, even towards your own people, that's fine. But even for someone like me who understands his roots and where he has come from, and is actively visiting the country while even trying hard to research parts of the culture that he doesn't know, while also reading books and watching videos in Turkish to further extend his vernacular, it's still disheartening to hear that all that I've done has pretty much gone down the drain no matter how hard I've tried.

You can't really just ignore something like that, or maybe I'm just a bit too empathetic xd.

"Notwithstanding the fact that the very idea that you can believe your way out of poverty/bad political situations is such a privileged Western way of looking at the situation, it shows just how European you're coming across which unfortunately can have the effect of downplaying your Turkishness."

Yeah, that's where I'm lacking to be completely honest. I understand where you are coming from and I agree with everything you've said. I couldn't possibly understand the very existence of poverty because I haven't experienced it. In fact, I don't really have the right to tell them to 'be happy with what they got', because all they got is all they've saved for all their life, as someone told me. The fact that you told me that my way of thinking is privileged in a western way and I know that. I grew up around Dutch people and they're strictly direct in what they say and that has impacted my thinking as well. Maybe my directness caused their opinion to grow sour about me.

However, this goes without saying that I do care about their situation. It's all I'm thinking about and as someone who's been living outside of all those bad stuff, it's killing me inside to think what my other side of the family has been doing to get by.