Dilectissime Joshua,

Felix sit annus novus! Ein glückliches neues Jahr…

What a nice letter! I also like the Edradour cream whisky that you sent. What a fantastic present for my recovery! I was suffering from accumulation of research and private duties that made me impossible to undertake anything more in the previous weeks. Hence, my delay replying your letter.

I have a fear that you may be right about the healthy effect of complaining, but I feel that complaining endlessly would not be healthy to the body nor the mind – also such waste of time! As I said previously, being grateful is the antidote surely.

Your topic about dedication in life sounds worth following up. I have just met two young chaps, one whose name is Scott and the other one’s is Liam. Scott is a scientists in a world-renowned drug discovery lab in Portree and Liam is a Christian devout and church-activist also in Portree.  Scott works from 9am to 8pm and back home just for dinner, scientific journal reading, and sleep while Liam has college to attend and (almost) every evening he has church activities from Bible study, choir, to his own Bible reading. For both of these people, they call their lives as dedication to science and God, respectively.

I look up the definition of ‘dedication’ on Merriam-Webster dictionary (here):

1 : an act or rite of dedicating to a divine being or to a sacred use
2 : a devoting or setting aside for a particular purpose
3 : a name and often a message prefixed to a literary, musical, or artistic production in tribute to a person or cause
4 : self-sacrificing devotion <her dedication to the cause>
5 : a ceremony to mark the official completion or opening of something (as a building)

Scott, the scientists, argued that science is limitless and he feels that his research is everything in his life. He hardly participates in public engagement of science and he seldom consider ethics or science contribution to society. While, Liam on the other hand, is very much pre-occupied with his college and church-activities.

In my humble opinion, their lifestyles would certainly drive me mad. At first, I would call them obsessed but it is presumably a bit too strong: that’s why I call it ‘too much dedication’. My disagreement comes from the fact that too much dedication can actually result in narrow-mindedness and extremism as mentioned. As a scientist myself, I do still feel that my research has to be communicated to public as science is one of the pillars in society. Science is blind without ethics and brutal without philosophy.

As a Christian spiritualist, Jesus himself said that we have to help the unbelievers and love them. How can I show my ‘love’ to the people surrounds me or even my own family if I am too busy with Church activities all day? But apart from those: – I agree that dedication is needed for career development and respect/’service’ to God. Surely, moderation is the key – for really it is astonishing how seldom professors and church-leaders remind their ‘minions’ about moderation. Don’t you agree with me?

Vale. Oremus pro invicem.

Yours,

Ho

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Note: All characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely accidental, coincidental, and/or perhaps transcendental.