My dearest son,

One day you may wonder why your father spent so much time reading philosophy, history, psychology, physics, literature—even though he taught and researched food law.

On the surface, it probably made little sense.

A man writes about food safety, consumer protection, regulation, ultra-processed food, agricultural systems…

yet at night he reads Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer, Camus, Jung, Tolstoy, and books about wars, civilizations, stars, and human consciousness.

But perhaps law alone was never enough to understand people.

Because the more I taught law, the more I realized that human beings are not governed by law alone.

They are governed by fear, ego, hunger, loneliness, pride, love, tribe, memory, and emotion.

A statute cannot fully explain cruelty.

A regulation cannot fully explain greed.

And no legal theory alone can explain why intelligent people still destroy each other for power, ideology, or applause.

So I kept searching elsewhere.

History taught me how fragile civilizations are.

How societies repeat the same mistakes wearing different clothes.

Philosophy taught me that intelligence does not necessarily bring peace.

Sometimes it only deepens the questions.

Science taught me humility.

The universe is vast beyond comprehension, and human certainty is often very small.

And literature… literature taught me what law never could:

how a human heart breaks quietly.

Perhaps that is why I could never become a narrow academic.

Even when I researched food law, I was never only studying food.

I was studying people.

Why mothers eat last in some homes.

Why corporations manipulate desire.

Why governments fail to protect the weak.

Why hunger exists beside abundance.

Behind every regulation, there is a story about human nature.

And slowly I understood something difficult:

Most people do not live entirely by reason.

They live through narratives, emotions, identities, fears, and invisible wounds.

That realization changes the way you see the world.

You become slower to judge.

More careful about certainty.

A little quieter.

Sometimes you even feel distant from society—

because you begin to notice how much of modern life is performance.

People perform success.

Perform morality.

Perform outrage.

Perform confidence.

And yet, beneath all that noise, most people are simply afraid:

afraid of insignificance,

afraid of loneliness,

afraid of being forgotten.

Including your father.

There were times in my life when I felt deeply disappointed with institutions, with intellectual culture, even with humanity itself.

I saw shallow ideas become popular because they were fashionable.

I saw loud people become influential while thoughtful people disappeared quietly.

I saw complexity lose to slogans.

But still, every morning, I entered the classroom.

Not because I believed the world was perfectly rational or fair.

But because I believed abandoning sincerity completely would make the darkness worse.

So I continued teaching.

Perhaps that is what dignity really is:

continuing your work carefully, even after seeing the imperfections of the world.

And maybe that is also why I wanted you to learn widely.

Do not become trapped inside one discipline.

A lawyer who never studies history becomes dangerous.

A scientist who never studies philosophy becomes arrogant.

A philosopher who never understands ordinary human suffering becomes detached from reality.

Try to understand the world from many windows.

And remember this carefully:

Knowledge alone will not save you.

Fame will not save you.

Even intelligence will not fully save you.

But curiosity may keep your soul alive.

And kindness—quiet, ordinary kindness—

may keep you human.

— Dad.