Erik Steen Kristensen, Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe & Claus Bo Andreasen
DARCOF, Denmark

Please accept our congratulation on your 30th anniversary. It is such a great – and relieving – pleasure for us that an organic research institute can become this old. It surely brings hope for the future. All thou that you are looking better than ever, we know that your life has not always been easy, and that you often have had to struggle for your very existence. We also know that many big challenges are waiting for you in the future. We don’t have any advise for you on how to deal with these challenges, but the Danish author and scientist Piet Hein has written some poems – or grooks as he calls them – that might inspire you. The first grook that we will give you, regards your future position in the European research:

He who aims
to keep abreast
is for ever
second best

However, you should be careful in choosing the right areas for your science:

Once
technology
is master
we shall reach
disaster
faster

Maybe you also need to think about the attitude, when you engage the future:

Naive you are
if you believe
life favours those
who aren’t naive

You also have to take care and protect yourself:

Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.

And you have to be brave:

To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
so you can be really brave
only when you really ain’t.

Dear Fibl, this was our selected grooks to you. We think you will appreciate them because:

True wisdom knows
it must comprise
some nonsense
as a compromise,
lest fools should fail
to find it wise.