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You are here: Home / Cycle-of-Life Season / 4 Ripening / Being Dedicated

Being Dedicated

Marie Curie
  • Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable . . . Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. [Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1957).]

Most geniuses are dedicated to their field of endeavor, partly because their enthusiasm motivates them so strongly. Dedication is not transcendent, per se, but is a frequent characterizing feature of the transcendent person.

Real

True Narratives

Marie Curie:

  • Eve Curie, Madame Curie:A Biography (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1937).
  • Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (W.W. Norton, 2005).
  • Laura Redniss, Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books, 2010).
Other dedicated people:
  • Charles Slack, Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century (Hyperion, 2002).
  • Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (HarperCollins Publications (2015): “ . . . Musk is brutal on himself, routinely working 100-hour weeks. He is brutal as a boss, too, often berating or summarily firing colleagues while hogging credit for ­others’ accomplishments. Yet he is without question a leader who pushes risky ideas forward through a ­combination of long-range vision and deep technical intelligence. He knows how to hire good people and how to motivate them. Most important, he never, ever gives up.”
  • Rachel Cohen, Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): “Cohen read Jane Austen’s work exclusively for seven years — through the death of her father and two pregnancies; her winsome, nuanced account of the experience makes clear the British novelist’s abundant consolations.”

Here is a short video about a woman who carries her granddaughter to school over mountains, two hours each way, every day.

Documentary and Educational Films

  • Spellbound, following eight high-level competitorsin the national spelling bee
  • First Position: teens and pre-teens competefor honors and future positions as ballet dancers
  • Herb and Dorothy: a married couple use their little discretionary incometo collect minimalist art works, creating a valuable collection
  • Jiro Dreams of Sushi, featuring a manwidely reputed to be the world’s greatest sushi chef, the only sushi chef to be awarded Michelin’s three-star rating: he considers a day away from his work lost time
  • Blindsight: a blind man climbs Mount Everest, leading six blind teenagers toward the summit with him

Imaginary

Visual Arts

  • Valentin Serov, Portrait of the Composer Nikiolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1898)
  • Raphael, The School of Athens (1510-11)

Film and Stage

  • The Citadel, about a physician dedicatedto his patients and his profession
  • Black Swan, dedicationto the art of ballet, seen from the dark side
  • Lust for Life, about Vincentvan Gogh
  • Whiplash, about dedication carried too far, and on someone else’s back

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Rafael Méndez (1906-81) was a Mexican-born trumpeter who transcended the limits of his instrument with lightning-fast runs that are usually inaccessible to any instrument but the violin. His long hours of practice and single-minded focus on his instrument were legendary.

  • “The World's Most Versatile Trumpeter” album
  • “Collección Mexico” album
  • various tracks
  • album with Laurindo Almeida
  • Fight of the Bumble Bee; Mexican Hat Dance
  • Moto Perpetuo (Paganini)
  • Zigeunerweisen (Sarasate’s gypsy airs)
  • Czardas
  • Jota No. 2
  • Tre-Mendez Polka (with his twin sons)
  • Romanza (with Laurindo Almeida)

Compositions:

  • Raga Shivranjani, a Carnatic raga usually performed at midnight (performances by Bismillah Khan, Chaurasia and Ali Akbar Khan)

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

  • J. Cronin, The Citadel (1937).

August 24, 2010

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