You've gotta make your own kind of music !

This old tune sung by Mama Cass Elliot, gripped me and a hundreds of others when it aired on the Lost episode "Adrift". A 1969 classic, it creeps on you and grows on you in a very special way.

Creepy because the score does create the necessary creepy and racy ambiance required for the specific scene in Lost. Its lyrics are very good. Far better than a whole shitload of rap and pop that floats around in the name of music. n|m to all the cartel that promotes money over music and creativity.

Back to the song under dissection. It goes like this -

Nobody can tell ya
There's only one song worth singing
They may try and sell ya
Cause it hangs them up to see someone like you

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along


Heck, I don't about others, however am quite a reflection of this part of the song. There's got to be someone in your life at every step to tell you this - "make your own kind of music". Don't do this and you did nothing. Regret has no place in this composition.
I met a whole lot of people and friends all along who reflected this in their own ways. And most importantly they were happy. They are uber cool. They gave me the courage to follow my own convictions at every step until now. I do unto others what they have done for me. I like to help people "make their own kind of music". They are free to choose from my song but that's their choice.
It didn't hang up people to see someone like me. Atleast not that I know of. Its wonderful to know that the path you chose was your own way and that others loved you for it.


Goes on the song in its so very melancholy way -

You're gonna be nowhere,
the loneliest kind of lonely,
It may be rough goin',
just to do your thing's
the hardest thing to do.

To be less like someone is very difficult. We are pretty much sponges of a special kind. We take on colors as we go along. Colored by life and sketched by our own ideas we are a painting of a different brush. And when a color runs out we panic and don't make the music we want to. We desperately try to replace the color. Not to use the other colors we have. I did that too. But there was always someone to show me other colors. Lucky dude, I am !

And it ends thus -

So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.

Something we all find so very difficult to do for the people most close to us. Your parents did it when you went away. They live with it. You'll have to live with it when the time comes. Or maybe you've done it for someone or something special to you in your life. Someone special had to do it when I had to be going. She made her own kind of music and sang her own special song. Hats off gal, you rock!

Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.

P.S: Music is my next post. Keep watching the space.

SEP, POS and an engineer

These two concepts are something an engineer invariably encounters in his career, life or otherwise.

A problem that is not SEP :)

Simply put SEP is a virtual field first described by Douglas Adams in his mega inter dimensional, inter galactic, inter whatever epic - Hitch Hiker's Guide to Galaxy. In more simpler terms its "Somebody Else's Problem".

This field is so applicable to any engineer that he simply cannot proceed ahead without accounting for this and utilizing the virtuous power of this field.

Quick example

This will help this topic becoming shrouded in SEP.

Say somebody has hard-disk crash, we very quickly click tongues and express mock surprise and empathize appropriately. Then comes the very funny thought process - This won't happen to me. Ever. Period. We go on with our lives, work and existence in SEP field.
This, my grasshopper, is SEP. Somebody Else's Problem.

Funnily its this SEP that allows one to indeed get on with life with minimal bothering. And then when the SEP changes something you experience a deja-vu. And a problem on your hands. A la matrix.

SEP is almost viral. We like SEP and we live in it. And it becomes our prime enemy number 1 when it becomes our problem.

Engineer and SEP

Engineer utilizes this field to the max. Not for anyone's benefit but to save his own posterior. Engeering is not about solutions but SEP. They teach you to put any problem in SEP field. That simply makes the problem go away until the next engineer encounters it.

Engineers also provide solution. But thats when they realize that the problem is more than the invisibility cloak of SEP.

SEP is defined by requirements and scope. Anything beyond scope is SEP matter. Engineers love SEP. All successful people are incedentally greats in SEP field creation.


So far so clear. What about POS ?

This is a powerful pill that we feed ourselves to remain in the SEP field. And we do it every day, every hour, every minute. Makes you sound like an addict of the worst kind, no ?

Here it comes - Power Of Suggestion

Without this pill its simply not possible for you to exist in the SEP. This pill has an acceptability that would put any standard published or unpublished to shame.

We love to take the POS pill created by ourselves first and equally enjoy getting it from others. POS allows you to believe in your own thoughts and beliefs and in those of others. POS is so powerful that you can virtually sell it to some one.

Don't believe me ? Try this - Casually tell a girl that a pair of sandals doesn't suit her. That is enough to give her the motivation to buy a new pair.

Marketing people use it. Advertisers live by it. Engineers hate it.

Engineers don't like to be played around. Not because it ain't right. But because if it does go wrong then its the engineer who is at fault. Not the POS dealer.

Engineer likes to use it. On his manager. He feeds atleast a year's stock to his higher up. Just to be sure. That gives him the leeway and the cherished freedom to do nothing.

POS feeds SEP. Beware of POS if you are the visionary types. Beware more of SEP if you want to be visionary. Every problem has to be your problem till you have vision and POS pill to make it truely a SEP. You can then sell that pill as your vision. Gosh. I just spilled the secret to make the visionary POS pill.

What the heck was the aim ?
Was there supposed to be one ? :) But now you have two more cool acronyms to tout around.