268 words — 2 minutes read

57 - music is the best

My iPhone is shuffling through my 20'000 or so tracks I have in iTunes - every day I get to hear around 30 minutes of music - often stuff I had forgotten I had or not heard in a long time.

Today I got another dose of Frank Zappa - easily my favorite musician.

I absolutely love this part of the lyrics of the song Packard Goose:

Information is not knowledge

Knowledge is not wisdom

Wisdom is not truth

Truth is not beauty

Beauty is not love

Love is not music

Music is the best…

I used this quote many many years ago at a presentation about Knowledge Management (KM - anybody remembers that fad?) at the HSG in an “Master of Business Engineering” class. That experience actually led to one of my biggest disappointments in my career. I applied to be part of that MBE programme as well, talked to the university about me fitting in there (I had not completed a university degree, so I was too low educated, but had tons of experience in KM due to my job at ABB), got the go ahead from the programme manager, got the letters of recommendation from my job, had worked out the financing, visited the informational sessions - the full programme. In the end, they didn’t take me - who knows what would have become of me. I was deeply disappointed then, looking back, I think it wasn’t that bad a break in my career. But then - who knows.

What I know: Music is the best

(and with that, I will retreat to practice guitar)

Jens-Christian Fischer

Maker. Musician