Inside, the mohawk, tattooed, and pierced engineer wanted a different song and dance in life. But when he looked in the mirror, he never felt that he was good enough to do it. That his life was only the prescribed future called retirement.

The present moment used to be solely focused on finding a woman to marry. And the past seemed to be forgotten, as he had realized all the information he learned in his textbooks, apparently wasn’t even needed at work.

Philosophical Engineering

I used to sit in my office at work fantasizing for the day to come when a stretch hummer limo would drive past the window, honk the horn, and yell out, “Jump on board! Your ride is here to play on the big stage!”

But the only thing in the parking lot was just my car, and that the closest I was ever going to get, were my car performances of air drums, and my surprisingly talented abilities to forget lyrics, but manage enough broken words to fit the tune to not miss a single beat.

“Don’t stop believing! Hold on to that feeling!”

I had realized during my commute everyday to work, that good songs that made me sing and dance had one of two characteristics, regardless of my abilities to sing them. 1) It was overplayed or 2) the song was just so simple and catchy, that I couldn’t help but sing along. If the song was that good, I would even stay in the car longer just to catch the entire tune.

But the overplayed, simple, and catchy song of “get a degree, get a job, and get married”, never had me singing and dancing like the other songs on the radio.

I knew I didn’t have to think much about my dislike for the song, because I would catch myself sitting in my office waiting impatiently for it to be over at exactly 5PM. If I decided to stop it any time before that, well… my boss wouldn’t have accepted that.

When I tried to fast forward to the chorus of being happily married, I realized that even with my talent of mumbling broken words, I was way off beat.

So who was going to invite me to play my song and dance in life? Did I really need a stretch hummer to be happy and who I really wanted to be?