Earned energy

Our financial controller, Keenan Haga, likes to run. He likes it a lot. Check out his website. He's one of only a handful that has run 50 marathons before he was 50. One of the reasons he runs is for the earned energy, called endorphins. Endorphins charge you up after exercising and, if you exercise enough, you start to depend on them, hunger for them, like a junkie. Endorphins are the prize I get after a morning run, though my efforts are paltry compared to Keenan's. Energy you earn is superior to energy you force into something (like the "energy" of caffeine). Take for example a DAC. We're in the middle of the final voicing of Torreys, the new operating system for DirectStream and DirectStream Junior. And one of the things that strikes me most is the energy some of the versions present. We voice the DAC by careful listening to different compilations of FPGA code. Each compile sounds different than the other. On some versions, voices both human and instrumental, seem to resonate with an energy that is very close to the spine tingling reactions we get at a live performance. Yet other versions are dull, lifeless, and sound recorded. I suppose you could duplicate the energy some versions present by artificially pumping up a certain frequency range, adding energy artificially, but I bet it would never sound the same or have the sense of magic I hear in these version changes. I think energy, naturally acquired through the hard work of exercising or voicing products, will always trump external attempts to add in something that isn't natural. Better to earn it than to force it.