A milestone
Today, I enter my 6th year as a journalist.
I think I'm happy with what I've done, although I haven't covered a war, a famine or a riot, events which - 5 years ago - I thought I would have wanted to write about; I ended up becoming a business writer. I think life takes you to funny places you don't expect and I guess that is what keeps me going. I still want to be surprised by the loops.
Events at work lately have caused me to wonder whether I still want to be doing this, and if I do, whether I want to do it here. Having worked overseas, I can say that it's better in some ways out there and worse in some ways...though nostalgia has certainly coloured my perspective somewhat and I'm romanticising what I went through.
There were fewer constraints, people were less easy to be offended and there weren't that many boundaries to work within. I could write pretty much what I wanted, provided it was honest and informed, and people wouldn't feel they had earned the right to call and ask you to write another story which would serve to retract what you wrote previously. Here, bullshit like that happens everyday, and the scene is too small and too comfortable and too easy and people get too lazy or too cozy with one another. It is very, very frustrating. And the nature of the business here is that journalists get no respect and we deserve none. That is something I'm still learning to live with.
I don't blame anyone; that's just the way the system is. I guess some would say "We gotta work within the system to fight it" or "If we don't try to fight and agitate for change, who will?", but after a while, you recognise the futility of it all and you start to wonder if you're losing all will.
Am I saying that I'm giving up? Maybe? I don't know. To be honest, I still see the worth of what we do, recognise the fact that the mere trying already makes it good, and know deep down that change is possible. I just have to keep reminding myself when I wake up everyday that if I could do the 5 years over, I would choose the same road. I would do the same thing because there is nothing else I can imagine myself doing.
And I wouldn't exchange this for the world.
I think I'm happy with what I've done, although I haven't covered a war, a famine or a riot, events which - 5 years ago - I thought I would have wanted to write about; I ended up becoming a business writer. I think life takes you to funny places you don't expect and I guess that is what keeps me going. I still want to be surprised by the loops.
Events at work lately have caused me to wonder whether I still want to be doing this, and if I do, whether I want to do it here. Having worked overseas, I can say that it's better in some ways out there and worse in some ways...though nostalgia has certainly coloured my perspective somewhat and I'm romanticising what I went through.
There were fewer constraints, people were less easy to be offended and there weren't that many boundaries to work within. I could write pretty much what I wanted, provided it was honest and informed, and people wouldn't feel they had earned the right to call and ask you to write another story which would serve to retract what you wrote previously. Here, bullshit like that happens everyday, and the scene is too small and too comfortable and too easy and people get too lazy or too cozy with one another. It is very, very frustrating. And the nature of the business here is that journalists get no respect and we deserve none. That is something I'm still learning to live with.
I don't blame anyone; that's just the way the system is. I guess some would say "We gotta work within the system to fight it" or "If we don't try to fight and agitate for change, who will?", but after a while, you recognise the futility of it all and you start to wonder if you're losing all will.
Am I saying that I'm giving up? Maybe? I don't know. To be honest, I still see the worth of what we do, recognise the fact that the mere trying already makes it good, and know deep down that change is possible. I just have to keep reminding myself when I wake up everyday that if I could do the 5 years over, I would choose the same road. I would do the same thing because there is nothing else I can imagine myself doing.
And I wouldn't exchange this for the world.
posted by Jean.Chua at 3:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home