NTU mass comm: i want to write. but i don't like NTU. full-stop. but hey. i always have to eat my words. -- March 12, 2005
it wasn't like i never knew what my passion was. i've always been clear about the fact that i HAVE to do something related to writing, and i WILL do something related to writing. it's just kinda sad (sad in the musing way, not in the omg-boo-hoo-hoo way) that i have to find out under forced unpleasant circumstances how much i WANT to write. i thrive on writing. when im writing i'm in my element, my zone, my bubble. sure, sometimes i go on and on incoherently, but i guess that's how i define my writing - a socially accepted form of my personal brand of schizophrenia.
and speaking of schizophrenia. ha. i remember the way i struggled to make a choice on whether i should even go for the mass comm interview. i eventually did, but the fear of not being able to actually secure a, well, secure job, was so consuming that the desire to be in mass comm all but drained away and i'm very sure that reflected brilliantly on me during the interview. okay so obviously i did not get through in the end. and i'm not going to regret that because with the loss of mass comm, came marketing and that was eventually another aspect i thrived in because of the opportunities for me to bombard the tutors with my long rambling ideas about nothing in particular but apparently something to them. i loved it. i loved blowing smoke all over the place. i loved creating something from nothing. i loved making people think that i'm actually talking sense when i'm merely rephrasing my stuff in more and more flowery sentences as i go on. like what i am doing right now.
okay so all that verbal garbage aside, i guess i just have one conclusion to make: i. MUST. WRITE. in whatever job i have, i HAVE to write. and i HAVE to have the freedom to write.
and since all things have boiled down to this, i guess i finally have the freedom (oh thank god) to say this:
i hate(d) my job. (WHOA SURPRISE!) and i shock myself because now then i truly see how much i loathe it. it's a job that comes with so many contradictions that i want to name it after myself.
honestly, i don't hate ALL parts of it. it's just this one thing that keeps hanging over it that makes me want to slit my wrists at the end of the day. it's something called FUCKING RESTRICTIONS. and oh i know, the irony of it! after all, this IS a creative agency. i don't know man, restrictive and creative? jesus, that's mind fuck.
it's not about getting my stuff checked 10 million times and having them thrown back at me for the same number of times and seeing my stuff devolve into something that's totally different (that's right, i said it. DEVOLVE) it's the plain simple fact that i have utterly no freedom in the content of anything i write. i'm basically a highly evolved typewriter. you key in your desired contents and i spit out something that you will eventually rewrite yourself anyway. i don't see the fucking point of my presence. and these restrictions comes from all over the damn place. the client, the boss, both of whom are the two most demanding ungrateful self-centered soul sucking bitches that ever walked the face of this earth.
i know when you're junior, it comes with the territory that whatever you write IS restricted. i am totally fine with that. and i am always open to how i can improve on my writing. BUT when all you are doing is to demand that i rewrite the piece that i have just written by modifying some existing sample, it makes my soul die a little inside. and it does not help when your sample is a mouldy boring piece of crap that i could have written myself in five minutes. sorry, i do not follow bad examples, so maybe i just i can't do corporate shit. well, i mean i can, and i do a damn fine job at it. but i will hate you for making me do it. because you are stifling my creativity and you're restricting my brain. and when my brain gets restricted it automatically powers down.
okay deep breaths now.
i don't know. technically, i am not upset. because when i'm truly upset, i can't swallow any food. but right now my appetite's still fine. and in a way that pains me because it just goes to show how little i care about this. and on hindsight, it does seem like all the signs were already there, just that i never paid any attention. i have been constantly looking at other jobs (and feeling my heart break everytime i see opportunities from CAAS, P&G, L'oreal and Unilever and thinking that i could not apply for them), i've already started counting down to the time i would be leaving this place (i gave myself one year, and even then i was never completely convinced that i would stay that long) i literally had to drag myself to work everyday (which is one very clear sign that i'm unhappy. back at starhub, i didn't even dread going to work so much even though the bloody office was at fucking ayer rajah), i've complained about everything to almost everyone and i can go on and on and sometimes i have to keep myself in check because i was literally going to drown everyone with my constant spewing. and yes, i guess the most telling sign was when i woke up one day sometime last week and thought, omg, i hate my fucking job i cannot do this anymore. i felt so stifled i thought i was going to combust.
it's upsetting me more to type the last chunk because it feels like i am accepting defeat. that i am just not cut out for this industry. which is tragic, because i honestly believed i would thrive in such creative environments. but then i think to myself, i do love the environment, nothing's changed there, in the rare moments i was given free reign, i was positively thriving.
sorry let me rephrase that, i love the environment of the company as a whole, but i loathe that of my department (oh we all know who to thank for that). it's amazing how the two can even co-exist at the same time because they're practically the antithesis of each other. and you know what they say about polar opposites. no they do not fucking attract. they are mutually exclusive.
so.. i am taking this as a blessing in disguise. (alright, not much of a disguise there. i cant help feeling that leap of joy whenever i think i wont have to see that wrinkled old witch anymore) the best thing out of this is that, now i truly know what i want to do. i know which people are in control in this whole damn industry. and i don't know how long it will take, but i will make my way towards that direction. i've procrastinated again and again, but now it's the time i made my move.
and yes who knows. one day things may really come full circle again. don't fuck with people in this industry. because you never know when they will come back and be your boss. it has happened once, and who knows, it may happen again.
Labels: serious business