*yuck*
I just edited content worth one full page of a tabloid without the liberty to yell at a few of the writers who came up with some of those articles. Qualitatively, it's fine, but that's a judgment I'm making in a vacuum: quantitatively, there's so much lacking in their arguments that I could throw the posts in their faces. Some of the posts are about the government's decision to allow the incursion of FDI in retail, and some others are about alternate sources of energy. The principle flaw I've come to notice in viewpoints against these entities is the use of synecdoche: the assumption that justifying parts will justify the whole (pars pro totum) or that justifying the whole will justify the parts (totum pro parte).
It could as easily be just me and my ideas, but 1) given the responsibility to evaluate the merits of such content - ideological and otherwise - and 2) expected to speak up against those issues, I find that the ink-space available for voicing views that are honest in the sense that they are not born as a result of expectations is really, really low.
*yuck*
As a journalist, one of the worst things, if not the worst, you'll have to do is work with people whom you disagree with absolutely, with content that you abhor but are forced to edit and pass on as agreeable. Such are the issues that will plague your conscience when you inhabit the lower rungs of the corporate ladder. This is not a rant that stems from cowardice or self-loathing but from pure regret born as a result of irrationality.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Why I Could Walk, And Why I Might Not
I don’t like walking. It’s a witless excursion.
I’d much rather look outside from my steel window; after all, it has become easy to reassure myself that there is no such thing as fresh air. When I set forth, the texture of the road feeling uncharacteristically affable, the occasional patch of gravel picks at my skin, and I feel like a condemned showpiece, a necessary fixture of society chained firmly to showmanship and the like–I can feel the stares, an invisible sneer, a finger pointed anywhere but, somehow, also at me. I feel open, like a lone journeyman on a long journey with the yawning distance nagging at me to cover it.
If I must walk–which fate I hope doesn’t befall me soon–I will because I have to. It won’t be an ailment of the legs but, strictly speaking, a yearning of the heart that’s going to get me off my arse. Yet again, there’s a sizable dose of toil left to be dedicated, to oil the joints and other rusting levers and so forth, and set forth like a Wodehousian “bird in the sky”.
When I walk, I only want to walk. I don’t want to pause and wonder which way to turn when faced with a fork, I don’t want to negotiate puddles and jaywalking urchins determined to run into my legs. A walk must preferably be in the shadows of a cherry blossom, an offering of apples, or a silent and waiting pine, with no faculty dedicated to any trivialities–I’m neither a lion nor a warrior. I only want to walk with all the purpose of walking left in me.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Walk of Fame Europe"]
[/caption]
It only seems stupid to romanticize such matters, even though it’s so easy to draw parallels to the image of a man walking with his chin thrust into the heavens, a picture “which draws forth reserves from the soul to be what it is–an image of oneself that the world sees”. Unfortunately, the same convention is extended to many matters that I’d rather be left alone.
For example, I know how it can be hard on someone when he’s judged by the shoes he wears, the wine he relishes or his standing in society, but it’s a tough world out there and someone or the other is going to the bottom. Otherwise, you see, being at the top makes no sense.
There’s no time or obligation for anyone to wait to read and judge the preferences of others. A civilization’s as smart as its stupidest businessman. We just have no way of knowing who that is, and as it turns out, it makes all the difference. This obsession with romanticism is deleteriously postmodern on the face of it.
However, just as this practice works detrimentally in the one direction, it could be put to good use in the other, something like subjecting it to a taste of its own medicine. If something about being human is romanticized, then it does make good sense to be romantic. Speak swiftly, be just, and ensure that your actions are impregnated with purpose, walk with a gait not noticeable awkwardly in a crowd yet one of a kind in its demeanour.
Do everything without regret or hesitation, as if the place of your actions in society is just as important as inalienable as place of the stars in the night sky, and backed by impeccable reason and judgment. Allow no room for doubt; keep the road straight and the end in sight. The voice of reason is nothing but the truth of words, its timbre but the quality of the language, its universality but the statement itself!
I’d much rather look outside from my steel window; after all, it has become easy to reassure myself that there is no such thing as fresh air. When I set forth, the texture of the road feeling uncharacteristically affable, the occasional patch of gravel picks at my skin, and I feel like a condemned showpiece, a necessary fixture of society chained firmly to showmanship and the like–I can feel the stares, an invisible sneer, a finger pointed anywhere but, somehow, also at me. I feel open, like a lone journeyman on a long journey with the yawning distance nagging at me to cover it.
If I must walk–which fate I hope doesn’t befall me soon–I will because I have to. It won’t be an ailment of the legs but, strictly speaking, a yearning of the heart that’s going to get me off my arse. Yet again, there’s a sizable dose of toil left to be dedicated, to oil the joints and other rusting levers and so forth, and set forth like a Wodehousian “bird in the sky”.
When I walk, I only want to walk. I don’t want to pause and wonder which way to turn when faced with a fork, I don’t want to negotiate puddles and jaywalking urchins determined to run into my legs. A walk must preferably be in the shadows of a cherry blossom, an offering of apples, or a silent and waiting pine, with no faculty dedicated to any trivialities–I’m neither a lion nor a warrior. I only want to walk with all the purpose of walking left in me.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Walk of Fame Europe"]
[/caption]It only seems stupid to romanticize such matters, even though it’s so easy to draw parallels to the image of a man walking with his chin thrust into the heavens, a picture “which draws forth reserves from the soul to be what it is–an image of oneself that the world sees”. Unfortunately, the same convention is extended to many matters that I’d rather be left alone.
For example, I know how it can be hard on someone when he’s judged by the shoes he wears, the wine he relishes or his standing in society, but it’s a tough world out there and someone or the other is going to the bottom. Otherwise, you see, being at the top makes no sense.
There’s no time or obligation for anyone to wait to read and judge the preferences of others. A civilization’s as smart as its stupidest businessman. We just have no way of knowing who that is, and as it turns out, it makes all the difference. This obsession with romanticism is deleteriously postmodern on the face of it.
However, just as this practice works detrimentally in the one direction, it could be put to good use in the other, something like subjecting it to a taste of its own medicine. If something about being human is romanticized, then it does make good sense to be romantic. Speak swiftly, be just, and ensure that your actions are impregnated with purpose, walk with a gait not noticeable awkwardly in a crowd yet one of a kind in its demeanour.
Do everything without regret or hesitation, as if the place of your actions in society is just as important as inalienable as place of the stars in the night sky, and backed by impeccable reason and judgment. Allow no room for doubt; keep the road straight and the end in sight. The voice of reason is nothing but the truth of words, its timbre but the quality of the language, its universality but the statement itself!
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- The Miracle Worker (enderanimate.wordpress.com)
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