Two Ends of A Same Stick

Looking back at my previous post, one realise that two enterprises of mine were mentioned but only one was elaborated on.

Poetry performance aside, the other is freelance journalism. To put it more concisely, you can call it amateur freelance journalism, the very very amateur type. Yours truly is just like a babe learning how to walk. Stumbles and falls included.

I am now writing for Funkygrad.com, an online student portal that caters to more than 100,000 tertiary students in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Feel free to go there and roam around if you like and leave whatever comments you have here if you please.

I know what you are going to do but don't go looking for the alias aristocrat. What will those students, who are of malleable minds, think when I write under that pseudonym? A human still stuck in the past ages? An anti-democratic entity? One has no wish to undergo all that again. Yes my dear reader. I have taken flak for this pseudonym before. All one wish for is the growth of the Arts again. The dawn of another Age.

But I digress.

As I was saying, I took up this opportunity for self-improvement. And now I find myself stretched in ways that I have never been before. Dead ends everywhere and to say the least, it is quite demoralising.

Why so pessimistic? you say.

Ok I take back "demoralising". It probably is too strong a word. But this stretch experience is forcing me to step out of my safety zone, which in a perverted sense, is good.

The Poet's soul is scarred by such encounters with the Dragon. The Poet has never been a Knight and never will be I guess. He doesn't wield a sword screaming bloody murder. He doesn't wear a trench coat a la The Highlander.

In place of the sword he wields a pen. In place of a trench coat he let his words wrap around him and speak for themselves. No need for appearances.

The Knight is everything but the Poet is everything that the Knight is not. The Poet is Nothing. But Nothing excels at being Nothing instead of just Everything being mediocre at Something.

And that is what I have realised. A poet cannot be a journalist, for they are two extremes of the same stick. Both of them manipulate the same medium but for different purposes. The Poet is free to write what he wishes but a journalist has a dragon to contend with. Such limitations bound me but I shall endeavour to find my way around it. And be a Poet at the same time.

Yours truly,
Aristocrat



(Extremely long)Postscript: My dear readers, if you have taken a liking to my ramblings (how that is possible I dare not venture to guess), please do cast a vote in my favour if you have not done so. Yours truly has been nominated for the Most Creative Weblog in NUS (For details on it, click HERE. Though on hindsight, it troubles me a little to be heading mainstream, I am advised that it is all in the name of fun. So I shall let sleeping dogs lie.

To cast a vote in favour, there are but three steps:
1.Create an account at Livewire (an NUS Arts Faculty portal)
2. Login HERE (the password is usually sent instantly. Check your Junk mail folder if you have not received it)
3. Proceed to vote at Blogfest Polls

For those who have taken the trouble to vote, my gratitude goes out to you.