So you want to be a knowledge worker…

IN high school, I was amazed and jealous at the same time, of fellow students who wrote stories and are staff members of our school paper. I could hardly write a sentence and I did not like English and grammar as subjects.

I encountered the same behavior in college. This time, I was at the same time, self-conscious about writing basic reports for every subject we had in class. I wondered if I was the only guy struggling with the problem.

In a bid to remedy the situation, I decided to join the Mountain Collegian, the student paper of the Mountain State Agricultural College, now Benguet State University (BSU), which was a leap of faith. I asked the current staff writers then, what it would take for a guy like me to write and be admitted in their ranks. The good advice from most of them was for me to “write and keep on writing.”

I have since been doing just that – “keep on writing.”

My first assignment at the Collegian was to write feature stories, “research-based,” or “go out and return after you know what you want to write about.” I stayed and spent time in the library and laboratory with researchers writing both good and bad stories that made my day. At the end of the term, they awarded me a certificate as "Best College Feature Writer."

It is a late realization for me, but let me say it. For young aspiring writers, there is something to the advice, “to figure out what you want to write about,” before even deciding to become a writer. A writer must not write for the sake of writing (a pen-pusher). A man or woman becomes a writer because he or she has something to say.

I have since transitioned to writing news, news features, editorials, and speeches. Several would take that lightly – as if anyone can just attend a seminar or training session to learn the ropes or join a writer’s group, and presto, you are made, you are a writer who can write about anything for a newsletter, newspaper, magazine, or any publication.

I am not saying I am great or anything but after College, I have been earning a string of awards writing about agriculture, rural development, and science (biotechnology). I have actually stayed too long in the profession to know that I am yet too far from being an accomplished writer. So let me say it again. To “write and keep on writing” is good, but you are far better off adding to that, the advice, “figure out what you want to write about.”

Still related to figuring out what you must be writing about, some may brag about being veteran writers in the field of politics, science, business, sports, and almost anything. While that may be so, it amounts to having written nothordeal ing in the span of time they covered the beat.

In many ways than one, everybody or just anybody can claim to be a knowledge worker and/or a writer. But writing well as part of the processing of data and information; and the sharing, learning, and teaching of meaningful knowledge, even wisdom, takes commitment, dedication, and time. It is a profession that should not be taken lightly. If you have the means and the time, read Epictetus Discourses Book 3, 21, 4-6 (To those who undertake the profession of a teacher with a light heart).

I will not downplay the importance and role that research-based articles play in the public learning and teaching process. We need to produce more of those. But lately, and this is rather personal and fulfilling on my part, I came to writing about my observations, thoughts, and experiences. I think this is part of what they call journaling.

In journaling, you capture ideas and thoughts, and information that you process as part of your learning (that matters and is enjoyable) to you.

Journaling also allows you to capture ideas that wake you up in the middle of the night. It nags you because it is related to a current writing project that you put on hold for a while. Call it inspiration but when it comes, you can’t help it but to power your laptop and get it written.

The practice is good because you get to put on screen or paper what is within, not so much on how it was written. That ultimately is what you want to be communicated to your reader. That is enjoyable and fun, and that is what writing is all about, to pour out something good about you to irrigate the fields of learning, I guess.