Chasing a forever fleeting high

If you asked me if I loved my job, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.

But if you asked if I wanted to do anything else, I’d happily tell you no.

My job is one that can have you feeling on top of the world one moment and at the very bottom with a hole in your stomach the next.

It’s one that has you spending hours on the phone one day and chasing what can seem like a unicorn the next, all in a bid to feed the never-ending cycle that is daily news.

I'm an early career journalist at a national newspaper who joined the industry on the back of a handful of years spent wiring homes and briefly in the green tuxedo.

When I was lucky enough to land this role, some of the best advice I received was to get a scrap book and to clip my stories.

“It’s a job full of ups and downs and you need something to look back on. You need something to be able to look through and see especially on those days when you’re struggling,” my former editor said.

And he was right.

The first time somebody called me a journalist my eyes lit up. I was in Bangkok and working as an intern at a weekly English-language magazine. I loved that job but it sure did set the bar high for the internships and freelance gigs that followed.

An exchange student at the time, my Thai was far from fluent. But every now and again I could string together what our interviewees were saying and oh my god did it feel good. They were hardly even complex sentences, but as anyone who’s learnt a second language can attest, those small wins are what keep you interested.

As I would later find out, those same highs I felt when called a journalist and when simply understanding Thai language, they would be a constant throughout my career.

Like a teenager addicted to their phone, scrolling through social media for the next video or for the next post, those highs have become a forever fleeting moment for me. And although not a daily occurence, I crave them more and more.

When I was freelancing they would come in the form of an editor commissioning a pitch, or whenever I stumbled across a story I knew was too good to be turned down. High.

As a full timer they arrive in a similar fashion but feel far less frequent given the significant amount of time spent writing news.

But, as they say, when it rains, it pours.

Every now and again I'll finish an interview and it comes. It’s not always the content but perhaps a couple of good lines, words that sing and dance in your head.

My mind will click; that's the headline or that's the lead. High.

Earlier this year when a mouse plague was ruining farms across regional NSW, I spoke to an academic whose research found that shy mice not bold enough to eat foreign foods like bait could survive and form a second plague. Random, but high.

And when I told my editor, he smiled and with a similar enthusiasm asked, “really?”. Further high.

Other days they arrive out of the blue. Not so long ago a man more than 40 years older than me called me to say he appreciates the stories I've written related to race and culture. “I'm glad someone like you is there to write them,” he said. Extreme high.

At the time it was probably the kindest thing I'd heard in weeks. Not because the people I work with are rude but rather the nature of the industry and how busy everyone is.

Those highs, however fleeting they may be, live on within me for days at a time. And when there hasn't been one in a while, sometimes I'll get out that scrap book to relive them.

Other times they'll randomly pop up in my mind and I'll smile. Forever chasing a fleeting high.

More of Joseph's writing can be found here.