I completed the internship at UR Chicago and felt good about the direction I had chosen. I applied, visited, was accepted to, and enrolled in the program at MSU. In Spring 2007 I took an Ethics of Journalism class. The instructor told us about the role journalism plays in a democracy, and he helped forge my idealistic views. However, this was the first place I heard that journalism is like making sausage. Not only does the saying refer to the unsavory practices that go into making journalism (including but not limited to extortion, fraud, and fabrication), but also the finished product. Most corporate journalism today is the written equivalent of half a dozen varieties of meat, bone, cartilage, and maybe even feces thrown into a grinder and pumped into casing. To a certain extent, the ingredients are interchangeable without much effect on the final product; it'll still look and taste like sausage.

In Spring 2008 I took the required Media and the Law class. I learned about my basic freedoms of expression and how they related to my role as a writer. I realized just how much I can get away with in America, because it's promised in the Constitution. I can say that I'd like to wipe dog shit all over George W. Bush's face, that I want to inseminate Laura Bush's ear, and that I hope Dick Cheney develops colorectal cancer and suffers massive internal bleeding -- all without fearing that I'll be hung in a public square. Those fellows are doing their best to endanger my freedoms -- like expression, right to privacy, and right to fair trial -- so I think it's my obligation to stretch those freedoms to the limit, to balance the scale.

Another reason I stuck with journalism is the simple fact that not all editors are loathsome. I got along really well with the first editor at UR Chicago, during an internship that would turn out to be a formative experience in my career. I was fortunate enough to have an internship at Traverse Magazine in summer 2008, where I answered to five editors and butted heads with no one. Plus, other areas of the publishing world are worse, especially literary journals. They want to be the gatekeepers of the literary world, but if I have my way, their opinion won't matter more than any other person. The revolution is coming to their front door as well, now that newspapers, television, and radio have been tossed out for blogs, YouTube, and podcasts.

Now, in the closing months of 2008, I'm still not a professional journalist. But I'm no longer sure that I would want to be. To some extent, I have been aborted. Now, this statement should not be taken too literally. Think about it this way: let us presume that humans are living beings make up of atoms and cells and organs and organ systems and a body. Now let us also presume that humans have a soul or a spirit or a mind or a consciousness, or whatever it will be called. The two -- body and soul -- are inextricable, at least, how they exist in this dimension. But perhaps, as an embryo is forming in the womb, there is some mystical process by which the atoms gather into cells, and the cells gather into organs, and the organs gather into systems...all while the soul is gradually being channeled into the portal of the mind, connected physically with what will eventually become the brain. Gradually, because if an embryo is extracted from the womb before it is ready, it will die.

I'm starting to wonder if there might be circumstances when that spirit is denied entry into our world because it would be better off in some other dimension, in some other form of existence. Maybe the soul will align with billions of atoms at some far off corner in the universe, within a more agreeable system that doesn't try to manipulate, discourage, and ruin the soul.

Furthermore, maybe some babies are wrongfully delivered into life. How else could you explain Adolf Hitler -- or George W. Bush, for that matter? But if some humans are wrongfully delivered, then that means that some human spirits, humans who might have had a positive impact on our world, could be denied entry or delivered transdimensionally. In that case, who are we to say that they should have been launched into our version of life?

Of course this isn't about abortion rights or practices, and I shouldn't drag out the metaphor. What's important is that there are active forces in the journalistic world -- and in the professional world in general -- trying to keep me down, to wear me out, to see me fail. But regardless, I know I'll be okay. Even if I don't fit into the mold of professional journalism, I'll be fine. I like being idealistic and passionate. I like being strange and irregular. I like disagreeing with corporate authorities and traditions, especially when it comes to journalism.

At the core, a journalist's trade is writing. I will always be a writer. I'm also a poet, a scientist, a philosopher, a lover, and an explorer, among other things. My power lies in assembling facts (i.e. -- objectivity), while sculpting my opinions and emotional impulses (i.e. -- subjectivity) into a semblance of truth. What I really want to avoid is unnecessary editing. I must be able to express myself completely and without sacrifice. Even so, I can't force people to pay attention to me. The trick, as Henry Miller put it, is to make people believe. He also said to write and do nothing else but write, because writing is living and they are inextricable. What I need is a way to make a living. If I can't do that by writing, either now or in the future, then I'll get a day job and write at night. If no one reads my work, or if I can't get a publisher to help, I'll still post my writing online.

I will write because it is my calling, it is my duty, and it is my freedom.

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The title of this essay is a quote from the same collection of correspondence by Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway.

Nick Meador is a recent graduate of the Masters of Journalism program at Michigan State. He's also the creator of Supraterranean.com, and can be reached at admin [at] supraterranean.com.