"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything" - John Steinbeck

I thank GCSE English lessons for introducing me to Steinbeck. I'm pretty sure that I was in the minority, a minority who were secretly enthralled by character profiles, entertained a secret love for writing essays and kept quite whilst our peers sniggered at why anyone would ever willingly put themselves through the torture of reading a book. (God forbid; enjoy it.)

When Steinbeck was asked whether he thought he deserved his 1962 Nobel Prize for literature he answered: "Frankly, no."
The choice was supposedly a controversial one. The New York Times spoke of his 'tenth-rate philosophising'. Ouch.

I can't speak for world literature, but I can speak for the wrenching gut feeling I felt when reading East of Eden; which remains one of my favourite books. I can speak for the that heavy, hot weight in the pit on your stomach that won't go away for long after you've turned the page. My fingers shook for rage and agony.
I can't quite remember one of my favourite lines from the book, so shall have to settle for one that is 99.9% as satisfying: "It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves... The skin tastes the air".
Had Cathy Ames appeared in front of me in those moments, I was sure that I'd tear her skin to shreds with my very nails. Few villians before or since triggered such a deep, physiological reaction from me.


I like taking photos. I fear it is partly a selfish thing; I enjoy posting them to social media sites, and enjoy showing off what enormous fun my friends and I have together. Thankfully, I almost never take photos of myself, so this ugly truth masquerades as a selfless act of documentation and friendliness.
I used to adore creating photo-diaries of trips and holidays - 'Oh, remember this?' and 'This is when we found that funny looking tree/crisp/sign!'. I no longer have the patience for that anymore, and as people grow older they lose patience on the other side of the camera too - they don't like the flash in their face, they don't WANT to remember why they drank that 3rd bottle of wine.

The city in which I have lived for the last 3 years is beautiful. All turrets and gateways, bridges and cobblestones. But sadly, even that begins to lose its charm. I suppose that's what sets me apart from the 'real' photographers - I tire from beauty. What a terrible thing to admit.
The last three years have changed me to the point that I am unrecognisable to the person I was. I've fallen apart, nailed myself back together, bullied myself into obedience, lost myself in the process, fallen apart once again and am slowly - ever so painfully slowly - rebuilding myself, brick by brick.

Had I taken photos of those lows, my self-image would have been very different. But no, we choose to capture the good times. I look over albums of even the worst times with a tinge of bitter nostalgia. We think 'maybe it wasn't so bad at all?'. We use the digital images to sugar-coat daily life. Look at us: all parties and fun and games. No one knows what I was doing several hours earlier behind closed doors because THERE ISN'T A PHOTO OF IT. And the truth will be stored in the imperfect catalogue of our memories, distored and pixelated as need be, so we can plaster our bedroom walls with smiles and caricatures of an alternate reality we believe ourselves to have lived.

I often think that, if I were in The Matrix (a situation I regard as statistically likely to occur within my lifetime), I would have chosen the blue pill. Call it cowardly. I challenge anyone to choose differently.

"The saddest thing I can Imagine is to get used to luxury" - Charlie Chaplin

My father and I rarely see eye to eye when it comes to sense of humour. Yet one of the childhood memories to which I am most attached is the image of both of us rolling around on the floor, tears streaming down our faces which ached from insupressible laughter.
And to what do we owe this treasured moment? To the 'Little Tramp'. To the man who could make the world laugh using two forks and a pair of bread rolls.

Chaplin's life story reads as if the phrase 'rags to riches' was created in his honour. (Maybe 'honour' is a poor choice of word; to his misfortune.)
One of the few comedic actors to whom I will refer, tentatively, to as a genius; was forced into a workhouse at the age of seven, and whose mother was admitted to a mental asylum when he was nine. Hardly the stuff of fairy tales, unless you're a fan of the original works of Hans Christian Andersen.

I take a somewhat guilty pleasure from famous quotations. Having amassed books, websites and magazine articles on the subject under my belt; I continue to collect these soundbites of meaning everywhere I find them. I have shoeboxes filled with post-it notes and sheets of phrases and ideas, like a magpie which likes nothing more than to admire her treasures and applaud herself for having such good taste in theft. I applaud myself in having such a good taste in genius.

Dorothy L. Sayers, an early 20th century English author, joked that she always used quotations because it saved her having to do any original thinking.
(There's me disguising another quote in a sentence. I just can't stop.)

Which brings us to the original philosophy which kicked off today's train of thought: what is luxury and how do we stop ourselves getting used to it?

I was lucky enough to be born into a stable family background. The pinnacle of our poverty was perhaps when I had demanded ice cream as a child, only for us to realise - after my demands had been fulfilled - that we hadn't left enough money for the bus ride home. My parents walked for almost three hours to get home that night, me on my father’s shoulders and my mother telling stories so I wouldn't get restless.

Today, I am fortunate enough to attend a university cloaked in more traditions and prestige than it's terrified students can uphold. The terror of being faced with 4 rows of cutlery at the dinner table has been overcome. The complaint about how they're serving salmon AGAIN loses its absurdity. I do not hesitate at the thought of driving myself further into debt by spending a weeks worth of wages on a black tie event. Because, well.. EVERYONE DOES IT.
I'm painfully aware that this does not win many friends, nor does it ease our traumatic pathway into 'The Real World'.

Are we sad? I suppose that depends on what each of us has given up in the pursuit of such luxuries. Whether you still have the capacity to enjoy something you've grown accustomed to, and perhaps even bored of. How different were we before we knew what wealth tasted like?

All I know is; salmon gets very tiresome.