I have been going through a breakup that covered almost two years of my life. My first love. It is strange how easily two people can build a life together in that time. You say things that feel true because they are true at the time. You imagine futures and make plans together. Even routines and small habits can start to feel permanent.

I did not want this to happen, but I understand it more now, and I think I have accepted it. I am trying to rebuild my self-esteem. The idea of loving someone again feels quite distant, but I know someone will probably come along at the right time. I think I need time to trust myself again before I even think about looking for someone else. It is slow work, but I am doing fine these days. I am not blaming anyone, and I am not blaming myself either. People grow in different directions, and sometimes you do not see it coming.

I watched ‘Terms of Endearment’ recently, the film by James L. Brooks based on Larry McMurtry’s 1975 novel. It reminded me that people are complicated and inconsistent. They make mistakes and sometimes try to change for the other person. They try to be better, and sometimes they fail anyway. Life keeps moving even when things feel tender, and I think that is what I am feeling right now. Grief and love are confusing. They overlap. I guess it makes you question what you are actually holding on to. You lose a few friends in the process too.

I have been listening to a lot of The Jesus and Mary Chain as well. Their music feels really good to me at the moment. Maybe that is all I need right now. A quiet place to think, even when I am not necessarily healing. Rebuilding a sense of normality is going to be difficult, and it will probably be slow. I am starting to realise that it is not something that just comes back all at once.

Isn’t it funny how you really think you know everything when you are nineteen? You feel certain about who you are and where you are going. Then something happens and you realise you were probably only just beginning to understand things. Who would have thought a new chapter in my life would begin at the end of August, halfway through what I thought would be a more successful year? I had plans for what things would look like by now, and most of them did not even happen.

I genuinely have no idea what the next few months will look like. I have a few trips planned, which gives me something to look forward to. Travelling feels like a good way to step outside my usual routine and see myself from a different angle. Just new places and new experiences. I also have some writing work coming up, which makes me feel more grounded. It is nice to have projects to focus on, especially ones that remind me why I enjoy doing this in the first place and why I chose my degree. It feels good to know I will be working on things that actually matter to me. The rest, I hope, will just unfold naturally.

That tension is the simplest way to describe how I move through most summers. One part of me wants noise and plans and a day filled with small encounters. I love the brightness and the way people seem softer in the summer, as if the heat has loosened something in them. I love how the air feels outside at night. But the heat slows me down. My thoughts stretch, and productivity becomes a strange concept. Somewhere in all of that, I also feel this yearly pressure to reinvent myself, as if I’m supposed to become a new version of me just because time has passed. I don’t know why I do that. Maybe it’s habit or fear? Maybe it’s a way to try and keep myself interesting to others, or even myself.

This past year has been full of inspirations. A lot of it clicked when I started revisiting “Coffee & Cigarettes” (2003) by Jim Jarmusch, a film filled with unpolished and unguarded conversations between vulnerable and complex people. In those small pockets of dead time, you see how people circle each other and get tangled in their own habits. They start letting ego and insecurity slip into their casual chat. Coffee and cigarettes become a kind of anchor to hold and sip, a connection and an excuse to stay at the table a little longer.

PJ Harvey’s “We Float” (2000) shares what it’s like to chase something so intensely that you lose the thread of what actually matters, a mantra for people who think maybe a little too much. Thinking themselves into a feeling of drift and pursuit. She has a willingness to stay buoyant even when the current is unclear. Still being unsatisfied and craving something more even when you’re feeling apprehensive. I have felt all of these feelings this summer.

But at its core, I have discovered that a choice can be meaningful even if it’s not planned. I work better with spontaneity. I’ve spent so much time trying to be intentional that I forget impulsivity has its own kind of intelligence. There’s a freedom in doing something simply because it feels right in the moment, and that’s my nature. I should allow connection to happen without overthinking it. I know that I’m interesting and kind, and I want to talk to friends more and allow myself to be part of things. Letting the city and the sea exist like they should. Maybe I don’t have to choose between them as much as I thought? And maybe the rest of the year will make more sense if…

I let both sides guide me in their own time.

Two paintings shaped this new perspective in very different but complementary ways. John Constable’s ‘The Cornfield’ (1826) uses natural brushwork and a gently guiding composition to construct a countryside which, for me, echoes the atmosphere of Welsh valleys and the cultural familiarity they hold. Its simplicity is deceptive. The soft light and foliage, and the small figure drinking from the stream, all work together to evoke a nostalgia rooted in everyday life. In contrast, Marc Chagall’s ‘I and the Village’ (1911) approaches memory through a more surrealist style, layering symbols and colour to express how understanding shifts across a lifetime. Rather than presenting a single moment, Chagall collapses past and present into an ongoing process of reinterpretation. Together, these works helped me recognise how my own sense of home and identity is formed through both kinds of remembering, whether through sadness or happiness.

This idea also appears in Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Dream with Clam-Diggers’ (1957). The line, “Silent shining on a green rock bedded in mud. Their fabulous heyday endless,” creates the illusion of a perfect past, one that seems untouched by time or hardship. Yet this image does not last. Later, the figures become threatening, “Now with stake and pitchfork they advance, flint eyes fixed on murder.” The transformation is sudden and unsettling. What once seemed idyllic becomes unfamiliar and violent. Plath suggests that memory is unstable. We romanticise the past, but the closer we look, the more complicated it becomes.

People often speak about the past as though life was easier back then. Politics seemed simpler, communities stronger, and our problems smaller. I am not sure I agree. I think part of that feeling comes from lack of awareness. We did not have access to the same amount of information we do now, and even in our own lives we were often unaware of what was happening around us, especially when we were younger.

The world has always been changing, and it has always been overwhelming in different ways. I believe that many people just struggle to keep up with culture, both old and new, as it continues to shift.

When I think about my own childhood, I realise that what I miss is not necessarily the time itself, but the way I experienced it. There was less awareness of time passing and fewer expectations. My naivety made life feel larger and more manageable. Fortunately, the things that made those years meaningful were the people around me.

My dad would listen to and sing Willie Nelson and other old country music. He played those songs on the guitar all the time. It used to annoy me. I would roll my eyes and wish he would play something else. Later, hearing those songs would make me sad because they reminded me of a time that now seemed much happier.

But looking back now, those songs should not have made me sad. Ironically, at the time I didn’t even enjoy hearing them. So why was I upset that I could not relive those moments? Part of it, I think, is guilt. I wish I had appreciated them more while they were happening. However, what felt repetitive and ordinary to me as a child has now become some of my favourite music. When I listen to Willie Nelson or other beautifully written 1970s country songs, I hear them differently, but I also hear the memories attached to them.

The same is true of many of the things I associate with childhood. I spent hours collecting things that probably seemed insignificant to everyone else, and entire afternoons playing Nintendo games that felt endlessly important at the time. I remember going shopping with my mam, or simply going places with her, ordinary trips that I rarely thought twice about. None of these moments seemed particularly meaningful while they were happening. However, now they form a picture of my life and I should be grateful for them, rather than letting them make me feel sad.

As of now, I hope nostalgia can continue to bring me happiness.

There is a moment where Van Gogh stands in the middle of a forest path, painting with complete focus. A group of children and their teacher approach him. They look at his work with confusion and begin to mock it. The teacher tells them that she feels like ‘anyone’ can call themselves a painter now. Her tone is dismissive, yet the moment feels ambiguous. It might be a memory, or something imagined, or something loneliness has exaggerated. Still, it captures something essential about Van Gogh. His art was expressionist at a time when realism and traditionalism were the standard. He painted emotion rather than accuracy. He painted the world as it felt to him.

His letters also reveal someone who felt things deeply and intensely. He lived with poverty and isolation, and possibly a constant sense of being misunderstood. Yet he kept painting and discovered his interests. His success only came after his death, with is tragic and fitting. The world eventually learned to see what he initially saw, and his art lived on without him.

The film’s ending departs from the historical account of Van Gogh’s death. Rather than accepting that he shot himself, it leans toward the theory that he may not have. It implies that he was wounded by two young boys, possibly by accident, and that he chose to protect them. In this way, the film reflects Naifeh and Smith’s interpretation of his final days.

This choice adds another layer of uncertainty to a life already marked by mystery. It raises the question of whether he ever truly stopped trying to be faithful to his art. Historically, he suffered from severe depression and died from a self‑inflicted gunshot wound, passing two days later with his brother Theo beside him. By moving away from this version, the film deepens the ambiguity surrounding his death and his legacy. It makes you wonder whether the world ever understood him at all. Was he ever able to stay faithful to his work? Even despite what he felt on the inside.

Recently I have also finished reading ‘Tropic of Cancer’ (1934) by Henry Miller. The book has always been surrounded by controversy, and it is undeniably dated, yet the writing itself is raw and honest. It follows a stream of consciousness that feels both chaotic and revealing. He mentions how “for weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening… and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved.” It is a moment where feeling deeply can unfold neatly. Van Gogh might have understood that feeling. When you realise that waiting for something to change becomes its own form of paralysis, the only thing left is the act that still moves you. For him, that act was creation.

Additionally, I also finished ‘White Nights’ (1848), by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It follows a restless and emotional narrator who, in my opinion, constantly shifts between joy and despair. He states, “as time went on, I grew more and more restless, I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t work; sometimes I laughed and did something to annoy grandmother, at another time I would cry.” This emotional turbulence mirrors the instability that shaped Van Gogh’s life. The desire for connection mixed with fear.

At one point, the narrator compares himself to King Solomon, a figure associated with wisdom and inner peace. Yet I believe he is far from peaceful. His reactions are intense and immediate, revealing a mind that also feels everything deeply and sharply. All of these works circle around the same idea, each approaching it from a different angle but returning to the same core theme.

This feeling followed me to London on my recent trip. I wandered through many parts of the city, drinking coffee and consuming art. I visited different architectures like St Paul’s Cathedral, where the air feels heavy with history and invites you to look upward and inward at the same time. I saw Phantom of the Opera in the West End, in a theatre that felt both grand and intimate. I also witnessed ROSALÍA at the O2, an outstanding performance that blended so many genres of music and art like flamenco, pop, electronic, opera, ballet, classical and experimental. Both experiences were beautiful, each in their own way.

Over the past few months, I have realised that I am finally forming my own thoughts and opinions while also absorbing whatever it is I look for. It is easy to get caught up in other people’s voices and forget that we are meant to develop our own. I feel like I am only now learning how to trust my own perspective, and as I move through the first half of the year, this has become important to me. I want to live a life of curiosity and colour, by looking and thinking deeply.

There is so much out there and it feels right to take advantage of it.

The novel is divided into four parts, and just like Steinbeck, this piece will follow that structure. Each section begins with a line from the novel that encapsulates my thoughts.

Part I

Firstly, Adam Trask is Steinbeck’s portrait of a man who wants to be good. His gentleness is real, but it is also a form of self‑protection. As a child he learns to survive by shrinking himself in the presence of his father’s authority and his brother Charles’s violence. He becomes someone who avoids conflict by refusing to see what frightens him. This habit follows him into adulthood.

It’s most visible when he meets Cathy Ames. He sees her as wounded and delicate. He interprets her silence as shyness and her coldness as fragility. He sees her as someone who needs protection even though she is clever and calculated. His love is rooted in what he needs her to be. It is the coping mechanism of a man who has spent his life trying to escape harsh truths, and Cathy becomes the ultimate truth he refuses to face.

Cathy, by contrast, is one of the most unsettling figures in the novel. From childhood she displays a chilling lack of empathy. She harms others without remorse. She lies about being assaulted, manipulates a teacher into suicide, drugs Charles, shoots Adam, abandons her new-born twins, and later reinvents herself as Kate, running a brothel built on exploitation. She is capable of extreme cruelty. Yet Steinbeck never reduces her to a symbol of evil. He asks whether anyone can be truly ‘evil’ at all.

Her final moments before she commits suicide are strangely vulnerable. She feels fear and human emotion. She shows a flicker of interest in her son. She clings to memories of Alice in Wonderland, the only story that ever gave her comfort as a child. She dies not as a monster, but as someone trapped inside a fractured inner world she never understood. A complete feeling of loneliness and depression. She finally faces her true self.

Adam’s development across the novel is slow and deeply human. However, he is not a saint. After Cathy leaves, he collapses into paralysis. He doesn’t work or leave the house. He doesn’t parent properly, treats one son unfairly, and lies to both about their mother. He regresses and retreats. But through Sam Hamilton’s wisdom and Lee’s guidance, Adam learns that facing the world as it is, gives him a door back to goodness. Near the end, he confronts Cathy with clarity rather than illusion, raises his sons with more honesty, and breaks down in tears when he learns about Cathy’s death. Despite everything, he still loves her. In that moment he offers forgiveness not only to her, but to himself.

There is so much to unpack here, but the key takeaway is that Adam nor Cathy can be reduces to simple categories. Human beings exist in a state of internal conflict. We are nuanced, not wholly good or wholly evil. We are suspended between competing impulses, and our moral identity emerges from the struggle between them.

Part II

Cyrus, Adam, and Cathy each live with a profound absence of love. Cyrus achieves power and respect, yet his sons grow up under the shadow of his manipulation. Cathy achieves control, but never connection. Adam achieves stability, but not intimacy. Their lives show that success without love is hollow.

Adam’s development is stunted by his father Cyrus. His early life is shaped by fear and emotional abuse, yet he gradually learns to form meaningful relationships. His friendships give him models of wisdom and compassion. Through them, he learns that love is not something that simply happens to a person but something they must seek and cultivate. It requires attention and honesty, the willingness to see others and yourself as you truly are.

Adam’s decision to join the army reflects his desire to escape his past. He seeks distance from his father’s manipulation and from the control of his childhood. Yet the war does not resolve his internal conflict, it only postpones it. His marriage to Cathy and his later collapse show how unresolved wounds resurface no matter how far you run from them.

What I take from this is that many people carry a persistent sense of guilt. I am one of them. I often feel like I am failing in ways that are difficult to articulate. I have felt that I am doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing or simply being the wrong thing. Steinbeck insists that love, although never perfect, is the measure of life. The value of a life is not determined by flawless behaviour but by the capacity to form genuine connections with people outside of what you’ve always known.

This part of the novel encourages self‑forgiveness. It suggests that the mistakes one carries do not define one’s worth. What matters is the ability to care for others and to allow yourself to be cared for in return.

Part III

The last two parts of the novel follow the twins of Cathy and Adam. The story of Cal and Aron Trask is the novel’s most detailed exploration of inheritance and identity. Their struggles are the embodiment of generational trauma: they feel responsible for sins that are not theirs, yet also believe they define them. They are raised in the shadow of their parents’ choices, yet they respond in different ways.

Aron represents idealism. He inherits Adam’s innocence and his desire for purity. He constructs a world that is orderly and morally clear. When he learns the truth about his mother, his worldview collapses. His decision to join the army, like his father before him, is an attempt to escape the complexity of his life. He drops out of school, withdraws from others, and cannot accept imperfection in himself, his girlfriend Abra, or anyone else. His tragedy lies in his naivety and his inability to adapt.

Cal, in contrast, is defined by self‑awareness. He sees the darker parts of himself and fears them. He worries that he has inherited Cathy’s cruelty. He fears he is destined to repeat her mistakes. His breakdown, in which he confesses to Lee that he is bad, reveals how deeply he feels this. His guilt comes from the pleasure he takes in manipulating Aron because of jealousy, and from wanting love he doesn’t know how to receive. But there is one crucial difference. Cathy never questions her actions and Cal questions everything. Lee, however, guides him here. He tells Cal that the very fact he worries about being a bad person means he is not a bad person at all.

Part IV

This idea has personal significance for me. I’ve often felt pressure to be a perfect version of myself, and I carry a quiet sense of guilt because of it. That uncertainty has followed me through much of my life. But this part of the novel made me emotional because it offered a kind of release. As I’ve grown into adulthood, being in love with my girlfriend, and connected with the people around me; I’ve started to forgive the things I’ve held onto for years.

Many people fear that they will repeat the patterns they grew up with. They worry that their flaws are inherited and unchangeable. I believe that to see one’s own darkness is not to be consumed by it. When you realise you don’t have to carry every old version of yourself into the future, you become a lot happier. I have never been more myself than I am now at just 19 years old. It took a while to get here, but I’m here, writing my silly little journal that most people probably don’t care about.

Ultimately, I wish I could keep wanting to talk about every part of this, the characters, the ideas, all of the key moments. It’s one of those books you read and envy because you didn’t write it yourself. It is too big and too layered to be captured in a little Substack. Maybe that’s what makes it so meaningful. However, what I can say that this novel, to me, is an essential read for everyone.

And in Steinbeck’s own words…

“Now that you do not have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Part of this started when I began reading ‘East of Eden’ (1952) by John Steinbeck. I have almost finished it. It’s a long book that’s quite heavy to get through and I want to make sure I digest all of it. It is a powerful reflection on human nature and morality that feels almost biblical. The allusions to Cain and Abel are woven in, but it is not the religious symbolism that interests me. It is the way Steinbeck uses that story to explore choice, guilt, and the possibility of becoming someone different from the person you fear you are. The characters are constantly wrestling with their own impulses. They want to be good, but they do not always know what or how to be. They want to be loved, but they do not always know how to love others. They want to escape their past but it’s not possible. It feels like the kind of internal struggle people often describe when they talk about faith.

There is also Steinbeck’s own belief in the human mind, which feels strangely spiritual even though it may not have been framed that way. It feels like a kind of devotion. The idea that questioning, doubting, and imagining is sacred and essential parts of being human. It makes me wonder if spirituality is less about certainty and more about the freedom to explore your own thoughts without fear.

I have also recently bought Rosalía’s ‘LUX’ (2025) on vinyl. The music keeps circling back to the tension between suffering and transcendence, and nowhere is that clearer than in “Mi Cristo Piange Diamanti.” The image of a Christ who cries diamonds holds two truths at once. Pain is present, sharp, and undeniable, yet it produces something beautiful and luminous for her. She treats grief not as a void but as a pressure that creates meaning, a way of reaching towards something larger than herself. That same spiritual intensity deepens in “La Yugular,” a piece shaped by the teachings of religious saint Rabia al‑Adawiyya. The song moves towards the idea of love stripped of ego, a devotion that asks for nothing in return. When she sings of a presence “far away, and yet closer than ever than my own jugular vein,” she is describing faith and God as something intimate and vital, something that pulses with her.

However, spirituality does not have to be tied to a religion. It can be tied to the questions you ask yourself. It can be tied to the way you try to choose a path that feels right, even in a world full of uncertainty. I think maybe that is what I am doing. I am projecting myself onto stories and symbols that feel larger than me. Looking for guidance in places that are not officially spiritual to me but still meaningful. That instead feels more spiritual to me. Being able to understand my own questions and my own pain by, maybe, seeing how other people have dealt with theirs. Trying to figure out who I am supposed to be, or what I am supposed to be, and who to be surrounded with. But, I guess some people understand themselves better when they feel connected to something bigger than themselves?

Even though religion can present itself as gentle and comforting, it’s also created such deep division across history. I am aware of that tension, and therefore I am not interested in joining a religion or following a doctrine. What interests me is the idea of the ‘otherness’. Why humans try to reach something beyond themselves. Why we create saints, gods, and rituals to make sense of what we cannot control. There’s something compelling in the creativity and diversity of belief. I like the idea that humans everywhere have looked for meaning in their own ways. In a world that feels so divided, that kind of shared curiosity and connection feels important. Everyone is trying to understand something or cope with something, so why does spirituality sometimes turn into a weapon? If someone feels deeply connected to something larger than themselves, why use that connection to diminish other people or cultures? Human connection is just as sacred as any symbol or story. It makes me wonder whether spirituality has to involve pain at all, since the hurt comes from the people rather than the search for meaning itself.

I’ve been reading a lot about biblical figures lately, and Nicodemus keeps standing out to me. His nighttime conversation with Jesus around 27 to 30 AD is especially striking. He was a religious leader, yet it’s unclear whether he came in devotion or in curiosity. What’s clear is that he was drawn to the things he didn’t fully understand. He wanted to grasp the ideas that challenged him, being pulled towards Jesus and the teachings of God without necessarily committing to them.

What fascinates me even more is that Nicodemus is just one figure among thousands. Every culture and every century has its prophets, sages, mystics and teachers. There is the Buddha, Mary Magdalene, the Sufi poets, the Yoruba orishas, the Sikh gurus, the saints of Christianity, the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, the prophets of many traditions, and the ancestral spirits honoured in Indigenous cultures. Entire worlds of meaning have been built around people who tried to understand the divine or the unknown. It’s beautiful to see how much art and history reflect humanity’s attempts to reach for meaning.

We see it in so many forms of art. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (1984) uses religious imagery, yet it is not necessarily a religious song. It is a song, originally a poem, about longing and failure, the complexity of being human. Cohen spent years rewriting it, shaping it into something that feels like a confession and a prayer at the same time. It uses the language of faith to talk about emotion. It treats spirituality as something personal and conflicted. It is a broken prayer, a reminder that holiness and heartbreak often sit side by side. Cohen himself was deeply influenced by scripture and Buddhism and his own lifelong search for meaning. His work shows how spiritual language can belong to anyone who has ever felt lost or humbled.

Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Winter Light’ (1963) does something similar. The pastor in the film is struggling with grief and doubt. He performs the rituals of his religion but feels nothing. He wants answers but cannot find God. He feels the pressure to provide comfort for others, yet he cannot even comfort himself after the passing of his wife. It is a portrait of someone who wants faith but cannot feel it, and that absence becomes its own kind of spiritual experience.

So, why does pain and grief appear so often in these works? They treat spirituality as something that grows out of suffering, as if faith only becomes urgent when a character is lost or hurting. It makes me wonder why so much spiritual art is tied to trauma. Does pain force us to ask questions we would rather avoid? Does it make us look for the divine? Or, must we suffer and experience pain to find God? Spirituality is meant to give you freedom, yet it ends up surrounded by rules, hypocrisy, and hate. Maybe that tension makes us aware of how fragile we are. Maybe spirituality is not about certainty at all?

I do envy people who have strong faith. I envy the comfort it brings them and the hope it provides. There is something powerful about that sense of belonging and the feeling that someone is listening. We all reach for it at times. When someone we love has passed, it is easy to imagine they are watching over us. I do not think I have that. Yet I also do not envy the pain that can come with faith, or the hypocrisy, the guilt and fear, the pressure to follow rules. Spirituality should feel like freedom, so why does it feel so restricted?

I think many people feel this way. Many of us are spiritual in quiet and private ways. We look for meaning in art, relationships, and nature. I guess there is not really a full meaning to ‘spirituality.’ What I do know is that we are always just looking for ways in which we understand ourselves a little bit more.

And ultimately, we all want to feel less alone.

There are many interpretations of this film. People have written about its metaphors, its themes of hunger and shame, the way it explores the violence we inherit from our families. I obviously cannot cover all of that here, I’m not clever enough to do that, but still I think the film deserves more attention than it ever received. Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell give performances that feel honest and fragile. They carry the film with a softness even when the harsh moments strike.

I love how morally ambiguous it is, refusing to divide the world as good or bad people. Maren and Lee’s condition is seen as monstrous and inhumane. Yet the world around them is full of human cruelty. Ordinary people they meet are not always kind or safe. Some are manipulative, others perverse, and some are frightening in ways that have nothing to do with cannibalism. It questions whether the horror actually lies in what they are.

This mystery follows them throughout their journey. Every encounter forces them to look at themselves differently. They meet people who treat their condition as a twisted hobby. They meet people who seem empty inside, as if the world has already taken everything from them. These moments make you wonder what it truly means to be ‘monstrous’.

Sully is the clearest example of this. He is a fellow eater, an outcast like them, yet he embodies a different kind of loneliness. His need for connection is unsettling, almost desperate, and shaped by years of rejection and isolation. He follows rules he invented for himself. He wants companionship but doesn’t understand boundaries. And therefore follows Maren, a ‘friend’, in a both pitiful and terrifying way.

This is also where the shadow of her mother, whose cannibalistic ways she inherited, enters the story. She is someone Maren knows only through a letter she wrote when she was a young child, yet her presence haunts her just as much as anyone she meets on the road. In the letter she says, “The world of love wants no monsters in it, so let me help you out of it.” This was way before she was locked away. Years later, this same woman feared herself so deeply she ate her own hands. Consumed by the very monstrosity she tried to escape. She believed the only way to protect her daughter was to disappear. Her words show how this condition can be passed down, like a hunger; it shapes Maren long before she understands what she is.

There is something unmistakably Midwestern Gothic about the world they move through. The empty field and abandoned houses fill long stretches of roads. Everything feels forsaken. At the same time, in the middle of it all, is a deep tenderness in the way Maren and Lee move through the country together. Quiet conversations in a parked truck, sharing meals, searching for a place they can exist without fear.

Sometimes, ‘Bones & All’ reminds me of my own experience. No, I’m not a cannibal, but I understand that quiet work of making peace with yourself when you have never felt fully confident blending in with others. That slow acceptance of being slightly out of step. Finding someone changes that. Being with my girlfriend, someone who I love deeply, I do not feel the need to monitor myself. I do not have to perform. With her, I can just exist. Her empathy is my favourite thing about her. It softens the world around me and helps me see myself with a little more gentleness too.

However, the film never pretends love can fix everything. Their connection doesn’t erase the danger they live with, nor the choices they make. It is only something that provides comfort in a life filled with fear and uncertainty.

This is why the ending hits with such force. After a year of loving, trying to build a life beyond their repressed condition, Sully returns. His presence shatters the fragile world Maren and Lee have created. It ends in a chaotic and gory confrontation, and Lee is hurt in a way that cannot be undone. The mess they have created makes it impossible to save him from death. So as a final act of love and devotion, he asks her to eat him.

Weirdly, this act is presented not as a moment of horror. It is a moment of surrender, holding on to something before it disappears, enjoying that person, even as disturbing as it sounds. The act becomes a metaphor for how love can consume us completely. Maren’s choice is heartbreaking, but it is also strangely tender. It is the only way she knows to keep him with her forever. The only language she knows.

To devour him, his ‘Bones & All’.

To begin, Patti wrote this book reminiscing on the death of her long-time companion Robert Mapplethorpe, tracing their life together from the late 1960’s into the 1970’s. It’s a story about grief, love and friendship. She revisits the years when they were young artists, trying to carve out identities in a world that didn’t quite know what to make of them. It’s a beautiful portrait of how two people can shape each other’s lives. A true celebration of art.

The book is so rich with cultural references, so textured with the grit and glamour of New York’s rock and roll art scene. It feels like you’re right there with them; wandering the Chelsea Hotel with Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Drifting through galleries and living off nothing but coffee and cigarettes. I just wanted to be there. Young, platonically and romantically in love, sharing a life of art with someone who sees the world the way I do.

And beneath all that excitement, there’s a quieter thread running through the book: two young artists trying to believe in themselves. Patti lingers on the small, ordinary things that kept them moving forward. She hunted for cheap frames so Robert could keep experimenting. She scribbled poems on whatever scraps of paper she could find. And together, they took whatever jobs came their way, doing just enough to stay afloat.

What surprised me most was how naturally the book slowed me down. Between the academic texts I’ve been reading for university and the classic literature I’ve been dutifully working through. ‘Just Kids’ was the first book in months that didn’t feel like a task. Not because the others weren’t meaningful or beautiful, it’s because Patti’s writing has this gentle, unhurried quality. Reading it simply lets you sit in someone else’s world for a while.

I also found myself really moved by the way Patti talks about the harder parts of that time in her life. She mentions the pull of drugs, the heaviness that sometimes settled over her, and the sadness that came with living in such an intense and uncertain world. But she never lets those moments become the centre of the story. They’re simply part of the normal struggles of everyday life. I think it adds another layer to her story and makes her voice feel more grounded.

She has also always been someone who has had influence on me. Her album ‘Wave’ (1979) has always been a favourite of mine. As controversial as she has been, I admire her openness to change, her empathy and her creativity. The way she speaks her mind and stays true to herself. Her old interviews are the coolest. She talks in this philosophical chaos that feels unfiltered but intentional. There’s a looseness to her thoughts that I find comforting.

One of my favourite lines in the memoir is Patti’s admission: “I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.” It is one of the most vulnerable moments in the book. Before the fame, before the albums, before the poetry readings that electrified 1970s New York, she was simply a young woman working in bookstores, sketching in notebooks, and writing on “pages of onion skin.” The word “hungered” is important. It was not a casual wish. It was a physical need to become something. Being an artist was neither stable nor respectable, yet her desire to create was stronger than her desire for comfort or security.

Another line that stayed with me is her reflection: “They sacrificed themselves to drugs and misadventure. Taken down, the stardom they so desired just out of reach, tarnished stars falling from the sky.” It is a quieter moment in the book, one in which Patti and a friend worry that they might end up like some of the artists who haunted the Chelsea Hotel. These were people who were talented and hopeful, yet ultimately undone and killed by the weight of their own dreams. The fear of becoming a ‘fallen artist’ is something many creative people understand. There is a sense that wanting something deeply comes with consequences, and that you can lose yourself as you pour yourself into your work.

During the final moments of the story, Robert dies. It’s just the two of them in the hospital room, facing the truth that their time together is running out. When Robert asks her, “Did art get us?”, the question lands with a soft devastation. It carries everything they gave to their dream, everything they risked, and everything they believed in. After his death, she writes him a letter telling him how grateful she was for him. She tells him that after “going through the years of your work in my mind. You are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.”

Calling him “the most beautiful work of all,” despite all the hardships, says everything. Patti spent her whole life chasing and devoting herself to art. But the thing she holds above all of that is Robert, who she loved more than anyone.

What I admire most about her, and what I think about often, is how she’s managed to stay slightly on the sidelines. You know her name, you feel her influence, but she’s never been consumed by the need to be visible. There’s a kind of power in that restraint. Letting the art speak louder than yourself. It’s something I find myself drawn to more and more: the idea of wanting to be heard without needing to be seen.

What I will take from this story is that I too want to move through the world with more curiosity and intention. I want to trust that my work and art matters, even if no one cares or watches. Even when I’m not sure where it’s leading, I want to keep going and carry on that sense of openness. Letting myself be changed by the things I listen to and read.

So here’s to living like you, Patti Smith.

I hope to live a life that is just as poetic and meaningful as yours.

At first glance, ‘Witches Sabbath’ appears to be a straightforward depiction of superstition: a coven assembled around the Devil who is disguised as an enormous goat. But Goya wasn’t simply illustrating folklore. I believe he was diagnosing something deeper, the human tendency to surrender judgement when the right figure steps into the centre. The painting becomes a study of mass enchantment, a visual representation of how people gather, lean in, and give themselves over to a presence that promises certainty.

To understand why Goya painted this scene, you must picture Spain in the late 1700s. Across Europe, Enlightenment ideas were reshaping science, politics, and the very notion of rationality. Spain, however, was a little behind. The Catholic Church still held enormous power, and superstition remained woven into everyday life. Fear of witches and demons wasn’t symbolic; it was social reality. The Church used that fear to maintain authority, and Goya witnessed this tension first-hand. As a court painter, he moved among aristocrats who were clinging to older and more irrational beliefs, while he privately followed Enlightenment ideals. He saw how superstition could be manipulated, how fear could be weaponised, and how crowds could be swept into collective fantasies when the right figure appeared.

This is where his technique matters. Goya’s use of oil paint is part of the message. His brushwork is loose and almost smoky, blurring the edges of figures so they seem to dissolve into one another. The goat’s dark silhouette is painted with a heavy matte density. Meanwhile, the witches’ faces are painted as if they are half-formed, possibly emphasising their individuality has been scraped away. Even the moonlight feels contaminated, filtered through a haze of uncertainty. Goya uses oil not to beautify but to corrupt, to show how belief can curdle into something grotesque. And when you look closely, the most disturbing element isn’t the goat at all. It’s the followers. Their bodies tilt toward the centre. Their expressions are vacant. Their identities dissolved. They resemble people who have traded judgement for belonging, like the skeletal child on the right, a chilling reminder of what is sacrificed when fear becomes a social currency.

There is also a personal melancholy embedded in the work. Goya had recently suffered a severe illness that left him deaf, and many historians argue that this period marked a shift in his worldview. The darkness in ‘Witches Sabbath’ may reflect not only Spain’s collective anxieties but also his own internal disorientation. That’s the strange thing about looking at art this closely: the line between the artist’s intention and our projection is always blurred. Whether my interpretation is accurate or not, I believe the emotional weight of the painting suggests something intimate is at stake.

Fast-forward to today, and the parallels become difficult to ignore. We no longer gather in fields under a crescent moon, but we gather nonetheless around influencers, political personalities, celebrities, and charismatic authorities. Modern media operates on the same principle Goya painted: when someone projects confidence, people naturally form around them.

Goya’s own words now feel strangely accurate. In his notes on ‘Los Caprichos’, he wrote “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters.” It could easily describe our present moment online. People are vulnerable. And when imagination or fear isn’t balanced by critical thinking, people become easy targets for whoever steps into the spotlight.

Today’s “monsters” aren’t horned goats, they’re persuasive personalities or tempted stories boosted by algorithms. We see this essence of the modern cult of personality. We see individuals form parasocial bonds with figures they’ve never met, and that devotion can feel almost religious. They defend them, they adopt their prejudices, their worldview, and even their ‘enemies’. It becomes a kind of contemporary bewitching, not driven by spells or potions, but by algorithms and the psychological comfort of belonging. Conspiracy movements function like digital covens. They offer narratives that feel more satisfying than the ambiguity of real life. People hate instability and the unknown, and so they gather, lean in, and surrender themselves to the wrong figure.

In conclusion, ‘Witches Sabbath’ isn’t just a painting about superstition; it’s a warning about how easily people can be drawn in by dark figures. It’s disheartening how it exposes a pattern that keeps repeating. Especially in political spaces where fear and identity are tangled together. It’s now near impossible not to ignore how often right‑wing movements fall into this trap. It’s hard watching prejudice and hateful narratives replace critical thought. It’s sad how the world still hasn’t learned to outgrow something that was painted over 200 years ago.

Film has always been an art medium that resonates with me. I’ve logged over 400 films on Letterboxd now, 140 of them just last year, which probably tells you how often I end up in the cinema. However, ultimately, it’s the place I go to think. Similar to art, books and music, I’m also drawn to films that articulate something I recognise but haven’t yet named.

A week ago, I watched Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, and it did exactly that. It’s a beautiful film that accumulates meaning until suddenly you realise it’s shifted your understanding of a story you thought you already knew. For context, I studied Hamlet for A Levels. I annotated the soliloquies, wrote essays on madness and “the rotten state of Denmark'.” I respected the play, but honestly, I never felt connected to it. It wasn’t something I truly cared for.

Hamnet reframes that entirely. By grounding the tragedy in the domestic life of Shakespeare, his wife, and the death of their son, the film gives Hamlet a human centre that the play itself keeps at a distance. It doesn’t overwrite Shakespeare; it contextualises him. Hamlet becomes less of an abstract philosophical construct. The line "to be or not to be” now feels more as if it’s been shaped by personal heartbreak. The film gives Hamlet the emotional core, the heart, I always felt was missing. It doesn’t change the play, in my opinion, it reinterprets it.

Three scenes explore the fragility of life in a way that stayed with me long after the credits. The first is the unexpected birth of twins. It’s filmed in a tense, intimate way, and for a moment her daughter doesn’t cry. Everything goes still. For a second, the baby is thought to be dead. The silence feels endless, as if the world is holding its breath. Then the baby screams, and that single sound captures how close life and loss sit next to each other. It’s a moment of relief.

Later, the film mirrors that moment with the death of their son during the plague. Zhao doesn’t show the event dramatically; instead, she focuses entirely on the mother’s reaction. Jessie Buckley’s scream is the thing that breaks you. It’s raw and instinctive, the kind of sound that comes from somewhere deeper than language. It’s grief in its purest form, and the camera doesn’t look away. What makes it land so heavily is everything that the film has shown us before this point; all the small, ordinary moments of family life, and the memories of running through fields and playing games. Throughout the film the mother, Agnes, tells Hamnet to be strong, a parent’s gentle encouragement. Hamnet tries to be strong in the only way he can, but even that act of strength, in the midst of his illness, leads him to die.

The final sequence brings everything together. The score swells, carrying all the grief and love and memory the film has built, and Shakespeare, played by Paul Mescal, steps into the role of Old Hamlet’s ghost in this adaption of the play. This absolutely devastated me. The audience connecting and reaching their hands out towards the stage feels like a reminder of how we still try to touch something beyond ourselves through performance. I don’t think I’ve cried that hard at a film in years. Even the audience in my cinema clapped when it ended, as if we all needed to release something together.

What stays with me now is how, even though the film is fictionalised but based on true events, it reminds you that behind every piece of writing is someone making sense of their own heartbreak. And maybe that’s why this film hit me so hard? Art helps us understand things in life. It does for me and I’m sure for many others too. I highly recommend watching it, the awards it has won feel entirely deserved.

In this piece, I’m going to go through a few of my favourite performances I’ve watched online over the past year or two. Ones that stuck with me for different reasons, and might resonate with you in a similar way. No particular order, just moments that meant something.

Nina Simone - Stars, Montreux (1976)

This performance of “Stars,” the first on the list, feels like you’re watching something far more personal than a standard live set. From the very beginning, when Nina tells someone in the audience to sit down, there’s this tension in the room. The crowd laughs, but she doesn’t. Whether she was joking or not almost doesn’t matter, because she folds that moment straight into the performance. What follows is so raw and emotional that it feels completely unguarded. She sings like someone working through something in real time, and every line lands with a kind of heaviness and honesty that stays with you.

Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love, London (1970)

This performance is pure chaos in the best way possible. It’s loud, messy, and completely alive. Robert Plant sounds wild but also effortless at the same time. The tempo shifts and improvisations and the way the whole band seems to be feeding off of the crowd. It all adds to that sense of unpredictability that makes it so fun to watch.

Leonard Cohen - Suzanne, The Isle of Wight (1970)

I admire how melancholy his performances are, and this one is such a perfect example of that quiet, understated power he had. I have the song from this performance on vinyl. There is something about Leonard Cohen that feels fragile and delicate. His writing is so vivid and intimate, not just in his music but also his poetry, which I love for that very reason. He may not have the most traditionally impressive voice, but his melodies and lyrics paint a picture in a way few artists can. He’s an artist who paints with sound, and I think this performance captures that beautifully. It doesn’t need big moments or dramatic gestures, it just sits with you after you listen.

The Prodigy - Firestarter, Reading & Leeds (2009)

I’ve watched this video so many times, and it hits every time. It makes me laugh how unhinged it is in the best possible way. Keith Flint, who has sadly passed, is the reason I love this version so much, he has that kind of energy that pulls you in instantly, and the whole crowd reacts to every move he makes. Glastonbury was also a real highlight for me last year, even just watching them on TV. Without him, they still managed to tap into that same intensity and bring back some of the energy that felt missing.

The Last Dinner Party - This is The Killer Speaking, London (2025)

Theatrical and bold, watching this performance actually reminded me of how lucky I was to see them in Cardiff last year. They had that same mix of confidence and looseness where they are completely comfortable in their own world. What stands out is their distinctive style that is just very cool. Even in a small studio setting like Jools Holland, they manage to fill up the space like it belongs to them.

There are so many other performances I love like Bjork, Bowie, Joni Mitchell, the list goes on and on. I’ll probably end up adding more as I keep discovering new ones or revisiting old ones. These are just a few that felt worth sharing for now. Putting this together has reminded me how much joy there is in watching artists do what they do best, and honestly, I envy it a little. Happy New Year, and here’s to finding even more moments like these in the year ahead.

Recently, I read the hauntingly beautiful novel “The Piano Teacher” by Elfriede Jelinek. Its protagonist, Erika, is a perverted and manipulative woman who lives under the tyranny of perfection. She is broken and scarred by her abusive mother, while the societal pressures around her leave no room for vulnerability. Pushed into immorality, Erika makes dark choices that reveal both her cruelty and the damage of repression. The 1983 novel charts her spiral into self‑harm and collapse, exposing how abuse and perfectionism can distort and drive a person into ruin.

Through the novel, her relationship with music is mechanical. The piano is an instrument that should embody creative expression, but becomes a site of repression for her. At the Vienna Conservatory, Erika teaches her students to play flawlessly, but her own artistry is stripped of vulnerability. She does not play music to feel, only to execute. Every note is a performance under surveillance, while every gesture is policed by the authoritarian presence of her mother and wider audience. This fear defines Erika’s existence. A wrong note is not simply a mistake; it consumes her. After every blunder, she secretly mutilates and harms herself with a razor blade as a way of gaining control or punishing herself. Her obsession with flawlessness drains music of its soul. Something that should be risky, emotionally driven and controversial has now become superficial. Erika’s piano playing is not for the art, but to be ‘perfect’ for the people around her. The desire to be loved.

After letting it sit with me for the past month, I noticed that this is something that feels eerily prophetic today. Specifically in our age of performance and online culture. Vulnerability is now risky and self expression is filtered.

Life online feels a lot like Erika at the piano. Erika’s piano is our social media feed: every gesture monitored and every mistake magnified. Cancel culture and online hostility sharpen this fear, turning mistakes into public trials where vulnerability is punished instead of understood. This fear is not confined to the piano. Even at another part of the book, at the opera, Erika is afraid of being perceived. She sits stiffly, afraid to laugh, cry, or show emotion.

We must realise how mistakes can also show our humanity. They reveal cracks in the demand for perfection and open space for empathy, accountability, and reinvention. Through art, literature, and political discourse, imperfection can become a catalyst for growth. If every misstep is permanent, transformation becomes impossible.

In one of the final moments of “The Piano Teacher”, Erika has written a letter to 17 year old student Walter Klemmer. She demands him to dominate her and enact her masochistic fantasies. It is an act of punishment that exposes her perversion and the inappropriate imbalance of power between the teacher and student. Erika is certainly not innocent here, her actions are manipulative and disturbing. Yet Jelinek complicates our judgement. Erika’s masochism is not born out of nowhere, it is the result of the years of repression and abuse at the hands of her mother. Raised in an environment where perfection was demanded and vulnerability punished. Erika internalises violence as the only language of intimacy. This is where nuance matters. Erika is both the evil perpetrator and victim. To sympathise with her is not to excuse her actions, but recognise the complexity of human behaviour. Jelinek forces us to confront the unsettling truth of different experiences and the cycles of harm.

It’s similar how we treat individuals today, we either see someone as wholly guilty, or wholly innocent. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, as it is up to you who you want to support and critique. I also believe it is extremely important to recognise that big harmful mistakes deserve criticism and accountability. Of course for me personally, I would never endorse nor support someone like Erika. She is not a character who “deserves” redemption, and her cruelty and exploitation of power is disgusting.

However, I do think people who have made smaller or even minor mistakes in life don’t deserve a life of scrutiny. Not every mistake deserves redemption, but every mistake deserves thought. Because sometimes acknowledging imperfection, even in its darkest forms, is part of the human condition. The media has already shown how the pressure to perform and conform to society’s standards on social media affects mental health. The pursuit of “perfection” has become increasingly dangerous as more people fall into its trap. Allowing people to change, to confront their past flaws and become better people. I think that’s what enables society to flourish.

Here are some really good articles you should check out that helped inspire me:

https://granta.com/best-book-1983-piano-teacher-elfriede-jelinek/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38023927_The_Piano_Teacher_A_Case_Study_in_Perversion_and_Sadomasochism

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4965-the-piano-teacher-bad-romances?srsltid=AfmBOoqHI4IKQtLkjqSJ2_78ZtBW0BedntLK7qYEpmTMGvU-UBBZgrfi

Surrealism was, and still is, an art and cultural movement that began to emerge in Europe in the early 1920s, directly after the war. It was shaped by the destruction that left many people unable to trust reason, losing faith and hope in reality. Instead of turning to logic, artists and writers sought meaning in irrationality and dream-like states. This was a form of escape from something so brutal that the mind had to defend itself through the lens of creative art in order to process those emotions. This is where Salvador Dalí became the face of Surrealism.

Salvador Dalí was born in 1904 in Figueres, Spain, and from an early age, he was extremely talented. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he absorbed classical techniques but also learned how to paint in a more avant-garde style. Although he was not a soldier in the First World War, as he was a young child, he was, however, impacted by the conflict in many ways. There was a massive loss of life, and society was left with millions wounded and children orphaned. Propaganda and nationalism were on the rise, encouraging patriotism in a time of distrust in the government. Dalí also lost his mother during this time, in 1921, from uterine cancer when he was only 16 years old. His sister was also imprisoned and tortured during the Spanish Civil War. It seemed like the world around him was crumbling under his feet, and in 1931, Salvador Dalí painted his most acclaimed and famous work: ‘The Persistence of Memory.’ This was a piece of art that would define him.

But, what makes this piece so special? Is it the melting clocks draped across an empty landscape, or perhaps the flawless classical technique that made this dream-like state look so real? In my opinion, it’s how it captured the instability and the scars of war and violence that were happening at this time. The painting is chaotic, yet so restrained. Dalí’s use of cool blues and whites of the sky contrasts the warm and earthy tones of the land, creating a sense of emptiness and timelessness. The clocks themselves are painted pale in sickly tones as if to emphasise a fragility or decay. And at the center lies a strange flesh form, which is often interpreted as a distorted self-portrait of Dalí himself. And yet, amid all this, is simple cliffs in the background that possibly remind us that even surrealism is rooted from reality. It cultivates so much persona but gives us nothing that is obvious or rational. No clear narrative and no comforting resolution. I think that’s why it resonates so much with us today; it reminds us of how we are living in such anxiety and discomfort. We imagine a world that allows us to make sense of things we can’t comprehend.

But, will there be a movement like this today? It’s difficult to imagine a single movement that defines our age the way Surrealism did. The sheer flood of art and digital culture makes it hard to pin down one feeling or style that captures our spirit in this time. But perhaps that’s exactly where Dalí teaches us to think differently. He showed how art doesn’t need to be rational, real, or make sense, because even then, that itself can become some sort of meaning.

We see Surrealism today most clearly in memes or videos where people take real-life events and overwhelming situations and twist them into something funny or absurd. This act of turning sadness into humour mirrors the surrealist impulse to escape reality and bend it into an irrational or humorous response. Of course, I’m not suggesting Dalí directly influenced the creation of memes, but the way they reshape reality is strikingly similar to his vision. Just as Dalí’s melting clocks made time itself feel unstable, memes distort everyday images until they carry new, unexpected meanings. Whether on a canvas or a screen, he has still taught us to see differently and face irrationality.

And honestly, I don’t even know if what I’ve written makes perfect sense, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Dalí thrived in the rambling of thoughts, so I guess I’m just living in that spirit. Either way, it really got me thinking, and this stuff really does fascinate me.

But that’s all I have to say for now.