“You can’t buy it, but it has a price,” said Oryx. “Everything has a price.” 

-Margaret Atwood, ‘Oryx and Crake’

I love Oryx and Crake, it is definately one of my favourite books and if anyone if a fan of destopian novels and has not read it- well, I’d say run, run to your nearest bookstore or to your purse to buy it online. It’s amazing.

Anyway, tonight I found myself reaching for this book and flicking through it, just remembering reading it and how amazed I was by it- then the above quote jumped out at me. It is so applicable, I mean, of course in the destopian context it would make sense, but even now, in such a consumer concerned world, not all things with a price can be bought.

Now, thinking about it, it appears that this quote can be taken in three ways

A) You simply cannot buy certain things, for example, no matter how much money you have, you cannot buy your way into a society who is made up of those who have spent their lives there (very Great Gatsby I know)

B) Some things don’t cost money but do cost a different kind of price (sex seems to jump to mind)

C) Whatever we have comes at a price

All of these seem highly applicable. In disucssion of point A, when you actually think about it there is an endless list of things you can buy to get closer to that something you cannot buy:

– Respect: of course money can bring a degree of respect, such as you would have for your employer, however, it is not a true kind of respect as you would have for someone who is say a brilliant parent

– Love: You can try all you want, but essentially the more you throw money at love the less ‘love’ the love becomes

– Experiances: Yes, you can fund amazing experiances and do all you wish with your loved ones but me and my boyfriend has a brilliant day sitting in bed  eating one 11p noodles and 90p chicken nuggets!

In terms of point B:

Sometimes money just isn’t what people want. Think, Russia at the beginning of the 90’s- people were often paid in produce for their work as that is what is ultimately wanted. Sometimes money is just money which is essentially just paper, which is essentially a tree which cost money to cut down so it could be made into money (fascinating stuf eh?)

…And point C:

Try doing anything without some sort of concequences

” You can try to ignore the facts, but everything will always have a price, even if you can’t understand what that price is yet’

-Grace Port, WordPress.com

Grace x