The Great Gatsby

Last night I watched the remake of The Great Gatsby.  It was a bit of a random impromptu decision because I had been at a dinner at the Olive Garden for a friend's birthday and we all decided to go while at dinner.  I had already seen the new Star Trek movie earlier that day (which was phenomenal and I actually ended up crying for a little bit) but I decided that I had heard really good things about Gatsby so far and so I thought, what the heck!  Why not?  So here I was at the theater again wondering how this movie was going to go.  I had read the book when I was younger and that was a long time ago so I knew the basic logistics of the story but I had forgotten key elements here and there.  The reason I thought to write about this movie was because of how I feel like I can relate to Gatsby as a character and how much the world then has become the world today.  The timing to produce and make this film was perfect.

The Great Gatsby at its core is a love story as well as a story of hope and friendship in a hopeless and friendless world.  Gatsby is this wondrous character who is unknown to almost everyone but is this mecca living a life that is above even the wealthiest of individuals.  His real story is so much simpler and humbler than that and in living this dream, Gatsby lives in fear and lives in a lie, waiting and hoping to never be found out.  He has embraced a world that needs to be entertained in order to escape the horrors of its reality because times were hard and opportunities were bleak but out of all the dust and ashes there is hope that this man Gatsby will be able to change his past and be with his soul mate once again to love forever and ever.

"I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything."

For me, I used to believe in a world like this.  I used to believe that love was something that could pull you through almost anything.  I at times would look at the hopeless case of the world around me in sometimes cynical eyes but hold onto a single hope that love would stay or the bad would pass and things would be good again.  All I needed was that single dream and I would continue to fight against innumerable odds.  I have been forgotten over time and great distance.  I have been called out to being less than I am.  I have been scared as a school boy to talk to a girl that I love.  I have traveled the world and am fiercely loyal to my friends, willing to be a confidant and take the blame for their shortcomings and mistakes.  I love because I am able to take a person as a whole, the good with the bad.  And I am better person for the people that I love because of the sacrifices I am willing and many times do make.  I feel like I am Gatsby for his goodness but I do my best to not live the lie.  There are times where I am a afraid.  There are times when I don't do the right thing.  But I have hidden behind those fears in my past and for years I have lived a free life being who I am and embracing myself in all its imperfection.  Change is inevitable in relationships and life.  It is what helps us progress and find new purpose.  But if you have to change who you are so much that you are no longer yourself, than that relationship is not a true one.  Happiness can be found in our progression in life and that progression is a necessity.  However, happiness is not always found in the extravagant as much as it is often found in the simply beautiful.  Through it all, the message we still get from Gatsby is this unwavering and endless hopefulness.  It is that hope which we need and desire.  I want something or someone to have hope in again.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . .And one fine morning —— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

 "He smiled understandingly–much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistable prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."