The Great Gatsby---Personal thoughts

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the one book that is closest to my heart. It is the story of building up a dream so profound in its survival, that it lingers on, allowing no true reality to match up to its intensity; inevitably extinguishing all life from those who dare dream it.

For a very long time, I have lived the ‘Gatsbian’ dream. I have loved the idea of a person and obsessed with that idea to the extent of believing it real. I know gatsby’s love, I have lived that obsession. When an obligatory greeting or a polite dance was enough to send me waltzing away into another world constructed by me, where things were simple and calculated. Where, my love and labor bore fruits. Where he turned out to be exactly the man he was meant to be.

For a long time, I pined his absence from my reality. For a long time, things didn’t seem right if they didn’t get me closer to him…for very long, I cursed my life for not intertwining with his as it did in my dreams. He could never match up to that. I never talked much to him, I also behaved irregular around him, subconsciously constructing a foundation for my dreams, so strong, that even his acceptance wasn’t spared the doubt of disappointment. I was delusional and in retrospect, I made sure he let me remain that way.

But also in this story, is the question of individuality. Did Gatsby not have that one first evening in the corner of the room, in the arms of his love, the complete realization of his dream in its entirety? What is more important? A long life of satisfaction or a life cut short by its passions and obsessions, but not before that one moment of ecstasy, rejoicing, in full awesomeness, the tangible truth of a dream come true?