(The Great) Gatsby It was the first book I read, and it was an immediate favorite. I was afraid to watch the film because I didn’t want to spoil what I remembered of the book, but the film managed to capture most of the things I loved about the book: hope, love, and determination—things I desperately needed to get through my childhood. I tossed and turned a lot last night, carrying threads of thoughts in and out of sleep. I kept seeing that green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. I thought about ‘Daisy’, as that ideal—as a revelation, or inspiration—just as I had as a young boy. I thought about how much I was in love with that ‘ideal’ as a kid, about how I was determined to be something better than my surroundings, and about the hope that kept me moving toward it. And when I woke up this morning and was showering, I thought about how I’d let it all go recently. About a month or two ago, the Catholic Church (essentially) told us we couldn’t join their club. Catholicism seemed to be right up my alley, and I felt like God had led me there. So, I walked away from religion and angrily shook my fist at God on my way out and yelled, “For two years I’ve been putting myself on the front line for you, and not once in two years have you ever even met me half way! Screw you; I’m out of here!” I started studying atheism. All of a sudden, everything started making sense. I no longer had to come up with bizarre ways to connect religious beliefs to real world experiences. Without God, real world things just make sense. But I’m an artist. I don’t mean to claim that with any kind of ego-sense. I’m not talking about ‘what’ I do or ‘who’ I am, but ‘how’ I do it. I think of everything in terms of being creationist-driven or inspired. If you take the creationist out of it, I’m left uninspired. That’s where I’ve been for months: uninspired. This weekend, I took a friend out to see some beautiful spots I like to tromp. I pointed out a small puddle of water—less than a foot in diameter. I said, “Just think about this puddle of water. There’s more life in this tiny little puddle of water than anything man has been able to observe outside of our planet for as far out as we can possibly see.” And that’s just one little puddle of water—not the whole of planet Earth. To put that into perspective, imagine that in all of the grains of sand on the entire surface of the earth, there is one grain that has your name printed on it. Just yours. None of the other grains has anyone else’s name printed on it. And imagine you finding that grain one day by accident (when you weren’t even looking for it.) That’s how impractical and improbable it is for this planet to have life on it. Even most atheists would agree on this point. And yet there is one pool of water with more life in it than the unimaginably massive amounts of space we’ve observed so far. When I think back about that journey with my friend this weekend, I remember all of the life around us as we hiked, and the sheer beauty of it all. I can’t even begin to describe it. In fact, you can’t adequately describe it, which is why we were talking about how you can’t capture that kind of beauty and dimension in a photograph or painting. It’s indescribable in any human form other than direct observance. And later that day she happened to mention God. Well, I’ve started tuning out God-things now, but I heard her say, “I don’t like talking to God,” which caught my interest. She went on to say, “because I can’t imagine I’m interesting enough for him to listen to. Instead, I like listening to Him!” That’s an interesting way of looking at things. In fact, that reminds me of one of the reasons I was interested in Catholicism—that they seemed more inclined to listen to/for God than trying to get his attention. When you’re quiet, you’re an observer. And when you’re observing, you see so much more than anyone else. On my way into work this morning, all of these things were rolling around in my head: Gatsby, the Pool of Life, and Active Listening. I thought about how the worst Christians I’ve ever met are the ones who want to talk your damned ear off—the ones who won’t listen. I thought about the impracticality of mankind having sparked into existence and then evolved into people who could not only find love, hope, and determination—but then to write it up in a clever and endearing metaphor in some book that would help a twelve year old boy find his way out of his own dark existence. Nick believed Gatsby was great—because Gatsby believe strongly in something greater than himself, so strongly that he was willing to sacrifice himself for it. Sure, Gatsby didn’t make it, just as none of us really ever does, but Gatsby held on to something that kept him moving forward, and he left something in Nick that helped Nick get through the stock market crash and Great Depression that soon followed. Love, hope, and determination—active listening. Giving, instead of waiting around to receive. These are the trademarks of a creator. These breaths of life have stirred our tiny little pool of existence. And so I need to get back to those principles. I need to believe in something greater than my surroundings, or myself—just as Gatsby and Nick did. I need to refocus my attention on the light at the end of the dock. It’s not nearly as far away as I’ve come to believe.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 14:07:41 +0000
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