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The Great Gatsby

Decent Essays

Do I dare?
I take a look at the Universe and at first glance I see a magnificent entity “revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot,” (Fitzgerald pg. 31) so grand in scale that nothing can ever be compared to it. The universe is beautiful in its complexity and is mind numbing even at first glance and it becomes even more difficult to comprehend as you begin to pinpoint human life. Looking back in time through the course of human existence I look through our “troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles” (Fitzgerald pg. 66) of this world. Whose brave struggles contradict one another so majestically that they highlight the ideals and virtues of a resilient species the human race is kind and generous but it is also destructive and greedy. …show more content…

“I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was I meant to be;” (Eliot line 116) I, as well as every other free thinking human being, have a side of myself that is selfish and greedy while I also am caring and thoughtful of my surroundings. It is undisputable that no matter what I do to change my ways I will always have some part of me that is selfish and I can’t change that no matter what I do. “It is impossible to say just what I mean,” (Eliot line 109) without discrediting myself or by offending someone else but the truth is everyone is selfish and that means myself included. Every day we prioritize ourselves we put our needs in front of others, no one is selfless. This outlook is beyond cynical, I will admit, but I hold these views to be true for “I have known them all already,” (Eliot line 55) during my short life on earth. There is small hope for the universe and the human spirit if you really go looking for it. For one it is possible to suppress ones selfishness by neglecting the ego until one’s “egotism is no longer nourished,” (Fitzgerald pg. 20) so that one can spend an amount of time focusing on others. Each person has their own survival mechanism that keeps their morals afloat and mine is that “I am slow thinking and fill out interior rules that act as brakes on my desires,” (Fitzgerald pg. 58) and for most of the time my brakes work. At other times they fail me and I have a whole mess of problems I must now deal with. Why can’t I just …show more content…

These are all simple laws of nature that one thing cannot stay constant forever and yet I struggle with this idea and I try to fight it. I’m only comfortable in the known and the routine. So when I look at the universe I see something comfortable and yes, I would be more than happy to eliminate the violence from this modern era. I would take out the oppression and the depression but if I take this away from the world we live in then what monstrosity will take its place? What if it is somehow worse and there ends up being more death and more hate in the world how “should I then presume?” (Eliot line 73) How do I change it in its current state? If I dare to change the universe “then where should I begin,” (Eliot line 74) with the depression or the oppression? This world is not an algebraic formula where we can find out which of the two is the independent and which is the dependent variable. Is it the depression forcing the oppression or the oppression causing the depression? Frankly I wouldn’t want my life to be explained in the way of a formulaic solutions, lucky for me that is the case for the more complex things in the world, anything touched by freewill to be exact. I suppose it’s quite possible to “face the whole external world for an instant” (Fitzgerald pg. 48) and figure everything out but by the

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