Nick Carraway and I

So, in the spare hour of lunch I dug through my backpack looking for The Happy Prince, and instead found The Great Gatsby (I had accidentally packed that book instead - again). Reading the introduction to that book, I came to realise what it is I love so much about this piece of work.

This is, simply, that I can identify with both of the main characters - with Jay Gatsby, and above all, with Nick Carraway - because, much like Nick, I gravitate towards people far more splendid than myself. Nick is a man who finds that great men tend to trust him, in his own words, and he's got a strange fascination for Jay Gatsby, this larger-than-life fellow whose ambition and despair the book is about. Thinking this, I realised that I am much like Nick Carraway in that I associate with great people, for whom I hold great adoration.

I don't talk about Gatsby's kind of ambition, because I know nobody with that particular type of splendour. I am saying, though, that the people I associate with - that is to say, my friends - seem to me passionate people, with a dedication to living life to its fullest. They all do this in different ways, to be sure, but there's little negotiation - little holding back. Some of you seek to change the world, others, to change yourselves, still others, to be free of the worlds' expectations - but all of you are, in some ways, my superiour. I do not say this lightly.

There is a saying that "everyone I meet is in some way my superiour", which would make the above point moot. I don't think so, however; there are people more skilled than me in many areas, to be sure, but their skill is a tool, a means, a crude device. This is not superiourity - whether this skill is social, physical or mental, it's no more sophisticated than Tom Buchanan's polo playing (sorry for all the references, to people who have not read the novel, by the way). The splendour I see in my friends is their devotion to the idea in itself, to the concept that a higher purpose is hidden inside a skill. The difference between skill and superiourity, then, is analogous to the difference between brawling and martial arts; a man swinging wild punches can surely defeat a martial artist if he's lucky, but to him the fighting is only a means - never an art, never a purpose in itself, never a soul's treasure like the art is to the artist. Jay Gatsby is more than a wealthy socialite - he's a man with the American Dream burning at the very core of his soul.

What I mean to say - and I might be wrong, but what I feel - is that everyone I know and love possesses such a soul's treasure, a flame which makes them my superiour. Many, many people in this world could beat me up, but Love is truly my superiour in the martial fields. Many could talk faster and crack better jokes than me, but Eva has a burning passion for people. Many could draw better than me, or analyse comics better than me for that matter, but Björn has a flame of creativity which suffuses all his essence, and so on, and so forth. The list goes ever on; everyone I love possesses such a flame, and it would be pointless for me to recollect everyone's talents and ambitions - you know them yourselves, and each of you possesses more than one of them. It is as if you've seen a glimmer of some Platonic ideal, and seek to pursue it.

And, like I said at the beginning, I see some of Gatsby in myself as well. Though I waiver in what I want, I too can at times feel like I am superiour in what I do - not because I do it well, but because it is so important, so great, that it becomes larger than life. It is at times like these that I can truly believe in the green light across the bay. Nevermind what it means.