Reading List–The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The Great Gatsby is the second of the books on my reading list.

As I started working through what I wanted to write about this book, it occurred to me that I should have a focus, a fundamental question that drives what I write about.  Much of what I read and journal about these days relates to my journey to be a better man, so it only seems natural to use that as way to focus my thoughts.  Specifically, I am looking to answer the question “what can I learn from this book about being a man?”

If you have not read The Great Gatsby and would like some background on the characters and story, check out this Wikipedia article.

So, what can I learn about being a better man from The Great Gatsby?  The big one that stands out to me is the importance of having a close friend.  In general, the story points out that having one friend is more valuable than having hundreds of acquaintances.  When Nick is attempting to find just one person among Gatsby’s many acquaintances to attend his funeral (and is unable to do so), I realized that despite disliking and disagreeing with Gatsby in many ways, Nick was still loyal to him and was his friend.  Men could all learn from this that we don’t have to like everything about another man to be his friend.  We don’t have to agree with everything a man says or does to be his friend.  To be there, supportive and loyal, even when no one else will, is not only the mark of a real friend, but also of an honorable man.  I’m just grateful that I didn’t have to deal with the death of someone I know in order to have my eyes opened to this truth.

The other thing I learned about being a man from Gatsby is to not live my life based on anticipation of the future.  Gatsby’s whole world was built around his fantasy of what it would be like when he was finally able to be reunited with Daisy.  He wasn’t living to enjoy the now.  He was living in anticipation of the future.  The problem is that once he was able to be reunited with her, it wasn’t at all the grand wonder he had imagined it to be,  In fact, it started off a chain of events that ultimately led to his death.  He essentially wasted most of his adult life waiting for the future to arrive, and when it did, it was not at all what he had imagined it to be.

And so I believe it is with many men today (myself included sometimes).  We live today looking ahead to some future event that will hold the key to being able to really engage.  “I can do X when the house is paid off,” “I can start enjoying Y after I retire.”  Except that for many men, it seems like reaching these milestones beings nothing more than disappointment.  To deal with this, they may create a new future milestone, or they may simply give up and neither really live nor continue anticipating a better future.  This latter outcome I believe is powerfully symbolized by Gatsby’s death.  Indeed, giving up on having a meaningful life is an especially painful death all its own.

To summarize, be (and have) a good, true friend and live today.