gatsby got rich. he never got what he wanted.
i finally watched the great gatsby. one of the most emotionally rich and charged films i have ever seen. don’t know what took me so long to watch it.
after two hours and thirty-three minutes, i was left with twenty-eight takeaways in my notes app. here they are, grouped.
1. we see the story through memory, not facts
we don’t see events completely objectively. we see them through the lens of someone who lived them and is trying to make sense of them.
that’s the psychology of memory: when something emotionally significant happens, we reconstruct it into a story so we can understand it.
2. old money, new money and the american dream
there are 2 kinds of wealth in this world:
old money (east egg)
new money (west egg)
the distinction matters because it shows how each social class defines itself. gatsby had the money but not the name, the history or the belonging.
the film criticizes the american dream, the promise that anyone can succeed through “hard work.” but can you buy the history and belonging of being born into the right family?
the american dream isn’t equally accessible to everyone. the wealthy enjoy the rewards of the system while everyone else struggles to survive in it. and in an unequal society, the consequences of selfish behavior aren’t distributed equally either.
it’s a world so obsessed with money and appearance that it has no meaningful moral compass.
wealth does not equal character.
3. an outwardly perfect life can hide a deeply unhappy reality
daisy has everything society tells women they should want, yet she’s emotionally unfulfilled.
people sometimes stay in a familiar, unhappy situation because the uncertainty of leaving feels more threatening than the unhappiness of staying.
when love and security pull us in opposite directions, which one do we choose? for daisy, its security.
4. the green light
the green light is a metaphor for ambition. it represents everything gatsby believes he can get if he chases his dream long enough:
hope for a better future
the promise of success
the life gatsby believes he’s destined to have
something always desirable because it stays just out of reach
sometimes the anticipation of getting something is more powerful than actually having it.
psychologists call this affective forecasting: our attempts to predict how happy a future event will make us. we usually overestimate the satisfaction.
5. the founder in gatsby
gatsby embodies the entrepreneurial ability to imagine a different future and relentlessly work toward it.
but there’s a difference between reinventing yourself and rejecting yourself. his ambition is partly built on a sense of inadequacy.
his greatest gift and his greatest weakness are the same thing: his extraordinary ability to believe in a future he’s imagined. the determination that made him successful in business became a liability in his romantic life.
ambition is powerful when it’s directed at things we can influence. another person’s feelings, memories and choices can’t be controlled with the same determination.
his optimism is admirable, but it’s so powerful that no contrary evidence can change his beliefs. that’s motivated reasoning: interpreting information in ways that protect what we desperately want to believe.
6. “once i get x, everything will be complete”
the tragedy of gatsby is that he organized his entire life around the belief that once x is obtained, everything will be complete. and his whole life was directed by a psychological attachment to the past.
gatsby made daisy the answer to his entire existence, an idealized symbol of perfection. that’s an enormous expectation for any human being to fulfill.
love becomes dangerous when devotion requires you to abandon your own self-preservation. the person most willing to sacrifice for love is the person who loses everything.
all the preparation and money in the world can’t:
guarantee an outcome
protect you from emotional vulnerability
7. visibility isn’t connection
the lines between visibility and connection are heavily blurred. gatsby builds a world where he’s surrounded by hundreds of people without truly being known.
a person’s relationships aren’t measured by how many people celebrate their success. they’re measured by who remains when they have nothing left to give.
8. consequences don’t disappear
consequences don’t disappear if you ignore them. someone always pays, and it’s rarely the people with the most power.
the takeaway
gatsby knew how to build a life that looked extraordinary but never learned how to live one that felt complete.
that’s what happens when we don’t stop to examine what motivates our ambitions, and whether they make us more fulfilled or simply give us more to chase.
what’s your green light?
Originally published on Substack.