The extraordinary gift for HOPE
Every one and every thing on earth has its time schedule. That's what I deeply believe for a long time. So sometimes when I miss something, I don't treat it really as a "miss", it is just something that is still on the way. It will come sooner or later.
And that's what exactly I feel about the book or movie The Great Gatsby, and many things around me or far away from me.
I downloaded this movie and PDF long long time ago. But I often felt it was not the right time for seeing it. On this special day, with good sunshine and unique voice from summer, I spent a noon and afternoon seeing it.
I have seen several typical moives these days. But what's different from the past was the things that I gained from the movies. I have long been a movie fan and a good learner. It's like a window through which I am allowed to immerse myself in the world which doesn't belong to me but as or more wonderful than mine. In the past, if I am in love with a moive, I tend to ascribe to the factors in the movies such as the ambitions, the excitement, the surprise or anything else that could be ascribed to the label " shock" or "vality" . Yes, I am in love with anything that could SHOCK, SURPRISE or be full of VALITY.
But recently, the kind of feeling I get from movies are quite different from that. It is a kind of peace, tranquillness, calmness and soft happiness. And that feeling is esperically obvious in the movies, Breakfast At Tiffany's, Scent With Women and The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby talks about a story concerning an enduring and powerful ability, quality --- HOPE.
Here are some sentences from the book or movie:
(Page 193) : And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I though of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's book. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the cirty, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gastby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It enluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning---- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
(Page 4) When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Garsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-- Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This reponsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"-- it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romatic readniss such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that remporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men.
It tells a story about a man who, under a hope to chase his dream and change his destiny, struggles from stratch, and makes a great success in the end, even though he died of some dirt from the old money.
Two points are worth talking about the movie.
1) the conflicts between the new money and the old money. This could be transfomed and described in another way " the embarrassed circumstance of the new money", the gap between the origion family and the new successful circumstances gained through one man's hard working.
2) the attitude towards life-- the extraordinary gift for hope, the romantic readiness and the sensitivity to the promises of life.
The first point is a big project, another famous movie The Greatest Showman played by Hug Jackman, also talks about the problem and talks better from my point of view. So if there is a chance, I might talk about this point in another passage. Now let's focus just on the second point.
It praises the struggling spirit of the new money, which as the author mentions, "sensitivity to the promises of life'' and "an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness''. This is precisely the description of the nature of human's existence.
Under the fast development of social economy and the accumulation of capitalism, people in the circumstance have got a chance to make a fortune quickly, It is a time that could produce a lot of heroes as long as they could grasp the opportunity. Gatsby is the one and best of them. But different from others, he has the pure motivation, gorgous gesture, and a mixed temperament which is between the craftiness and pureness.
A smart man who has already gained everything people desired lovewas found that his final end was just a girl's love. Sometimes hard to understand. I also need additional experience and improvement to get full understanding of it.
One thing I believe is that human created by the most powerful imagination and hope. Humans are born from nothingness (if we see from the whole pic of the earth) and bound to die sooner or later. What is talked about it is Born to Die. After people get the nature of life, they tend to have a sense of nihilism and find everything hard to accomplish or conquer. Then--
If he can have the heightened sentivity to the promises of life, or the constantly powerful gift for hope, or the romantic readiness, the meaning of life awaits him to create. That's what makes a man being a man. The starting point such as the motivation is really important, like the love for someone in the movie or the desire to change the fate. What really matters is the attitude towards life and the spirital circumstances because what has been called a motivation is not a really movitation, the hope for the future and the dream is a real movitation. In the movie, it is shown in the form of being love with a girl who he was in deep love with, being a decent man whose gorgeous temperament comes from his own struggling instead of his family, being a man whose success comes from his wisdom and powerful, constant, endless, strong, even sometimes romantic, HOPE.
Without such power, how could human make miracles in such a world that is full of doubts and nihilism? Are miracles really exist? No one ever knows and neither could they know in the future. But one thing is for sure, as least for what can be perceived, we can safely say that it is the Imagination and Hope that enables human to create the splendid history and everything within and without themselves.
So just trust the power of that kind of hope and premises to life, no matter we see from the macroscopic perspective ( the existance of human existence, the development of capitalism) or the microscopic perspective ( the change of fate or destiny of individuals).
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