Recycled Air

“Here. Where I am anonymous and alone in a white room with no history and no parading. So I can make something unknown in the shape of this room. Where I am king of Corners. And Robin who drained my body of its fame when I wanted to find that fear of certainties I had when I first began to play, back when I was unaware that reputation made the room narrower and narrower and narrower, till you were crawling on your own back, full of your own echoes, till drinking in only your recycled air. And Robin And Jaelin brought me back to that open fright with the unimportant objects.”

Here. This moment. Now. Who I am right now and my beliefs at this given time.

Buddy Bolden finds himself reflecting on himself, right then and there. Anonymous, he is protected from judgment and finds himself in a white room with no history and no parading (ie. no social standards, former bias, or need to be a certain person). He, in this scenario, is in his Utopic state of uncaring.

Fame is something that is a part of his life, and apparently, he used to harbor many uncertainties and hesitations before fame had built him up, one ego level and supercilious point at a time. Not only that, but he had yet to know (until from his own personal experience) that fame makes people pale in comparison to you, until you’re this huge work of art made to be praised and admired and glorified. But then you’re so secluded in your grade-A Star world that there’s only enough space for you to walk so casually on. It gets to the point where you’re so special that you’re seen as a prize to be conquered or an ideal to gain. Nobody understands you and then you’re so secluded and miles away from the rest of humanity, that you’re only breathing your own recycled air.

Because no one is there to breathe it with you.

Fame gets to people. In more ways than one. It isolates people, it depresses them, it is a huge gift that comes with hazardous side-effects.

It’s meant to be taken step by step while trying to not let it take you over.

To not destroy you completely.

Too bad Buddy didn’t follow the rules.

All You've Done is Cut Me in Half

“Our friendship had nothing accidental did it. Even at the start you set out to breed me into something better. Which you did. You removed my immaturity at just the right time and saved me a lot of energy and I sped away happy and alone in a new tone away from you, and now you produce a leash, curl the leather round and round your fist, and walk straight into me. And you pull me home. Like those breeders of bull terriers in the Storyville pits who can prove anything of their creatures, can prove how determined they are by setting the, onto an animal and while the jaws clamp shut they can slice the dog’s body in half knowing the jaws will still not let go.

All the time I hate what I am doing and want the other. In a room full of people I get frantic in their air and their shout and when I’m alone I sniff the smell of their bodies against my clothes. I’m scared, Webb don’t think I will find one person who will be the right audience. All you’ve done is cut me in half, pointing me here, Where I don’t want to find these answers.”

Friendships don’t last forever.

I’m just being realistic. Of all the people you know now, only one (if at all), will probably maintain their ‘homeboy’ station in your heart when you’re bordering on geriatric. And even some friendships seem to last for only a short term. In the first sentence, the word 'had' demonstrates that Webb and Bolden used to be friends, but it’s a thing of the past.

By using the phrase ‘Even at the start’, he demonstrates how the following will be something Webb did occasionally during their friendship, which was try to ‘better’ Bolden. Even the latter thought of himself as someone who was yet to be the best person out there.

Bolden proceeds to compare himself to a dog in the way that---after he succeeded in maturing, supposedly--- he sped away happily into a new town, leaving all of Webb’s annoying tendencies (and probably a vapid home) behind. And yet no matter what, Webb came back like those breeders (which give the aura of a cruel, tough, and authority-endowed persona) and ‘tore’ Bolden in half. And of course Webb knew he had stopped Bolden’s chance at happiness, and even in that moment, knew Bolden would always reminisce, crave, and be engulfed in the memories of that glimpse at bliss.

In the second paragraph we deduce (quite obviously) that Bolden is a bundle of conflict. All the time, every single day of his life, never has he been completely satisfied with what he is doing, which leads one to infer that he has never been satisfied with himself. He always wants what he doesn’t obtain. Common nature, and yet with his inability to ever enjoy himself when he finally attains them, quite sad.

He gets annoyed by being surrounded by people (maybe because he’s so different and can’t relate to anyone in life) and yet can’t mange loneliness and craves the “smell”, the knowledge or feeling that he is not alone in this world. He is lost and scared and can’t seem to find a way to a peaceful time on Earth. And while he knows there are reasons he is the way he is, and Webb has “cut him and half”, rendering him vulnerable to anything, pointing him here---the reasons for why he is who he is---, he is too much of a coward to bare himself and find out.

Hopes, Façades, and Unrevealed Secrets

Known for being one of the most prized works of literature, “The Great Gatsby” has been already been specified as a masterpiece that demonstrates life in “The Roaring Twenties.” “The Roaring Twenties” being a decade of hope, miracles, and whatever else can be said for positive and exultant feelings.

And so maybe just the setting itself can be looked upon as a reference to hope and expectations for that all-mighty happy ending (which, being realistic here, will never occur in this extremely screwed-up world).

But nothing can contend to the ultimate power of hope when involved with someone of the opposite sex.; that unwarranted amount of ambition and sometimes gag-worthy romantic actions that one does in order to win the heart of a certain special human being, in hopes of finally capturing their heart.

Hope. “To cherish a desire with anticipation.”
Example: Daisy Buchanan.

Daisy Buchanan is a symbol for all the inordinate amount of optimism and expectations for whatever it is that warrants enough importance to make you prone to disappointment.

James Gatsby holds great expectations when it comes to said girl. She is the light at the end of the tunnel, the reason he is who he is today.

And yet, it is not a newfound concept that hopes and expectations are sometimes met with blanking and utter disappointment.

“ There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusions. “

Gatsby has engulfed himself in endless wires that travel through his brain setting Daisy as this fairytale heroine and has brought himself to make Daisy to be this unrealistic epitome of perfection. He has spent five years building Daisy up to some type of unflawed and seamless precision.

Daisy is the epitome of Hope and Expectations and the proof of how we might not always get what we are hoping for.

For Gatsby, it’s his dreams of her living up the ideal he has stuck in his head. For people back in the 1920’s it was probably the possibility of a sprouting and better America. For us, well, there are tons of simple (and sometimes materialistic and extremely shallow) hopes that affect us every single day.

But we have them.

Another maybe tiny symbol would be the high stacks of books piled up in Gatsby’s house. Did we ever happen to see him in the actual act of absorbing literature? That would be a negative.

So Gatsby might be somewhat of a farce. Like those guys that pretend to own sports cars so they’ll obtain the oh-so-admirable blonde bimbo with the single digit IQ that is supposed to be made up for in the size of her breasts?

Well, our friend Gatsby here has books instead of sport cars and his ultimate goal is more the image of intelligence (and his claim of going to Oxford) than a female companion.

Yes. His books are the symbol of a façade. They are there to lead a person to believe something that is not entirely covering the facts.

Of course, they could also be representing Gatsby himself in the way that they hold secrets and stories that are unknown because they have yet to be opened. Kind of like Gatsby and his mysterious past that is yet to be determined.

So we have hopes that never reach our expectations, façades we put on to try and please other people or come off as something we are not, and secrets we keep and very rarely let out until someone happens to earn the sufficient amount of trust to have us open up to them completely.

So we live life following these repeating actions that characterize us as humans. Just like Gatsby himself is a compressed mass of ambition, loneliness, naivety, and then sometimes confidence, wealth, and a bleak sort of happiness, he is a symbol of everything we encounter as humans.

A symbol of Life.