Friday, April 11, 2014

Dreamer Mentality

Please respond to ALL of the following questions-make sure to give a thorough response, end with a question and respond to at least one other person's comment.

Idealism has always been a way for people to escape reality, or to pursue a reality that isn't quite tangible.  Having dreams for something more has many effects.
 If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful? Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Are people more apt to not get what they desire?
Characterize Gatsby's dreamer mentality and what you see in his idealism (try to use textual support to back up your opinion)

29 comments:

  1. I think if you are a dreamer you aren’t careful. You don’t see the world how it is, you see it how you wish it be. Dreamers should be more aware of what they are doing. If they aren’t careful they will lose sight of what’s really important. Gatsby is a great example. He is so caught up in Daisy he forgets what life is about now, and for the last five years. You should be more careful, but I won’t actually will happen.
    History repeats itself. If you look at wars and other important events you see the same thing is played out, just in a little different of a way. When you are so focused on something you create tunnel vision. Nothing else matters in the world, just what you have in your mind. Depending on the event, there can be very minor repercussions, such as a small let down. On a grander scale (I think this is where Gatsby is at) your life could be pointless. If you live your life based on this one tiny thing, it will not end well.
    People are crazy. When we want something we will fight to the end to make sure we get it. I don’t believe this is a good thing necessarily for the most part. Once we have that tunnel vision, it’s the end. Nothing else matters in our life. I feel this is dangerous and we need to find that balance of our life.

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    1. I agree with what you said about Gatsby losing sight of what is important, but how could someone achieve their dreams without being classified as a dreamer? At this point, could Gatsby change his ways and put his dreams into realism?

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  2. If you are a dreamer I don't think that you have to be more careful. I think you just have to be smart enough to not let your dreams get the best of you. I do not think that you can repeat the past. The past is in the past for a reason. If you could repeat the past then there would be a replay button on life or time machines, but there aren't. Trying to repeat the past could definitely cause some repercussions. People that try too hard to recreate what they once had often end up with less than they had in the beginning. To me, it is often best to just leave the past alone. I think that people are apt to get what they don't want but they end up liking what they got. Gatsby's dreamer mentality is very unrealistic. He thinks that he can repeat the past which he cannot. He has big dreams an wishes that he could relive the past and have everything he once had with Daisy.

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    1. I agree with your everything about your blog except one thing. I do not agree that there isn't a rewind button per say. To me, everything in life is a continuous cycle of the same thing unless, the dreamer decides to change it. For example, school, we go through the same routine every single day, until we are given the option to change it. Its easy to dream a dream, but uneasy to make it happen. I also would like to use the example that we have been fighting wars for centuries but does anyone really win? We are still here and yet we fight wars continuously. Do you think that it is better for someone to stay in a routine or make the change, try and chase a dream, even if that dream is unrealistic.

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  3. A dreamer, is a person who lives in a world of fantasy; one who is impractical and unrealistic. (Webster) When I read this I thought of it almost as the definition for Gatsby, if he had a definition. Gatsby has made this image of a dream girl, Daisy,this was not only Gatsby’s dream girl but it may have been the one that's gotten away in a sense. I really think that over the years of Gatsby not being in the presence of Daisy. He has basically added qualities that he believes she had, through qualities that he has seen in other people he has met or seen that have reminded him of Daisy. This happens a lot when people miss someone, they basically have an image of a person that they remember and they add qualities or characteristics to that certain person that they have basically re-thought or re-imagined. I feel that because Gatsby has made this “Daisy” that there are repercussions, the whole five years he has acted as though he has imagined how Daisy wants him to act. This is probably one of the most important things that this book teaches. To me this book has taught me that real life is not a place where many dreams come true. For example, the example Mrs. Comp stated in class, “Most kids want to be a movie star or a professional athlete when they grow up.” (What I remember of the quote) So this to me shows that kids have the wrong idea of what a dream is. To me a dream should be along the lines of a realistic outcome of your life, this can be obtained by how you view yourself and how you portray the world. As in the novel, the real world has repercussions for dreaming too big.

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    1. I agree with what you say. All Gatsby wants is Daisy and that she is his future. He has changed everything about him to get the relationship with her that he had 5 years before. But we see dreams come true every day. I think everyone should thrive to reach their goals, because you never know what will happen in the end.

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  4. When you ask if dreamers are more careful, I have absolutely no clue what that means. Are they more careful with every single thing they do in life compared to non-dreamers? Probably not. So I don’t know how to approach that question, and give an educated answer. Now when Nick states that you can’t repeat the past, I completely agree. I personally believe you shouldn’t want to repeat it. You should cherish whatever happened for the fact that it happened, and you should jump into the future with an open mind, and a will to try anything. Whatever happened in the past happened, whether you agree or not. There is no use in loathing over what could’ve been, or how every moment could be like that one moment a long while ago. That’s not how life works for people enjoying life, in my opinion. Life is whatever happens right in front of you. Whether you made the circumstance that’s unfolding before you or the universe did, you should always try to makes the best of it. There are consequences to every action ever made in the universe. That’s simple science. So I completely think that there are a whole lot of repercussions that come with chasing your dreams. There is going to be a bunch of obstacles to overcome in the real world when pursuing your happiness, but I also fully believe that through hard work, whatever you’re striving for is fully attainable. Some people are lazy, and are faced with obstacles blocking their desires then give up. There are some people with dreams that aren’t realistic, so they’ll never be able to obtain their dreams. There are some people with actual, terrible luck that don’t obtain what they want due to a never ending series of events not ending in their favor. But I also think that if someone wants something as badly as they want to breathe, they could probably get it. Gatsby is a dreamer in the sense that he’s chasing what he once had with Daisy. I feel like he’s the dreamer with the series of unfortunate events, but I also feel like he’s dreaming the wrong dreams. He’s not dreaming of brighter future with change. He’s dreaming of an extremely conservative dream where things return to the harmony they possessed five years back. Not only do I think that’s a waste of time, but exhausting.

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    1. I love what you said about the fact that we shouldn't want to repeat the past. It happened, and either way it is going to change you. We wouldn't move forward if we tried to redo something that had already happened. Because nothing is the same as it used to be.

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    2. What is classified as a realistic dream? I like what you said about Gatsby not chasing a brighter future, I completely agree he is chasing a past memory and not cherishing the moment in which he lives.

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    3. Couldnt agree more about what you said about dreams. About the "special" types of dreams people have the define what kinda of person they are and their character that reflects from it. Mostly I agree with how you ended it by saying that Gatsby is waisting his time by trying to relive the past When you cant. You gotta accept what comes your way, imbrace it, and do you feel is best to react to the situation.

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  5. Dreams are wispy, amazing things. They are like little ghosts that lead us out on a path, where we must hop precariously from suspended stone to suspended stone. Sometimes we must focus so much on each step we take to reach our goal, that we don’t notice what is going on around us. Maybe as we cross each stone, a beautiful sunset is happening, but we are so focused on where we are going. Sometimes we are only looking ahead, so zeroed in on what we see, that we aren’t even watching where we are going, with so little footing, we have all the more chance that we will fall.
    I think that when we have dreams, we should go after them, because we might not have the chance again. When people say, “don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when I know there are footprints on the moon,” I think that it often can be misinterpreted. No one should ever be told that they can’t dream. It is a motivator to get us to an end goal, but when it consumes us, the only thing it can lead to is destroying us.
    So often we have this image of a place in time that we wish to be, a moment in the past which we want to return to. And I think that Jennifer makes a great point, that history repeats itself, but it doesn’t ever repeat itself in the same way twice. I think that one reason The Great Gatsby is such a timeless and symbolic book is because Fitzgerald represents this struggle in a main character, Gatsby. In the story Gatsby builds up the time he had with Daisy, to this idol where he holds her above all else. But as much as he can try to re-create the time he had with Daisy, he can’t. Because it is physically impossible to go back to the point in time that he wishes to be in. It is just the same for us today. We have these dreams that we can go back and be in a specific point of time, but it will never happen because that moment will never happen again. It would be like time travel, if we could go back and stay in that time, it would affect us, and our futures, creating something that wasn’t supposed to occur naturally. And I think that a lot of people would choose to go back to the perfect moment that they remember, but we don’t think about what happens when the sunset goes down in that moment. If we wanted to stay in the picturesque moment, we should have been painted into an acrilic painting. But we would be stuck. I think that that is both what blinds us, and would harm us. It blinds us, because we think that we would rather be stuck there forever, but we would be trapped there forever. We would never change. And that is just part of life, to change and move, which is why I think that when we yearn to be back to a moment of perfection, it leads us only to fall down.

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  6. If you are a dreamer you can be as careful as you want or not and if you aren't a dreamer then you can do whatever you want honestly dreamer or not it doesn't matter if your careful or not its your perception what careful and being a dreamer is. You can never control the future or the past but you can control how you see the future and the past. Nick says you can't repeat the past I think you can do whatever you want in this life if you believe you can then you can if you believe you can't then you can't people are so wrapped up in the idea that we can control everything around us when in reality that's not possible at all but we can control how WE see the see everything around us so to me it honestly doesn't matter what you believe as long as you follow your heart and follow it with love and compassion to the reality around you then you will live a happy life no matter what living in the past or future. More people desire things they can't get because we believe that they are goals we can't reach physical, mentally, or emotionally but these are all thing we can control with our perception its all how we look at what our goals are. I think Gatsby's mentality is to fill this empty void he has with material things and he realized that those things will never fill the void in his heart and that's the sad truth that hit him he lives to complete this idea of a perfect life for him when he needs to realize any life in this world is the perfect life. As humans we are all wrapped up in the idea of my life will be better if.... fill in the blank and this may be true but honestly I believe we need to reword that statement completely like, "My life is better with..." fill in the blank of everything you have in this world and if you don't believe you have anything well your living aren't you? Life is an experience unexplainable and will forever be the mystery book only solvable by the writer. Grab a pen and paper Gatsby.

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  8. I don’t believe that you can distinguish people between whether they are a dreamer or if they aren’t a dreamer. All people are dreamers. A better separation can be those who take the initiative to seek out their dreams and those who do not. A person who seeks out their dreams cannot be careful and successful at the same time. Dreams involve the individual being portrayed as the underdog. An underdog has to have faith and gamble what they have on the line. If a dream isn’t worth a complete effort it isn’t really your dream. History does not repeat itself, although he might not agree, Gatsby is what allows me to prove this point. This has been the main focus in our Socratics in class, that Gatsby cannot attain Daisy through the means of the past. Gatsby brings Daisy to his house in order to rekindle the feelings that they once had towards one another but they don’t exactly feel the same way as they did five years previous. Jay Z quotes Mark Twain by saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” ironically on The Great Gatsby Soundtrack. As society progresses, new wars break out, new technologies emerge, trends come and go, and although the situation may seem the same, the subtle differences is what makes up the current age and distinguishes itself from the past. The simple repercussion of trying to live out the past is that one will not attain what they wish for. There is no success that can be found in the past. Do not look for your desires in the past because you won’t be able to find them. I see a misguided dreamer in Gatsby’s idealism. I think that the idealism that he strives for is incredible and worth seeking for. Gatsby wants more and more, but if you want more than what you had in the past, why would you continue to focus in the past? Future success can be found in the future. On page 110, in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby states “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before... she’ll see.” This desperation for the past will not be fulfilled but Gatsby doesn’t realize he is looking in the wrong direction. How could Gatsby find success in his life by sustaining his love for Daisy by seeking out his dream in the future?

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  10. If you are a dreamer I do not believe you have to be more careful. If you are a dreamer and you are careful it just makes it harder to accomplish your dreams. If you are extra careful then you will not have the motivation to follow your dreams. If you are a dreamer then nothing will hold you back to accomplishing these dreams. When Gatsby says “you can’t repeat the past” he is saying that the past is the past and you can't do anything to change it. What you can do though is change your future and to fix it in that way. I think that people nowadays are more apt to not get what they desire. I think this is because people are not willing to work hard enough to get what they want. And over time this has lead people to be more accepting of they will never get what they want. This is a big problem because without the dreamers and hard workers society has learned to be a little lazier and not work as hard. When it comes to Gatsby though he has a very unrealistic dreamer mentality. This is because he is trying to live in the past and fix it then.

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    1. I like what you said about the past and I agree with what you are saying about how people are not getting what they want because they are not working for it.

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  11. If you're a dreamer, I don't think you have to be careful because let's be honest, dreams are the crazy, unimaginable things that you don't think you can do! They are the things that you don't think you can do but you want to sooooo badly!! So why be careful then? If you are careful, are you truly being a dreamer?
    I agree with Nick that you can't repeat the past, that's why it's called the past! If we could replay the past and recreate some of the many memories, then we wouldn't experience anything new in our lives. So therefore, I feel like there are repercussions because like what Catherine said, if people try to recreate the past, they will end up with less than the beginning. So yes people are apt to not get what they desire because it won't work in their favor.
    What Gatsby's dreamer mentality is all he wants is to rekindle his love with Daisy. He wants their relationship to be like what they had 5 years ago and I think he just has this dream that won't come true because like what I said, you can't repeat the past. He can definitely get her back and start to think of him like that again, but it won't be the same as what it used to be.
    Is Gatsby crazy for chasing his dreams and trying to recreate the past?

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  12. Dreamers do not have to be careful, as long as they don't go to far. They need to use their judgment to decide how far they go and what they do. It is hard to repeat the past accurately. With it being a different time period and all there will be several differences that will make it hard. When Gatsby and Daisy first met they were a lot younger and most likely thought a lot differently. They weren't thinking about consequences or any thing that they should have been. Now that they are older and have better judgment they should try to go at it differently than when they were younger. I do not feel as if people don't want to get what they desire at all, but they may want to postpone when they get it. While on the road to accomplishing what they want, that person may realize he has built it up so much that it may not be as good as he thought it may be. This thought process may make people want to extend their path but they wont completely get off the path. If someone wants something and has tried hard to get it, they will want it eventually. Gatsby's dreamer mentality has been unrealistic at times. It is alright that he wants Daisy back, but he is going to extreme lengths to get her. He thinks out side the box too much. He wants to go back to the past and that cant happen. He just needs to except what life is and try to remember why he started liking her in the first place. Gatsby needs to remember that she didn't like him for his money, so he doesn't need to show it off.

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  13. You do not need to be more careful if you are a dreamer. You can do whatever you want whether your a dreamer or not. If your a dreamer you should just know what you need to do if you want that dream to become true, and you don't need to be careful while your doing that. I think you can repeat the past, but only to a certain extent, and you cant completely relive it. If you are it can be on purpose or on accident and that can be good or bad. If you are trying to repeat the past then you obviously like what happed so you are trying to get a good repercussion. If you accidently repeat the past that can be good or bad depending on what happened that you are recreating. The past will repeat it self in someway later on, even if its very little. You cant repeat it in the way that Nick meant as in you cant change what you did in the past, its the past and its over with. I feel like some people can get what they want and others cant. It all depends on how much they want it and they are willing to work for it. Gatsby's dreamer mentality is a little off because he is trying to recreate his past with daisy and he is filling any other voids with material things which is not very good.

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  14. I don't think that you need to be more careful if you are a dreamer. I think that no matter who you are or what your dreams are you need to be smart about it. It is great if someone is very determined about a goal but they cant let it take over them and morph them into something they aren't. Sometimes when people are so focused on achieving their goals, they can tend to neglect other parts of their life. I think that repeating the past is doable, however it depends on how you go about it. In Gatsby's case he is trying to recreate the love he once had. I don't think you can recreate a relationship and have things be the exact same as they were before. I definitely think that you can get back into relationships but you can't force it. Gatsby has been forcing his relationship with Daisy and that's why it isn't how it used to be. People change overtime and if you are meant to be with that person then it will naturally happen. When you force things they tend to not work out and you end up not getting what you want. You can repeat the past but it wont be the same as it used to be. Gatsby has been a dreamer his whole life. He has always spent his time trying to achieve something and become this ideal man he wants to be. The problem with his thinking is that he doesn't realize that things don't always turn out exactly how we want them to be. He expects everything to fall into place with Daisy and they will live happy and in love forever, but he never took the time to really think things through. I think Gatsby's accomplishments have been forced and he wants them so badly that when they don't go as plan he is devastated.

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  15. I believe that is some cases dreamers are the best kind of people. Dreamers truly believe in themselves and truly shoot for their dreams. Even if there dreams are not realistic, they don't care they will shoot for the moon. I believe that you cannot repeat the past, so let it change you. Whether the past changed you for better or for worse; it happened and you cant change it. You can change how you perceive things in this world. We all see the world differently and that is what makes it how it is. We all have a different dream and that is what makes us different and sets apart from one another.

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  16. I think being a dreamer has its good qualities and its bad qualities. Some good qualities are that as a dreamer you really strive to reach it and work really hard. But some downfalls are that some of the goals they are trying so hard to reach could be almost impossible to achieve. And when Nick is saying “you can’t repeat the past” its showing how people who are very determined to reach one goal that can’t be reached waist there life on trying to get it. They waste away all of their time like Gatsby did by trying to reach one goal which for Gatsby was Daisy.

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  17. The first question is a little vague honestly. But for me I dont think you have to be careful as a dreamer. Why should you, it's your dream And you can do whatever and think whatever you want to. There should be no limitations when it comes to your own personal dreams. And about repeating the past, you should absolutely not try to repeat the past. It happened for a reason and there's nothing you can do about it. There's no way to fix it, and as bad as the situation may be those are the times where you must be strong and overcome it. But also before all that negativity happens. Why does the past have to be bad in the first place? Why could you make it a good time and cherish the moment to the best of your ability. Thats the great thing about life. You make it the way you want it to be. If something doesnt go the way you want, then change it, simple as that. There will be reprecussions to everything you do in life, whether positive or negative. You cant let that effect the way act and do things. Gatsby is, to me, dreaming the wrong things. Why doesn't he dream positive things for his future with Daisy, rather than reliving the past that he went through over and over. I mean whats the point of wanting the past to be fixed when it can't. It's kind of a waste of time when he can be "dreaming" of so many better things for Gatsby.

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    1. Sheldon, I have a similar opinion and I agree with your statements. I especially appreciate the part about everything happening for a reason and also I, too, think Gatsby is partially wasting his time but to a dreamer, it doesn't seem that way. That is why everyone is so critical, not everyone is a dreamer.

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  18. Do dreamers need to be careful? No! Dreamers shoot for the stars, they go for it with all they have in them and they don't slow down for anything. Being careful doesn't make dreams come true. Although, they should be aware of the repercussions and consequences of what they are doing, being careful is not in the handbook for dreamers. Repeating the past is a big no no. It cannot be done and should not be attempted. It results in heartbreak and only the realization that it could not be achieved. I think that is the thing about dreamers, they don’t worry about the past because it only brings them down. They look ever towards the future, following their dreams. That is also what is different about Gatsby, he is stuck in it. He is so caught up in the past that he doesn’t know what’s going on in the future. He is determined to fix what happened 5 years ago instead of making up for it BY moving on. His perception of what he thinks he needs to do is evident in the scene in New York on the hot day when Gatsby and Tom start fighting about who Daisy loves and Daisy, pushed to the edge finally says, "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now – isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once – but I loved you too." This makes Gatsby stop in shock. That wasn’t his goal, that wasn’t what he wanted and so it didn’t seem like enough. Are dreamers blinded to the feelings of others involved in their dream and do they always understand the consequences?

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  19. I think being a dreamer is dangerous. You see the world how you wish it was and not how it actually is. With having dreams you are more apt to have them crushed, although its good to believe in good and have hopes, but when it comes to the "danger" of dreamers.. its different. Nightmares are also dreams. I feel for the character Gatsby, he is so hopelessly in love and had built up a whole personality of Daisy in his mind, ive noticed that tends to people when they have a special person who they may not see very often that they think of often. Wether they are thinking of them in a good or bad way, it is THEIR minds version of the person and how you THINK they would respond and react. I feel for Gatsby because his version of Daisy is all a dream.

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  20. Being a dreamer: Being a dreamer is dangerous. Being a dreamer is dangerous because you are not allowed to be careful. It’s not in the title. A dreamer has no time to be cautious, dreamers take any and every opportunity that presents itself. Dreamers will fail twice as much as anyone else. But they will also succeed twice as much. Thats what makes them dreamers. Thats why not everybody can do it. I believe the past can repeat itself. But only under extraordinarily different circumstances than previous. Similar events in history happen everyday. Humanity is a predictable subject. But not everything can be repeated no matter how hard you try. People want what they can’t have. It’s human nature. The fact that you can’t have something makes it 10x more desirable. Why do you think doing illegal things is so fun or getting that girl no one thought you’d ever get is so much sweeter. We strive to bend rules and push our limits. It’s what we do.

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  21. Idealists have this magical ability to create their perfect reality in their minds. No one can deny the fact that life is unpredictable, and no matter how hard you try to make your dreams a reality, life will occur in unpredictable ways. Gatsby is the prime example of an idealist. 5 years before the story started Gatsby and Daisy fell in love, but Gatsby had to make something of himself before he settled down. After all that time and he believes they can go back to the way they once were. Unfortunately this is impossible. People change, they lose their innocents and starts to do whats best for there wellbeing. Its possible that Gatsby and Daisy could have fallen back in love, and started a new a happy life together, but it would have been a different kind of love. There is a price to pay for this imagined reality. Like Gatsby, idealists tend to be disappointed in reality. We see this in the Great Gatsby when Daisy admits that she does love Tom. This tore Gatsby, and all his dreams for the future, apart. Everything he worked for, and dreamed of was gone.
    Knowing life will never work out the way you want is a harsh fact every idealist has to face. One just has to take a deep breath, and go on living knowing that everything will work out the way it should.
    Is life better for a realist or an idealist? Which one are you, and which one would you rather be?

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