Are we Jay Gatsby? Not the way we talk, not the way we walk,  we’re Gatsby not in words, or the moments, but in wanting and seeking someone or something across the water and knowing it was never really ours, but still letting it shape us anyway, and that’s enough. Some things aren’t meant to be held, only understood and carried forward without turning back.

Perhaps that someone or something was never meant to be the ending. Perhaps that someone or something was the direction, the reason the want existed at all, the reason you realized there was more out there than what you had. Even if you never reached that someone or something, it showed you the shape of what you were reaching for and that moment stays with you longer than any moment ever could. 

Nowadays, we could be Jay Gatsby. Without the money and parties but the fact we post for someone even if we don’t realize it. There is one person you post for and hope they see it, hope they think about you.

Often what appears to be public expression is in reality deeply private in intention. A post may be visible to hundreds yet it is crafted with one specific person in mind.  The image, the caption, the song choice. All of it can function as a quiet signal. 

Outwardly, it seems casual or spontaneous. Internally, however, it carries deliberation. The audience may be broad but the desired observer is singular.

This action closely mirrors Gatsby’s parties in The Great Gatsby.  The scale was extravagant, with orchestras, flowing champagne, and endless guests, but the purpose was focused; Gatsby did not build spectacle for society at large, he constructed it in the hope that Daisy would attend.  The purpose was not about popularity or status alone. It was a carefully curated display designed to be seen by one person whose recognition mattered more than the approval of the crowd. 

In your life, the public settings disguise a private longing.  Social media posts, like Gatsby’s gatherings, can serve as modern signals, distant gestures meant to demonstrate growth, success, or emotional depth without direct confrontation. They allow vulnerability to exist indirectly. Rather than speaking plainly, the creator creates an environment in which they hope to be noticed. 

Ultimately, the act is less about attention and more about acknowledgment. Gatsby did not need the admiration of strangers, he needed Daisy to walk through the door. Similarly, a post may accumulate views and engagement, but its true significance often rests in whether one particular person sees it and understands

It is in the reaching that we become who we are, not in the having, not in the grasping, but in the quiet longing in the way the mind traces the outlines of what it cannot touch, in the way every choice and every glance is measured against that invisible pull, the heart beats differently when it knows something is always just out of reach, and that pulse is both beautiful and cruel.

And maybe that is the point to keep reaching, not because it will ever be yours, but because it teaches you what it means to want what you can barely touch, because it shapes the way you see the world, the way you measure every other moment against the pull of that light. And even if you never cross the water, you carry it inside you, a quiet fire, a reminder of who you are and what you are capable of wanting and feeling, and one day you realize the reach becomes part of you, not a failure not a loss, but a direction, a map, a reason to keep moving forward. Maybe that is enough. Maybe some stars were never meant to shine.

And still, sometimes when the world is quiet, you feel it in the weight of that longing, the way it teaches you patience and persistence, the way it leaves a mark like a shadow on your ribs or a light on the horizon that never fades entirely, and you remember that everything you wanted, everything you chased, even from afar, has left you a little larger, a little wiser, and that is the only proof that the wanting was never wasted.

But this was never about Gatsby…

Not every lion that chased a deer caught it, but every lion that caught a deer chased it.