Party people and poets

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“This moment is all there is”

—Rumi



    In the 12th century Seljuk Sultanate (now modern-day Turkey), the ancient poet Rumi was living and speaking in a world very different from ours, yet his words still echo in today’s society. His poetry, rooted in Islamic mysticism (Sufism), focuses on many themes such as love, truth, and the importance of living. One of his main talking points was on the dangers of illusion. The quote above, “this moment is all there is,” is symbolic; it shows how chasing the past or future creates illusions that distract (or trap) us from real love in the present.

    warns against the trap of chasing illusions — those idealized versions of love or life that exist only in memory or fantasy — because they pull us away from what’s real and already within reach. He spoke on this matter thousands of years ago, but this ties in with the actions of Gatsby in the 1920s. For a majority of the book, he spends his time creating his own persona, an illusion, to entice Daisy. The symbolic representation of this is within his own home, in which an entire mansion is decorated novelly, except for his own bedroom, which remains more standard and basic-looking. The undecorated bedroom shows the part of Gatsby untouched by illusion.

    Rumi’s warning about illusion connects directly to Gatsby’s ‘downfall.’ They both chase love (and themselves) not as it is, but as they imagine — an illusion of what it should be. By trying to recreate a perfect past, Gatsby loses sight of the present, proving Rumi’s point that real love can’t survive in a fantasy and an illusion.









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