The Great Gatsby sighs in the Sistine Chapel

Originally published on The Writing Catalogue → Subscribe?? for the emails.

Imagine this.?You are an explorer of old, nonfunctional mines. You are lowering yourself into this abandoned mineshaft for some reason. Everything about the place screams?ancient?and?rickety. The silence creeps in on you. You feel utterly alone. Then you spot a scribble on the wall. “ROY,” it reads, in faded chalk.?

“Roy,” you wonder, “Roy was here before me. I am not alone!”?

You continue your journey. You reach the bottom. You find what you were looking for (or you don’t). You leave.?

The existence of a miner named Roy gives you peace and company to carry on with your journey.?

In real life, ROY stands for?Rely-on-Yourself. Miners are known to scribble it in unsafe mines. It is a warning of sorts. It implies, “Beyond this point, things are unsafe and it is difficult to get help… so you are on your own.”?

Everything in existence has contextual meaning. Forget the right and the wrong for a moment. Most of us go through life like our imagined explorer,?relying on what we know rather than what we need to know.?

Let’s make it literary.?

Before Zelda, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby used to date a young socialite named Ginevra King. His published journals show us his musings about the heiress. We also know the chronology of his work and life.?

June 1915:?Nobody home and midnight frolic with Ginevra.

August 1916:?Lake Forest … Petting party. Ginevra.

January 1917:?Final break with Ginevra

June 1917:?Ginevra engaged?

15 July 1918: Ginevra wrote to Fitzgerald, informing him of her arranged engagement to William “Bill” Mitchell, the son of her father’s business associate.

14 September 1918:?This union of two prominent Chicago families produced an unhappy yet wealthy couple and three children (in the future) named William, Charles, and Ginevra.

1920:?Fitzgerald married Zelda. Their romance, as we know, was tumultuous.

1922:?The Great Gatsby takes form as Fitzgerald began writing his magnum opus, which sadly became popular after his death.

Fitz allegedly loved Ginevra and she allegedly loved him. But he was a struggling artist in a world focused on rewarding businessmen. The letter from Ginevra had this to say:?

“To say I am/ the happiest girl on earth would be expressing it mildly, and I wish you knew Bill so that you could know how very lucky I am.”?

The letter also contained a short story of sorts –?a woman trapped in a loveless marriage to a wealthy man while pining for her former, beggarly lover.?

Sounds familiar? I know it does.?

Let’s make it artistic.

Michelangelo is one of the most revered artists in the world. You’d expect him to have ten pompous heads courtesy of well-earned pride and praise. Instead, he desolately wrote to Giovanni Da Pistoia about how his work, the Painting of the Vault of the Sistine Chapel, was mediocre.

Because I’m stuck like this, my thoughts are crazy,?

perfidious tripe: anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.?

My painting is dead.

Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honour.?

I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

Source: They Can’t Take That Away from Me

Michelangelo penned a poem about the painting disqualifying his legacy as a painter. He penned a poem self-criticising one of the greatest works of art without any comparisons.?

The creative instinct within him was probably challenged??

Some snotty patron said something??

We don’t know.

Everything has context. Roy, Gatsby, Michelangelo, that pesky writer’s block, your circumstances – there is context. Did you look for it??Do you look for it?

It is you who has to look for it; rely-on-yourself as a miner would say.?

Happy thinking, and then, happy writing!

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