More More More

Getting is better than keeping. It's plain and simple. I agree with it wholeheartedly. Getting rich is invariably more exciting than keeping riches. When you begin to get rich, you have that unshakeable hope of potential. You have all of the potential. How rich will you get? How will you get it? When will you get it? What will you do with it? When do you start--no, when do you stop?
See, that's the thing. You don't stop. No one ever says, "Well, gosh darn it. I'm a millionaire already? Sweet, I'm done now." In fact, getting is so much better than keeping, that no one ever wants to stop getting. We live in a very more more more society. Even the Victoria Secret advertisement is literally, "More More More Bling." You can never get enough. You can never keep enough so, by default, you always have to get more. And what's more fun than that?
On the one hand, getting is very destructive, maybe right up there with keeping. When Walter's mother gives him the 6,500 dollars to put some in the bank for his sister and some for him to do with what he will, he uses it all to do with what he will. He takes more more more. He destroyed his sister's dream and also his own, because he wanted to get more. Also, on the other one hand, keeping is volatile as well. In The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, the need to keep their wealth a secret--to keep their way of life--the entire family literally became serial killers. Even if only the father and the slaves did the killing and kidnapping, the daughters invited people and the son didn't stop it. Guilty by association.
So now you know getting is dangerous; it's addictive because potential is addictive, but keeping turns people into murderers (pretty much 99% of the time). But away from all the heinous talk, people will always want more, so they'll always be getting or trying to get. People will always want to keep what they have so they'll always be keeping. Nonetheless, getting is infinitely better than keeping. If you don't agree with me, would you rather get more food or just keep what you have? Don't be modest, we all want more. It's only natural. So in this way, I completely agree with How It Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston. The African-Americans/Negroes/Blacks/whatever is politcally correct had it better than white people. They were given an opportunity to go crazy with "gettingness" while the white people had to maintain their way of life in all of their "keepingness."

I'm Not a Robot

Before we get started, I'd like to write a letter to Google.
     Dear Google,
        It has come to my attention that every time I comment, I must enter in a code that proves I am not a robot. Well, if you read through my thoughtfully constructed and deep comment, you would see that no robot would be capable of such fine craftsmanship! But alas, you cannot comprehend the deeper meaning of my words because, yes, you, are a robot, Google. Because you, Google, will not be able to decipher the meaning of this message unless I literally state it: I am not a robot. Please stop asking me to prove myself.

Now that we got that out of the way, I guess it's true, as most of you have probably guessed by now, I am not a robot. In fact, without actually looking it up, I'd say 99.6% of people aren't robots. But just because they aren't atomically robotic, doesn't mean they don't share some of the traits.
From the three pieces from F. Scott Fitzgerald that I've read, I've noticed a common theme is how people with wealth are often extremely  disillusioned from reality. Robots are also often disillusioned from reality. Coincidence? I think not. Daisy and Tom couldn't see how many lives they were destroying as something of consequence. Gatsby didn't understand just how volatile his relationship with Daisy was. Kismine pretty much single handedly condemned John and her sister to a life of poverty because she couldn't understand the direness of the situation. Judy Jones treated men as if they were objects and not people. They couldn't understand how the world worked apart from their 0.4% (the robots). Wealth enabled them to be surrounded my material things which enabled them to enjoy those things and when they got bored, they moved on to the next one or sacrificed their friends, etc. In their world, everything is made to bring them pleasure, even if that's not how the real world works. In a robot's world, they don't even understand how the real world works...so...basically the same thing (I'm allowed to make a stretch or two).
I'm going to finish with an anecdote.
Last (Friday) night, (no Katy Perry reference intended) I went to my friend's house. This particular friend's family is well off. They have a nice house and nice cars and nice things in general. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with that, and I'm not faulting them for being in a position to buy nice things, but I did get to see firsthand what that does to the children. We went Christmas shopping. At one of the stores, a single (fake) leather belt with studs was 35$. My friend said, "Oh wow, that's so inexpensive!" She was genuine about it too. Later that evening, her younger sister got a few things from Pink. She got a sweatshirt for about 45$. I know, because I checked the price. They, however, did not. They spent the rest of the evening splurging, prices didn't seem to matter. They talked about benefits and business meeting and country clubs and cars and countries. This is their reality. They flipped through the T.V. channels, barely even seeing one; they moved from one pasttime to another; they changed and bought many clothes that were virtually the same; they went shopping just to get something new and when they were bored they watched a movie, then texted, then Instagram, then Vine, then something or another thing or anything to bring them instant gratification. And when they had exhausted themselves, they slept, probably experiencing fitful dreams of unhappiness because they couldn't just switch around. Or maybe not. I'm just saying, these girls are young, and they're already more restless than most people I know. Everything they've grown up with has been provided to make them happy, but everyone always has something better, so they never are happy.
If possible to stick to Fitzgerald's viewpoint anymore too, they were all really bad drivers.