What “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back…” means
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
— Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby · F. Scott Fitzgerald
The novel's final line makes Gatsby's longing universal: we all row toward a future we believe in while the current of the past drags us back. It is the American Dream in one image — striving forward, endlessly, toward a green light we can never reach.