So we beat on boats against the current borne back ceaselessly into the past. meaning

Its the first one

No matter how hard we try, we can never escape our pasts.

The sentence explains a time of struggling when we get nothing at the end and are brought back to our past or near past. Like a boat which is continuously rowed but is found at the same place at the end of the day.

Explanation:

This refers to the dualities of Gatsby and America. Nick is saying he will get into Gatsby's boat, the one that only sailed backwards on the sea of history--into the past to recapture his childhood dreams.

This book was written in 1922 and accordingly it was a time of struggling. In the boat rowing a continuous struggle is required to move it forward, likewise a continuous struggle was required in 1922 to improve the country's situation. But everything seemed useless as the struggle took them to their past to a place from where they had begun.