BOOKS

Well, I’ve done it.
I’ve finished Atlas Shrugged.
And I’ve never felt so proud of finishing a book in my life.
it took me 8 days, at about 135 pages a day to finish all 1069 pages, but i’ve done it.
and let me tell you, it is worth whatever time you have and care to spend on reading it.

I have heard this book called Ayn Rand’s Masterpiece, and it is.
While reading it, you can feel the driving energy that Ayn Rand poured into this novel, the energy that can only come from the conviction that you are right, and what you are doing is what you know you should be doing.
Despite the length, you know that it could be no shorter, that shortening it would just cheapen the years and years that Rand spent on perfecting this work.
Every page, every word, exists because it should exist and has a right to be on that page, in this book.

Sorry if this all sounds crazy and preachy.
I suppose it is.
After reading nothing but Ayn Rand for over a week, my mind kind of channels my thoughts into words like Ayn Rand would use. That happens with a lot of books, I suddenly develop that author’s certain style of writing, ironic wittiness or heavy wordiness, or however they happen to write.
i’m sort of a literary leech, if you will.

anyway.

i was asked a very interesting question today by my mom.
she asked me if the topics in Atlas Shrugged were still relevant to todays world.
and i immediately told her they were, because, quite obviously, they are.
but then she asked what time period the book took place in….and i couldn’t answer her.

is it possible that Atlas Shrugged takes place in every time that can and will exist or has existed?
the basic premise of the book is that man must learn to love his mind, and put the value of his own life ahead of the value of others. Man should learn to love himself before he can ever try to claim to love others and expect love in return. Man cannot expect something for nothing, nor can he expect nothing for something.
is that something that is limited to an age of industrialism, or can that exist at any time or place?

the theory of objectivism is limited to no age, no time period what so ever.
but it cannot work properly unless it is understood properly.

that is what i’ve gotten out of Atlas Shrugged.
That and a basic understanding of Objectivism.

while i was reading the book, i was almost completely certain of the fact that i was finally ready to renounce my former religion, take up objectivism, and preach it proudly.
but then i got to one line.
in one part of the book, when the lead female character, Dagny Taggart, is in the industrial version of paradise, she meets a mother with two small boys. The mother says that it is impossible to raise children properly in the outside world because in the outside world, you are expected to lie to them.

at first i agreed whole-heartedly and fully with that statement.
children should not be lied to, decieved, or toyed with.
i agree with that.
but then i realized that Ayn Rand probably included the lie of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and all the others in that “Children should not be lied to” business.

i know it sounds foolish, but Santa Claus was the highlight of my childhood.
and finding out that he was not real was not depressing or saddening in any way.
i felt like for the first time, i had outsmarted my parents.
i found out about santa claus for myself, and it felt like a huge mental achievement for me.
i used logic, and i used it properly, which was astonishing to me at the age of 10.

and if objectivism requires that i do not provide my children with that opportunity….i don’t know if i want it anymore.
i agree with so many of the ideas…except that one.

i also do not agree with the fact that there is no “greater being”.
i know that objectivists believe that Man, humanity, human beings, are to be exalted far greater than any “higher power” which may or may not exist, because man has the power to do things to better himself and thereby the world, whereas a “higher power” does not, and cannot, because whatever “higher power” exists has always worked through human beings.
i understand that, and i accept it.
however, i do not believe that everyone has complete control over his or her own fate, because i think it would be impossible that all of our fates would work together in such an intricate pattern as they do if it was by everyone’s own free will.
i think that while yes, we have our own free will….or we think we do.
but i think that some force beyond our power is motivating us so that our futures and pasts and presents work together and compliment each other.
if they didn’t work together….wouldn’t we all just crash and burn? wouldn’t we all run into someone elses path and be crushed by their momentum, or crush them with ours?
or perhaps this wouldn’t happen in a world where men believe in themselves.
i don’t think that a “god” necessarily exists, i just think that the energy of men and the energy of our thoughts creates the course that everyone is to follow so that they all work together.
….although, if this happens truely through the energy of men and their thoughts, then wouldn’t that fit in with the theory of Objectivism?

i’m really still entirely baffled by half of this.
i know how it works, and the basic ideas of it.
and i agree.
but….i’m not entirely sure of how right it is to follow it.
it feels right, i know it…but i’m still stuck in the morality of society, all of that “love thy neighbor” crap.
i’m also afraid because i know that i’m just like the second handers and the looters that Ayn Rand advocates against, especially with how they all use their victims own guilt and virtue against them.
i do that. and have done that. and now i need to learn to live with it.

I think the reason why i liked Atlas Shrugged so much is because its helping me to figure out “morals”, more than anything else ever has.
i know the basics of right from wrong, don’t murder or steal and all that, but i never understood the finer details.
i’ve been raised, by no fault of my parents, to think that egotism and sex and want of money are all bad things, but now i’m starting to realize that theres nothing wrong with liking yourself. and that liking yourself, and enjoying sex, and earning that money that you want, are the only real forms of goodness out there.
and i think, if by some fluke of thought, there IS an afterlife, and there IS a god, then I think that people who love themselves will be accepted into heaven, because I find it hard to believe that if a God does exist, that being would be so evil as to forbid people to enter it’s paradise solely based on the fact that they loved themselves more than the snivling creatures who leech onto their light and glory.

i don’t know.
i think my mind is stuck in sunday school, while its reaching out to embrace Objectivism.

ANYWAY. back to the book.
the only complaint i have against it is that, for 50 pages, Rand did nothing but explain objectivism over and over, using a speech by John Galt as her vehicle.
i understand that this entire book was her vehicle to get objectivism into the public eye, and it worked. her theory of how man should live is easily understood using nothing but the plot as your guide to how Objectivism works.
therefore, the 50 pages is merely her own excitement playing itself out in what i like to call word-vomit.
where you finally understand something, and you want other people to share your understanding as fully as possible, so you just keep explaining and talking, over and over, so there is no possibility of misunderstanding.
i’ve been there. it happens.
and while the 50 page speech is beautifully written….it was long.
and extremely hard to read.
that speech is the only part where i felt that some words were there not for the sole purpose of the book needing them there, but were there instead because Ayn Rand could not reign in her excitement.
which is understandable. and happens.
but is still very long.

other then that, the book should be read by everyone possible, and explained to those who don’t think they can understand it.
i feel that if more people read and understood Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead, perhaps less teenage girls would decide to stop eating so they could look like the models on TV. and perhaps kids will no longer strive to hide their mind, but will instead thrust it out there for others to see its extent and glory.
and maybe men and women would be happier and self-sufficient.

in a perfect world, right?

i could talk about this book forever and ever, about the purpose of each character as I see it, and all these different plot points….but this entry is already over 1.5 thousand words, and should be cut short.
perhaps i will return to this another day. i probably will, no doubt.

but for now, all i want is that those of you who haven’t heard of Ayn Rand, and are avid readers and believe in your own mental capacity to understand books….read her works.
particularly the Fountainhead (which is shorter, but still as fantastic, if not more so, than atlas shrugged) and of course, Atlas Shrugged.

if you agree with anything you’ve read in this entry, you will agree with a lot of Rand’s teachings.

and now i’m going to stop, before this turns into a 50 page long speech about the same thing over and over.
i think you understand what i mean by now.