I found it!

Remember back in January when I posted about my friends favorite books? Well after 20 years of reading, I've finally found mine. Its one of those books that seemed daunting at first and that my mother has been pushing me and my brother to read for years. She believed that I would enjoy it. That I would relate. That she was a Dagny, and I a Hank Rearden, and that through it I would learn something not only about myself but about some fundamental things I believe. Well, she was right.

Atlas Shrugged. In its 1169 page glory. The story of the doers, the thinkers, those who move the world, and what happens when they quit working. Or working for those who don't work for themselves. It's much more than that, but that's the shortest summary I can give. I suggest you pick it up yourself and see what you think. I know that there are many people in the world who wouldn't understand, who wouldn't feel as strongly, or who would just think its folly, but I believe the message.

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

My life is mine to life. My life is one that I WANT to live. Through reading this I learned some fundamental truths about myself. That I do see the world in absolutes. That the ability to think, to discover, to see what is good and what is evil in the world, and to try to side myself with that which IS good, is the most important thing a person can do. What they do to benefit others, should be a mutual benefit. Giving unconditionally doesn't work. You can't LIVE that way. It sucks the life and the soul out of you. And to be frank, I've grown tired of always being the one to give. I spend so much time and energy to others, with little or no return. There are those who I would be happy to help, to work with, to support, but with the return they already give to me: support, friendship, love. 

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours."

I've alway felt that this world is not the one I want to live in. That something is not right. That people are not who they should be. What Rand point out is that its impotence, altruism, mindlessness that is the evil in the world. The indifference. The non-think. That we who want to be the world to be better than it is, must not reward any of those traits. That when we see them, we should reject them. And if the world chooses to follow that path, then we must be those who remove ourselves. It's objectivism. Its thought. It makes sense. Why should we want to live with people who want to mooch off of all that is good and true and right in the world. That there is a RIGHT and a WRONG. And if you find yourself in that middle, that gray space inbetween, then check your premises. Something you see is wrong.

It's taken me two and a half months to finish, but I have. And it was worth every second I spent reading.  I found my favorite book. I learned. I expanded. And I love it.

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?

To shrug.”