Well honestly I have never been a very rational person. Being a cusp of Libra and Scorpio, half of my personality traits are very Libran. Yes I am a complete romantic and as gullible as a true Libran can be. So that explains why I fell for her ideas in the first place. Plus I guess you don't necessarily need to have these traits if you're in your teens and reading her books. Back then I had the best or rather worst of both worlds :P
Anyways, reading this biography made me see what most of us miss when we are introduced to her ideas. No one knew the reality of that woman. And her perfect world existed only in those sagas she wrote - which were mostly only in accordance to things she wanted in her life. As powerfully eloquent as she was, she made each of her desires look perfectly rational and mostly even moral.
But this post isn't about the book. As I sat reminiscing the (unquestioning) old Ayn Rand years, some silly thoughts started popping in my head. (Basically my brain finally started questioning her ideas! Well better late than never!) One of the things that she has said is that "a man should have the freedom to choose or to not choose". Meaning, why choose from things available to you. True freedom would mean rejecting everything if you don't like any of your choices.
At first it seemed like a very powerful idea. But as I pondered over it a little more, hundreds of (mostly funny) questions started popping in my head. Is man really designed to be as free as he wants to be?
For eg. Do I have the freedom to not live today?
Consider that you are having a bad day. Can you choose to shorten it by any chance? Like may be put away some hours to add on a good day and not go through the rest of the hours simply because you don't feel its worth it?
You might say it is avoiding a certain situation. Where does the question of choice come from? But if I really had any freedom, I wouldn't have lived any minute when I wasn't truly happy.
But nature designed our lives in a way that we go through all kinds of experiences. And every minute I really am making a choice from the available choices. Even if I decided to not choose anything and go on a strike - Like how Ayn puts it - It would still be a choice from my available choices of doing something or nothing at all, but living every hour that I am destined to go through!! Inne?
I am very sure if the great lady heard it, she would have a convincing enough answer for me...But sometimes I really wish I could save as many hours as I could for my best days :)
I know some of you will be tempted to tell me that I can make the choice to make sure that I live each day to the fullest n blah blah...but c'mon...don't we all have bad days? And let's just admit it...on those days none of us have a clue about what to do. Those are the days when our wisdom chooses to not exist! :D
Well I wish I had as much freedom as my wisdom has :P
6 comments:
Yes. A very interesting observation. Her ideas seemed all radical, when I read those two books(long time back). I remember something which is at the beginning of the book which goes something like this that readers may believe that the things which I have written and the characters which are present in there are just a piece of fiction which do not exist in the real world. But the fact that the book has been written and published shows that these characters exits in real life.
For us, mere mortals, We can choose to take which we can from her philosophy. But some of the things, e.g an uncompromising devotion to your art and creativity, your happiness and giving a damn of what others think of you is worth emulating. But difficult :)
Love its line 'But, I dont think of you!' Got it?
Kunal
@Kunal, I think what you mentioned is what got all of us hooked in the first place. All of us wanted to say "Damn you" world, I will not listen to you.
And such an attitude does work for a lot of people.
Personally I have grown up to believe that every person creates what he does under the influence of his/hers life experiences and is not entitled in anyway to damn the world. The world is the source of all ideas.
Believing in oneself is one thing. Rejecting the rest of the world as not good enough is another!
Having said that, there still are lines from the two books that are my favorites too :)
I admire what you have done here. I love the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the comments that is working for you as well. Do you have any more info on this?
"But nature designed our lives in a way that we go through all kinds of experiences."
No one really designed anything. Randomness rules and entropy increases - that's the only truth.
Read this link, of you got time
http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-i-love-ayn-rand.html
:)
Well one interesting things is..
You either agree with her or disagree I don't there is any grey area :)
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