After effects of Ayn Rand

Pic from Google images

  “The Fountainhead” was an immensely satisfying read for me. It helped me re-discover such dimensions of human actions that I was trying to get in peace with from quite sometime. The entire book revolves around numerous complex characters- Ellsworth Toohey, Peter Keating, Dominique Francon, Gail Wynand and Howard Roark and yet communicates an extremely simple thought. The plot revolves around objectivity, but here’s a small brief as to what the book has left in me.

  Ayn Rand talks about 2 kinds of people. The Creators who are defined by what they do, which further defines their motives. They stand in the center of the universe, with no selfish need but their owns. Their belief system is defined not by past learning’s, religious codes or personal prejudices but their very impersonal self. They are the egoists with the highest independence in thought. The second group of people is the ones who survive on the mercy of the others. For them, the truth is not within self but

what people profess them to be. They are the self sacrificing souls whose every move is determined by someone else’s motives, someone else’s opinions and someone else’s mime. They are the Second hander’s.

  In today’s world everything we do is nailed down by what the others want it to be. Beginning with the house we live in, the job we do, the social group which we stick with everything, EVERYTHING is outlined by the third members will. All the things around is sort of automated to us like a computer chip installed in our mind even before we were born and programmed to follow a set of instructions and operations. A good school, an even better college, a fat pay cheque, a fancy house with an ornamental wife/husband tagged with children, a car, retirement/pension plan and death!!Phew! Is there the time to think what you were born to do, what we are meant to be and what we should be as opposed to what we have become?

  Remember the time as kids where you wanted to fly up in the air just like superman, where you’d catch

the flying butterflies to examine its segments , where you wished to paint the city hall , cycling around

the street , taught invisible children in your room ,molded clay from flower pots? Remember the time

where we wanted to grow up to be astronauts, teachers, cyclists, wrestlers, painters etc .Then why did

we end up following the herd pursuing engineering ,medicine or what everyone approved of, of what

everyone was doing anyway? Most stupidly why did we end up being the in-betweenists?

  Ayn Rand in the early 1940’s spoke of the Second-handers and they darn well exist even today. We just

keep giving in, compromising, bargaining our belief system and values on the name of something as

trivial as religion, peer code or unabashed collectivism. We’ve always done that and are continuing to do

so when at the end of the day its just yourself and what I’d like to call the “truth bracket” inside of you

that determines what’s right and wrong. And when you let yourself do that you’re not just demanding

happiness but euphoria.

  So, the choice is entirely yours - to live a second-hander or emerge to be a creator.

PS: Amongst much great learning from the book this one hit me the hardest.