A Blog by Ben Vizy

“...

Since the fall, interest in the Jungle Club had died down significantly.  Members of the group had gone to Daskus’ office hours, and though anger burned hot in their hearts when they entered, many walked away at least empathizing with her point of view.  This did not bode well for Todd’s group, the sole purpose of which was to demonize the University’s point of view in the hopes of causing a large enough stink that the Jungle be left alone.

With the Jungle club dissolving, Todd had to look for alternative avenues to let out his rage against the powers that be.  It was a Godsend when, around November, a new group began to grow south of the Jungle:  “New Idahoans Against New Slavery”.  This group campaigned for workers’ rights in the same vein as many similar groups that bemoaned the wealth gap in America.  In New Idaho, however, this problem was exacerbated through the federally recognized “Guaranteed Basic Income” program, which was basically an excuse for capitalists to pay workers far less than livable wages.

As Todd had learned in his latest years, all injustice is connected.  The exploitation of the working class was at the heart of capitalism, and most other pursuits in this country were in service of the same immoral system.  The Jungle, for instance, was being studied by Daskus so she could learn more about what the plants growing there could offer the world.  Instead of just being content with what humans were already lucky enough to have, Daskus followed the greedy capitalist credo that stated to succeed as humans, you must continue to make new discoveries and inventions to capitalize upon.  Who cares about the state of the only rainforest in America when you could trade it for prestige and money for your University?

“...

‘So what’s the plan for tonight?’

‘Well,’ Carlton said, ‘I figured it’s our last night on campus.  So why don’t we show off some Okapi Pride?’  He pulled his hand from his pocket and opened it, brandishing five pieces of what appeared to be blue and yellow candy.  They were rectangular prisms, each about an inch long and a centimeter across.  The outer coating was a cerulean blue, the inside a bright yellow.  Snow had a feeling that Carlton wouldn’t have brought them all together in a room to try a piece of candy.  In that case, he surmised, he must be in a situation with his peers that he had been warned about since middle school:  The Offering of Drugs.

Snow’s dreams were often fantastical, taking place in strange and exotic locations with unusual characters and situations.  This dream, however, took place in New Idaho, in the world he was used to.  The characters were all either people he knew or loosely based on people he knew.  Perhaps it was because of this familiar setting that the deviation from reality was so radically disturbing.

In this dream, everyone had Lucidity—or, at least, they all had circular patches on the sides of their heads.  Nobody ever mentioned the patch, or what they were using it for, and as the dream went on, the patches began to grow to various sizes.  Though each patch appeared to grow at different rates, it wasn’t long before everyone’s was at least the size of a baseball’s diameter.  At this point, Snow became aware that the patches no longer had the black center that his Lucidity had.  Instead, the center of the patches appeared to be a window into another setting.  Sometimes he could see through the patch to a mountain range, sometimes to a city-scape, sometimes to grassy plains.  It was as if the patches were a wormhole each citizen wore on the side of their head.

Snow never saw anything go through these wormholes.  He didn’t know if it was even possible.  As the dream proceeded, however, it was evident that something was coming out.  He didn’t know exactly what it was, but it appeared to be a gaseous material, almost like the smoke rolling off incense, but less dense.  The smoke was all different colors of the rainbow, its transparency at about 50% opacity.  As the holes in the sides of his peers’ heads grew, and more of the smoke-like material seeped out, their mannerisms became increasingly more unnerving.  Each of them had wide-open eyes and broad smiles on their faces.  They spoke with a politeness, but it seemed to be a false politeness, as though they were aliens attempting to act out social mores they had observed in the human race.

Toward the end of the dream, Snow realized that he hadn’t seen the side of his own head.  He didn’t know if he was even wearing Lucidity, and if he was, whether it was leaking the same material that he saw coming from everybody else’s.  Just as he reached his hand to touch the side of his head, however, he experienced an intense burst of anxiety and woke up.  Even after repeated viewings of his dream, he could not find any hint of what was going on on the side of his own head.

It was about to be a weekend to remember, there was no doubt.  Snow always loved these sorts of trips, as long as they had a certain level of comfort and adventure.  He had attended a couple camps over his high school years, and even though they were all located in New Idaho, living away from home for a couple days always made it feel like he was farther away than he really was.  He expected this visit to the University of New Idaho to be quite similar.

Earlier that day, after school had ended, Snow had gotten on a bus with 9 of his other classmates—Ricky 2 Miller, Jake “Pretzel” Mendez, Simon Simmons, Marshall Tomlinson, Carlton Buristo, Cyanica Latiff, Camille Thomas, Natalie Hefcorn, and Lucilia Trebello—and had been transported off to the University.

The first thing they did after coming to the University was stow their bags away in dorm rooms.  There was a wing in the new dorms that was not to be inhabited full-time until the following academic year, so they got to populate their own little area of campus.  Snow would be rooming with his neighbor, Ricky 2, as per request.

After briefly settling in the dorms, the group of them had headed out from the bottom of their building and across a small courtyard to one of the dining courts, where they had eaten a gigantic buffet-style dinner, the only other diners a handful of college kids that had come back to school early from their winter break (second semester for UNI started up this Monday).  Despite the consistency with which each of the visitors had eaten throughout their lives, not one of them was unimpressed by the vast options available at the dining hall.  Pretzel Mendez alone had gone back for more than six plates of dinner and two of dessert.  Even Natalie Hefcorn had broken with the generally serious and detached demeanor that Snow had always known her for to gawk at the generous amount of food on display.

Now, after eating, the group of Sky High students lolled about in semi-delirious carb-comas in a small meeting room on the bottom floor of their dorm building as they waited for the president of the college to finally come give them the weekend’s orientation.

“...

Amidst all the press given to New Idaho as the “City of the Century”, people often forgot to give credit to the burgeoning tech industry in Omaha, Nebraska.

Though some place the beginning of its growth period as early as the 2010s, Omaha seriously took off toward the tail end of the ‘20s.  Young adults living there often said the city was ripe for immigration, if only the rest of the state would “get with the times”.  In 2026, the state, evidently, did get with the times, becoming the 38th state to legalize marijuana and providing no excuse for millennials and Gen Zers not to move to the growing city in America’s heartland.

As with the most of the other major cities in the country at this time, most of Omaha’s wealth came from it’s growing tech industry, specifically in areas of Virtual Reality.  Among some other relatively successful, though less interesting, B2B Virtual Applications, Omaha finally found it’s Lex Lucid in Eric Phillips, the CEO and Founder of Imaginary Friend, a 2028 start-up that continued to grow into a multi-national corporation and one of the most-downloaded apps on the Virtual Market.

As a 2028 company, Imaginary Friend started as a little AI experiment, attempting to add a visual element to the AI chat-bots that had populated livestreams and group messaging apps throughout the 2010s.  The first iteration of the app included a few pop-culture characters that partner organizations agreed to develop with the start-up, in addition to a crude (compared to modern-day) avatar generator.  The characters/avatars moved realistically in the virtual world and learn to converse with you as you put more time into the app.

...”

Ricky 2 was ready to geek over his new toy even longer, but was interrupted by an announcement over the PA system:  ‘Would the following students please come to the office:’.  The voice unmistakably belonged to the principle, Gordon Thistlewit.  Along with his husband, Vice Principal Maximillian Thistlewit, Gordon was most directly responsible for the success and continued prestige of Sky High.  

As soon as Ricky 2's name was called, he experienced a quick reactive sinking feeling in his gut before he realized that (A) Gordon was the Thistlewit who generally dealt in good news and (B) Snow had been called as well.

Snow and Ricky 2 said goodbye to Adam and headed outside to go to the slightly curved building west of the Central Circle.  In addition to more classrooms, this building housed the offices of the principle and vice principle.  The building’s symmetrical counterpoint, on the eastern side of the central circle, housed the gymnasium, theatre, and band facilities.

As the ‘20s approached, however, the fall of the social media giants appeared imminent to those who kept their eyes open.  The influx of participants from the older generation on these applications signified the beginning of the decline.  What once appealed to the younger generations was adopted by their grandparents, seriously cutting down the cool factor of the software.  Though this trend was noticeable far earlier, the median age range of each company had grown to 46-52 by 2025 (Skaroff 2034).

In addition to the influx of older generations, privacy scandals started to plague the giants from the 2010s well into the ‘20s.  What started as companies selling user information for ad revenue evolved into much more suspect behavior, with rumors accusing the companies of everything from colluding to form a national registry to selling information to hackers under the table.

Regardless of who the information was sold to, the increasingly sophisticated methods each company used to pry into their users’ lives made their followers increasingly uncomfortable.  The result for social media companies was an immediate drop in reputation and a steady decline in market share as long-time users looked for more trustworthy alternative social media outlets.

The setting of Ricky 2’s selected dream was in the middle of a snowy expanse.  You could see for miles in any direction.  There were scattered trees in the environment, and Ricky 2 seemed to be standing on a road.  Suddenly, a booming voice came from an unspecified location:  ‘It’s time for the winter Battle Royale—Are you ready?’  The Dream Ricky 2 then removed a baseball bat with nails, apparently out of thin air, lifted it to the sky, and let out a blood-thirsty scream.

Back in real life, Sera started to giggle, and Ricky looked at his son with a smile.

‘What?’  Ricky asked them.

‘I don’t know, son.  I guess I’m just expecting you to rip your shirt off here, or something.’

Ricky 2 ignored him and looked back at the dream.  As he turned around, enemies began to appear from all over.  Some of them just happened to be in the area.  Others rose out of the ground.  Dream Ricky 2 wasted no time in running toward them and brutally mauling them with his weapon.  The bloodshed and the reactions of the crowd were both gratuitous and disturbingly vivid.

‘Jesus Christ, Ricky 2,’ Ricky said in real life.  ‘Is this really what you dream about?’

‘What?’ said Ricky 2.  ‘It’s like an action movie.  You’re telling me you don’t have dreams like this?  Get out of here.’

The dream went on for another ten minutes or so.  After the ‘action,’ bodies were strewn all over the snow.  Ricky turned away from the road he was on, and the snow in front of him began to bulge up into a mound about four times his size.  On the front of the mound, two large, cartoon eyes peeped underneath the bottom layer of snow like it was a curtain.  Two large, cartoon hands emerged from the ground on either side of it.  Whatever this creature was had no mouth, but its eyes were certainly smiling.

As it held its hands palms up, two beautiful busty women fell into his palms one by one, both completely naked.  It was at this point that Ricky made the executive decision to turn the dream off.

...”

“...

'That's good.'  Darren leaned back on the couch and shut his eyes for a moment.  'It is a bit anxiety-inducing, isn't it?'

'Mm.'

'I mean, we don't really know what's going to happen.'

'It kind of reminds me of the first time you smoke pot, or something like that.'

'It's like we're about to drink some Electric Kool-Aid.  Will we see pink elephants?  Who knows.'

'You know, that sort of does scare me.'

'What does?'

'You know, like--are we going to do something irreversible?  It's like those rumors we used to hear about taking acid--how it might get stuck in the brain stem, and you start tripping forever.'

'Well, yes, Emilie, but this isn't a drug, per se.'

'It reads your dreams!'

'Yeah?'

'That's about as intense as any drug I've used.'

'Yes, but it doesn't affect your perception.  It just reads your perception.'

'I guess you're right.'

'I thought about this a lot, Emilie,'  Darren leaned forward and looked his wife in the eye, 'I mean, you know I was against even getting Snow on this train for the longest time.  But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.  It really does read your mind--but it doesn't write to your mind.  That's an important distinction.  When you take a drug, that is literally changing your brain chemistry.  But this, I guess you could say, is just the opposite.  Your mind is what influences it.' ...”

“...

Well, folks, the day is nearly here.  We’ve been calling it or a while, but the powers that be have made a move today that could very well put the free man in checkmate.

I’m talking, of course, about Lucidity—the huge Christmas announcement, the world-flipping new technology.  Some people are excited as hell to get their hands on it and think sweet nothings to their little boyfriends and girlfriends, not knowing all the while these trivial pursuits will be causing them their freedom and the freedom of everyone in America as we know it.

When Snowden told us all the NSA was spying on us, we just shrugged our shoulders and moved on.  When we learned the social media companies were getting rich off selling our information, we shook our heads, but we just kept scrolling.  Sure, the Data Privacy Act of 2025 was a small victory, but just because it’s harder for companies to sell our information doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

After all, we’ve been running around with cameras attached to our heads for nearly 20 years—what more could the puppet masters want?

Turns out the answer is a resounding “YOUR MIND.”  Fake news and fastidiously calculated manipulation on an extreme scale wasn’t enough.  Now the powers that be are going to look past our behaviors and into our thoughts themselves.

...”

“To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life:  Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem.  Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means:  is worthy of living.  These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness:  rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride” 

-John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, p. 932

This Essay is the last of a 4-part series on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, covering these three values.  Read the rest here.

IV.  Love

Ayn Rand generally focuses on the importance of each individual believing in his or herself and unlocking his or her highest potential as a human being.  She expresses praise for the individual that is self-sufficient, and disapproval or those that depend on others for their well-being and purpose.  This focus on the self can be seen in my previous three essays, which deal with what the hero of Atlas Shrugged believes to be the three most important values—reason (AKA thinking for yourself), purpose (driven by the desire to maximize yourself), and self-esteem.  You can read those here.  In this essay, however, as an appendage to the discussions of these three main values, I wanted to examine what Rand believes to be true love—a love informed not by societal convention, but by mutual admiration for one who lives true to his or herself.

Before examine what true love looks like, it is useful to look at what true love, in Rand’s eyes, does not look like.  The first perversion of love comes from a transgression to the first value I mentioned in my essays—Reason.  This is a love informed by Obligation.

Love informed by obligation is seen in both antagonists and protagonists throughout the novel.  On the antagonistic side, one major player is Jim Taggart.  Early on in the novel is a scene in which Jim engages in intercourse with another woman of high status, Betty Pope.  Rand explains that “to them, the act of sex was neither joy nor sin.  It meant nothing.  They had heard that women and men were supposed to sleep together, so they did” (72).  In this case, both parties feel they are obliged, as high-status members of society, to not only show that they are capable of being sexually desired by a mate, but that they are capable of attracting a mate of equal status.  Without enjoyment, however, the act of copulation is empty and unfulfilling.

On another side, the obligation of familial love is shown through Hank Reardon, one of the novel’s protagonists.  Early in the novel, Rearden admits that he does not like his family, but that “he had wanted to like them, which was not the same” (43).  When he is introduced, he lives with his wife, mother, and brother, and keeps them around only for the potential that he hopes they harbor.  The focus on the possibility of potential is Hank’s way of justifying keeping his family around, when his only real reason for continuing to subsidize their lifestyle has to do with a societal implication that one must love one’s family.  His mother knows this, and consistently cites unconditional love as a reason to do them favors.  For instance, his mother asks him to hire his brother, telling him, “if you loved your brother, you’d give him a job he didn’t deserve, precisely because he didn’t deserve it—that would be true love and kindness and brotherhood” (197).  Though this concept of unconditional love seems to be a strong persuader, its foundation is not in reason, but in the implied morality of the human society.  In reality, there is no justifiable reason that Hank needs to love his family, especially when they constantly take advantage of him.

The next perversion of love that Rand explores in her novel has to do with a transgression of the third value I discussed—self-esteem.  This is expressed, once again, by Jim Taggart.  Toward the end of the novel, Taggart asks a girl named Cherryl to marry him.  Though Cherryl has deep ideals and visions of her own, she is starting off her young career at a corner store as she saves up the money to move up in the world.  Jim takes pity on her, courts her, and eventually marries her.  He does not marry her, however, for her hard work-ethic and vision.  He marries her, instead, to show that he could take pity on someone as poor as Cherryl.  By marrying a girl like Cherryl, Taggart hopes to boost his own self-esteem by treating marriage like a charity case.  After an internally conflicted Cherryl accepts his proposal, she feels something’s off, finding herself “thinking that this should be happiness,” but hearing “a low, desolate voice telling her that this was not the way she would have wanted it to happen” (363).  By the time Cherryl realizes that she has simply been used in Jim’s plot to mistakenly boost his own view of himself, it is too late, and she commits suicide.

This form of love is part of the backwards thinking that happens when someone attempts to place their self-esteem in another.  As Francisco philosophizes in one of his mid-novel monologues, one who does this “will not acknowledge, but… knows that sex is the physical expression of a tribute of personal values.  So he tries, by going through the motions of the effect, to acquire that which should have been the cause” (455).  Both Taggart (maliciously) and Cherryl (tragically) are guilty of believing that being romantically engaged with each other would provide some sort of fulfillment.  Forcing the effect, however, does not make the intended cause true, and just because their partnership was formed does not mean that either expressed the characteristics that would truly attract another.

In order to have an effective relationship with another, then, it is important to pursue the values that Galt espouses—one must have reason to understand their love, purpose to drive them to a state that will make them worthy of love, and self-esteem to achieve that purpose.  This sort of love is exhibited in Dagny’s relationships throughout the novel.  Though she becomes romantically involved with three characters by the end of the novel, each one exhibits the qualities that she values, and are attracted to her for the qualities that she values in herself.  Early in her relationship with Hank, she tells him “I feel that others live up to me, if they want me” (349).  Rather than boosting her own self-esteem, Dagny respects others more deeply when they love her for what she values in herself.  This leads to relationships that are respectable by both her and anyone outside of them.  In fact, though her ex-lovers know each other, they never become jealous or petty when she moves on—instead, they understand her decision, as they each have respect for each other for the same reasons that made Dagny fall for them.

“...

‘Lex.’

‘Kiyoshi-san!’  Lex started up his Kaze X and turned a right out of his driveway.

‘What do you need?  It’s 0600h on Christmas morning.’

‘Yeah, yeah, we both know you weren’t doing anything.  Do you even celebrate Christmas?’

‘Beside the point, Lex.  Just because you run this town doesn’t mean you can give me a call any time you want.’

‘No.  It’s the because I have your number that I can call you whenever I want.  Whether you hang up or not is up to you.’

‘And your point, please.’

‘There’s going to be a Lucid Event today.’

‘Okay.’

‘And nobody knows about it yet.’

‘Okay.’

‘Except for Daskus and the Lucid Labs Community.’

‘So you want me to publicize it for you?’

‘I don’t think that’s too much to ask.  Maybe you could put it on the IdahoCam?  Put something out on your Clubhouse?’

‘What time and where is the event?’

‘Lucid Auditorium.’

‘Of course.’

‘At 1600h.  Free admission.  First come first served.’

‘Okay.  Is that all?’

‘That should be it.’

‘Great.’

‘By the way.’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you get my message about the Hume-Tube?’

‘Yes.  We’ll be thinking about it.  There’s a lot going on right now.’

‘All good, Yosh?’

‘Everything will shake out the way it shakes out.  Just a few unhappy citizens.  And of course the New Year’s Party.  A stressful time of year.’

‘Oh, well, don’t even think about my request til January, then.  I hope you have a great Christmas, Kiyoshi-San!’

‘Thanks, Lex.  You too.  I look forward to your event today.’

‘Think you’ll make it?’

‘Mmm, you know, I’d sort of like to.  I’ll keep it in mind.’

‘Great.  Check my Clubhouse in 15 minutes!’

‘Will do.  Merry Christmas, Lex.’

‘Merry Christmas.’  Lex disconnected and continued his ride.

...”

“To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life:  Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem.  Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means:  is worthy of living.  These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness:  rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride” 

-John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, p. 932

This Essay is the third of a 4-part series on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, covering these three values.  Read the rest here.

III.  Self-Esteem

The past two weeks, I have discussed the first two of the three major values that John Galt gives at the end of Atlas Shrugged.  First, Reason, in order to have a foundation behind the decisions you make.  Second, Purpose, to have something that you can aim toward, that drives your life through joy and motivation.  This week, I will discuss the last value in Galt’s Trifecta:  Self-Esteem.  In order to be confident in your logic, and to progress on the difficult journey that any worthy purpose implies, it is highly necessary to believe that you are capable of attaining what you set out to do.  This means loving yourself above all else, and having faith that that self-love will move you toward your goals and lift up those around you by association.

The practice and justification of low self-esteem can be seen most notably in Jim Taggart, the President and CEO of Taggart Transcontinental, the central company of the novel.  As soon as other railroads show promise, Jim Taggart bemoans the competition, asking “how can we have any security or plan anything if everything changes all the time?” (18).  He feels that it is unjust for a worthy competitor to take away his share of the market because he was there first.  This implies that Jim is lacking the self-esteem to meet the competition and exceed beyond it.

This philosophy of low-self-esteem is applauded and justified by some of the leading intellectuals in the novel.  Dr. Pritchet, for instance, states that man is “just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur” (127).  This philosophy grows in the public sphere throughout the novel.  On one hand, it allows any individual to believe that they are unworthy of greatness, so they don’t feel bad that they have not attained anything great.  On the other hand, it paints self-esteem as delusional, a far cry form the virtue that a character like John Galt believes it to be.  As a growing portion of major industrialists and the public buy into this philosophy, the results are disastrous:  Competition is artificially stifled, fewer people attempt greatness, and those who do are prevented from going too far and upsetting the current order.

It is quickly evident that those who succeed naturally are those with high self-esteem.  This is especially evident in Jim Taggart’s sister, Dagny.  Unlike Jim, she believes herself highly capable, and is only satisfied when she has achieved the results she desires through her own prowess.  When one of the early competition-stifling laws is enacted early in the novel, the Taggart railroad become the only railroad allowed to run in Colorado, as each state is to be limited to the first railroad set up there.  Dagny visits Dan Conway, the man whose railroad was bullied out of the state, and tells him “I don’t think I want to look at our Rio Norte Line now… I intend to make my own chance” (206).  Rather than be happy at being the most successful railroad in Colorado, as her brother would be, she focuses instead on how Taggart came to be the most successful railroad in the state, understanding that it had nothing to do with honest efforts.  Therefore, her success in Colorado does not reflect her actual value.  Because Dagny values herself and her abilities highly, it is more disappointing to win dishonestly than to lose honestly.

Instead of infecting the public with the lethargy of Dr. Pritchet’s self-defacing philosophy, Dagny’s example of living with high-self-esteem is actually inspiring to honest onlookers.  When Dagny succeeds in building a the Rio Norte Line, a feat which many did not think possible, the public feels “a moment’s sparkle and wonder[s] why it made their own problems seem easier” (216). Seeing somebody else succeed through heir own hard work and dedication shows other sthat it can be done.  Rather than internalize other’s success as something you could never attain, as Jim does, it inspires those with similar ambitions to try and work up to her level.  As Dagny states later in the novel, “the sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others” (222).  Instead of using laws and charity to give people something they didn’t earn, Dagny is happy to use her example to give others something that can allow them to earn something great—self-esteem.  The moral component of working to the best of your ability can transcend the self and unintentionally infect others with a desire to work up to their best self.

I have seen this situation first-hand in my own life—as we become increasingly connected as a society, there are two prominent ways we can respond to seeing the success of others.  We can respond with jealousy, like the indignant Jim Taggart, or we can take it as inspiration, and view their accomplishments with awe and support.  I always strive to choose the latter.  When I see public figures I like doing well, or when I see a friend with a smile their face, I am happy for them, because deep in my heart, I believe that I can attain the same thing.  I have no room in my brain for a negative response to the success of others—I am too busy focusing on my own success.  Therefore, other lives can only provide inspiration or warning to me.

“...

For the past three years, since he was old enough to choose, Charlie had elected to go to all three FuTech Christmas services.  Before then he had only gone once a week with his mother, usually at midday.  He had to be content with the stadium view, of course, but that didn’t bother him, either.  Once again, having the entire stadium to view seemed less distracting than a small room of people he could have paid a monthly subscription to sit with.

Today would be only slightly different.  He would still go to all three services, but there was a chance he might sit next to Gamma at one of the services.  She had told him at school last week that she would ask her father.  He felt a little guilty hoping that her father would say yes—after all, this was just the kind of distraction that he generally tried to avoid.  But perhaps sharing his faith with a loved one would make it even stronger?

This was what he told himself, anyway.  Only two more hours until the service started.  As he laid in his bed, he heard a knock on his door.

‘Come in!’ Charlie said.  His mother entered.

‘Hello, Charlie.’

‘Hi mom!  Merry Christmas!’

‘Yes, Charlie.  Merry Christmas.’  His mother did not sound full of Christmas cheer.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Charlie, we have to talk.’

‘About what?’

‘Charlie,’ his mother sighed, ‘I hate to say it, but you have to work today.’

...”

“To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life:  Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem.  Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means:  is worthy of living.  These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness:  rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride” 

-John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, p. 932

This Essay is the second of a 4-part series on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, covering these three values.  Read the rest here.

II.  Finding Purpose

Last week, I wrote about the importance of the Reason as a foundational value, as highlighted by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged.  One of the downfalls of living without reason is the danger of establishing your life and values on false premises.  One of these false premises, in Rand’s philosophy, is the idea that life is suffering.  Through living as though suffering is at the core of life, the characters in Atlas Shrugged are kept from finding the joy that their counterparts find through living a life with joy and purpose at the core.

The philosophy that life is suffering is espoused by many older characters in the novel.  In some cases, it is even considered noble to suffer.  Jim Taggart tells his girlfriend that “if a man is unhappy, really, truly unhappy, it means that he is a superior sort of person” (248).  This philosophy allows Taggart to feel slightly better about his own unhappiness.  If he can believe that those who are happy are either ignorant or malicious, he is able to take small comfort in the moral high ground that he has constructed for himself.  

In another case, suffering is implied to be necessary in a journey taken to serve others.  A critic of composer Richard Halley applauds his journey through years of being unnoticed, saying “it is noble that he should have endured suffering, injustice, abuse at the hands of his brothers—in order to enrich their lives and teach them to appreciate the beauty of great music” (71).  This critic believes that you have to go through a certain amount of suffering to open people’s eyes.  What allowed Halley to make such great music, however, was his joy in making the music—not opening anyone’s eyes.  

Children are implied to be ignorant of this suffering early on in life.  For instance, as one professor watches Francisco D’Anconia’s carefree childhood confidence, he sadly muses, “That boy is vulnerable.  He has too great a capacity for joy.  What will he do with it in a world where there is so little occasion for it?” (96).  Rather than attempt to understand what it is that allows Francisco to live his life with such joy, the professor assumes that his joy is only experienced through ignorance of the realities of life.  The Professor believes he is in for a rough fall when he realizes the “truth” that there is far more occasion for suffering in life than joy.

It is possible, however, that children recognize the truth of life—that there is an inherent joy in living, and that suffering is derived from false and destructive premises that are adopted as one ages.  This joy, Rand argues, is available through working toward a purpose.  In Francisco’s childhood, “two things were impossible to him:  to stand still or to move aimlessly.  ‘Let’s find out’ was the motive he gave…for anything he undertook, or ‘Let’s make it.’  These were his only forms of enjoyment” (93).  D’Anconia’s joy, then, was not simply a blissful ignorance—it was derived from the fountain of purpose informed by his infinite imagination of the possible and the joy he took in working toward it.

The idea that life is suffering, according to Rand, is partially built on a false premise of what joy is.  As Galt mentions in his speech, “your pleasure, you have been taught, is to be found in immorality…a liquor-soggy brain, a mindless slut…since pleasure cannot be moral” (925, 964-5).  When these expedient pleasures are taught to be the epitome of fun, the work that it takes to follow your purpose are seen as its antithesis.  Thus, work becomes suffering, an idea that is espoused by the very same who believe suffering to be at the core of life.  Philip Larkin voices this directly to Rearden when he tells him that working is “a form of neurosis… When a man drowns himself in work, it’s because he’s trying to escape from something.”  He then advises Rearden that he “ought to have a hobby” (39).  What Philip fails to realize is that Rearden’s work is his hobby.  Because he believes that work can only be a form of suffering or escapism, Philip keeps himself from finding the joy inherent in working hard.  If he were able to let go of that premise, he may find joy at the center of life instead of suffering.

The protagonists of the novel do not buy into the premise that work cannot be joy, and find the most fulfilling joy in the work that they do.  John Galt, for instance, voices the idea that true happiness comes through the quest to unlock your full potential, saying “every form of happiness is one, every desire is driven by the same motor—by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence—and every achievement is an expression of it” (704).  Each of the protagonists are motivated by the idea that they can unlock their full potential, and they take joy in the work that leads them there.  Galt likens this journey to finding the fountain of youth, and learns that once it is found, “it couldn’t be brought down” (169).  Thus, the “fountain of youth,” the meaning of life, cannot be found through activities that broader society designates as appropriate diversions—rather, the fountain of youth is found through the hard work and discipline that it takes to become your fullest self.

After acknowledging that desire is motivated by the difficult yet rewarding quest toward becoming an optimized human being, the hard work that it takes to get there no longer feels like suffering.  Dagny, well aware of her philosophy, states, “I started my life with a single absolute:  that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard my struggle” (774).  Dagny does not assume that her life will be void of struggle, and she would not desire it to be—not if it meant giving up a life and a world that could be shaped to fit her values.  Instead, she sees that this struggle will lead to the greatest happiness, and so she is constantly motivated to keep moving against the current.

This motivation is also reflected in the protagonists’ views on fatigue.  Both Dagny and Rearden find their work to be so engaging that they work through any sort of physical fatigue they may feel in their body.  For instance, when Rearden is working on his metal, Rand states that he “had made up his mind that he would not be tired” (36).  Similarly, when working on her plans for her railroad, “[Dagny] thought:  You’re tired—and watched her own mood with severe contemptuous detachment, knowing that it would pass” (206).  Rather than immediately giving in to their bodies’ impulses, Rearden and Dagny both let the feelings pass in order to pursue their passions.