Monday, August 13, 2007

Objectivism

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

To be frank, I had lived this life unrealizing the statement's potential and values without its consequences, without its moral infliction, without its meaning, without its splendor, without putting reality in place. It was the best read of my life, fantastic and amazingly thought-provoking. Objectivism is really the system for human living, arguably the best! It emphasizes the mind and moral values to the right balance. The author claims the book to be future-proof, and I have to agree. A system of living which suits any human generation and any period. A system to be built in future, well may be a 1000 years from now would still have to be built on top of objectivism, unless humans evolve into an entirely new species before that!

I cannot imagine a writer during 1950s like Ayn Rand thinking through this. I was awestruck reading Atlas Shrugged, it simply blows you off. Interestingly, digging into the reading habits - among what people have read and got influenced most, this one seems to be next to bible atleast in 1991 (reference : englishcompanion.com) and still Amazon.com holds this list for most influential books. The book is sound in its concepts and amazingly portrayed. The philosophy of life, it is definitely a subject for college or high-school students.

On the contrary, it took me about a year to just finish reading the book. True I am not a good reader, but this book is really something as I had read and re-read a lot of stuff to just grasp or understand the concept and character better. I cannot imagine that in one spot, a character's speech was just about 30 pages, every single line about Objectivism. Still a lot of it is something I have to read again to grasp. I guess if I had read this book in my college or high-school, my life and carrier would have been dramatically different. Nevertheless, I hope its going to be different from here on, I am able to realize a few changes in my attitude and thoughts already!