Avoiding the Second-hand

Finally finished "The Fountainhead" last night and the themes and characters have been swimming in my head all day. Its just this amazing book--everything reminds me of something I read in "The Fountainhead."

So the book revolves around two architects, Howard Roark--a genius who has the capability to revolutionize the field--and Peter Keating--mediocrity in the form of a man, who becomes rich and popular doing what mediocre people do best...copying other peoples work. Roark is harboring a ton of genius underneath his unabashed self conceit and Keating only has the appearance of genius and self respect. The theme of NYC at the time is to serve others, to rid yourself of all selfishness. Rand contends that this is how mediocrity is bread. You deny yourself self-respect and you start creating for the sake of others--for notoriety, to please fill the needs of anyone but yourself. You start to depend on people and their good opinion of you that if you lose it your life is essentially over. According to Rand, real creative genius comes out of complete selfishness. And in the context of the story, this made complete sense. She took this idea of living life for others, and the beaty of self sacrifice and turned it on its head. It became the root of evil in the world... not selfishness.

This just one of the ideas she weaved into this book. If you ever feel like you have the time to dive into a 700-page novel... grab this one. It's changed me. Because although I don't agree with a lot of the ideas in the book, including the one I probably failed in trying to describe to you, I wanted to agree with her. I really wanted to believe that by becoming so independent that I could live without relationships, completely secure in my own abilities and strength, I would actually be making the world a better place.

But throughout the book I was constantly, if not grudgingly reminded that there was a presence missing in this book. God wasn't there. Not as the sourse of genius bestowed upon Roark or the reason for the self-sacrifice and service constantly preached by power-hungry Toohey. And I know that he's the source of all my abilities, and the only critic that should be worth anything to me.

But it was an experience, living in this author's world for awhile, where masochism was the route to happiness and power killed everything it touched.

Now I'm starting "Daisy Miller." I love J-term... where I simply get to enjoy musicals, movies, books and my new roommate. She's great and fun and lighthearted and I think its going to be a fun semester. We'll see how we fare I guess. Its nice to be living someone from the comm. department, who understands when I start off on an "I hate Miller" rant, then want to cry I love him so much the very next day. It's not just me...these are the extreme emotions this man pulls out of you.

I miss my Sarah in Oxford. She's going to come back worldy and cultured and smarter than me (she already was, but its going to be worse). But I'm proud of her... I miss her.