Think for Yourself

 

With her protagonist in The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand represents Howard Roark as the brilliant, original thinking idealist that compromises never, says what he thinks and cares not one whit what others think or oppose.

 

I advise that we be people-friendly, as diplomatic as we can be while speaking with originality and absolute honesty.

 

Pete Keating is a minor antagonist to Roark, but he represents the everyman in the pack antithetical to all that here Roark exemplifies: nonindividuating, joining, conforming, popular and worldly successful but not able to solve tough technical problems, or decide how to move forth in his career without consulting with Roark first.

 

I mostly approve of Rand’s novelist contrasting the joiner good by with the brilliant, principled loner, unpopular and kept poor by the worldly and connected because he refuses to kowtow to them.

 

I would add that the Pete Keatings of the world have plenty of talent and ability, but they do not choose to use it to the maximum, self-realizing each day, every day for all of their remaining lifetime.

 

Let me quote a few lines from Page 33 of the book: “Come on,” said Roark, “you’re not being afraid of me are you. What do you want to talk about?”

 

“It’s about my scholarship. The Paris prize I got.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“It’s for four years. But on the other hand, Guy Francon offered me a job with him some time ago. Today he said it is still open. And I don’t know which to take.”

 

. . . “If you want my advice, Peter,” he said at last, “you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”

 

My response: it is acceptable even commendable to ask others what they suggest, but the final decision should be one’s own, after getting to know the self fairly well by reading, thinking, dialoguing and self-realizing throughout one’s teen years.

 

I admire Rand for pointing out that the individual should control his own work or career, and I would add moral or theological decisions.