(Skip the sections if you’re not interested, there’s a few things in this post)
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The Fountainhead
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This book is amazing. Read it. It took me a while because I started work a few days after I bought it and it’s a THICK book with some heavy content (particularly the last few chapters with those multipage monologues everyone keeps talking about) but DAMN, it’s helped me realise a few things.
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I have a few things I was wondering about the book and I’ll write them down. If anyone has read the book and has their own insights into the characters then I would like to hear whether you think I’m right.
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Roark is obviously the epitome of integrity and the guy who’s always been a creator. No question about that. Keating is the prime example of a second hander. He’s always taking views from OTHERS and always borrowing from Roark. He doesn’t really have an opinion for himself and always does what others tell him to do instead of doing what he himself wants to do.
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Toohey is a bit of a dickhead. He’s the prime example of a second hander, the kind which seeks power. Everything he does was done to manipulate others and to acquire power. He had no integrity as he was being a kind and ‘wise’ man on the surface yet below that he was, well, a bit of a dick. I still don’t really understand how he was a second hander as he seemed to create it all but I suppose he wasn’t acting through what he really felt and thus wasn’t being ‘real’. Someone clear that up.
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Gail Wynand was ‘not born to be a second hander’ yet he always was one. Obviously he was used as a character that tried to be who he was but in the end couldn’t maintain his integrity. He became the kind of person he hated most, the ones whose integrity was corrupted with money.
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Dominique was confusing. I think she maintained her integrity as she did everything she did to test Roark’s self, and in the end succeeded. Like the world’s most massive sh…congruence…it test.
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The point of The Fountainhead for me.
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The whole acting through your own intentions, doing what you want and being happy through YOUR OWN standards thing really hit me. It’s totally common that people aren’t happy with themselves and aren’t doing the things they want to do, instead doing the things that others have told them to do. A common example is, say, university. Do you really have a passion for what you’re doing in uni or are you doing it because your parents or anyone else has told you that you need to study, get a job, etc etc?
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Having standards for myself was pretty liberating. I KNOW that most of the time when I’m not happy, it’s usually because I don’t feel that I’ve lived up to my standards (and it’s usually something that was unavoidable, that is, I could have done it but I didn’t). Common examples are grades at university, relationship management and work.
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So all of that was pretty cool. Some things have changed, for example (and this is an example from ‘Fight Club’, which I’m really not meant to talk about), I always push out the last set of the night because otherwise I’d be disappointed in myself.
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Something I read on some forum.
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I read something on some forum today and it went something like, “If you can generate $11 an hour for 24 hours a day, you will be earning $100000 a year”. This was interesting to me.
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So I calculated it and it’s actually something like 96k. So this got me thinking, what can I do to get $11 an hour for 24 hours a day? Then I thought I’d set a more reasonable goal of getting $1 an hour. I’m still thinking, but if you can get 1$ an hour then it wouldn’t really be that hard to duplicate it 11 times over on some other thing. Food for thought.
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Finally, something that has entertained me in the past few days.
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This song. This is SUPER MEGA CHODE. It makes me LAUGH.
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I wasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t perfect
I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve done a lot of stupid things
Still no angel
I wasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t looking for forgiveness
Wasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t laid out by my pride
Shocked by her attention
And someone signed me up for love
I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t want it
And now I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t live without it
She changed my life
She cleaned me up
She found my heart
Like only a woman can
She pulls me up
When she knows I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m sad
She knows her man
Like only a woman can
She?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s kind of perfect
She?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s kind of everything I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m not
Yeah, she?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s an angel
And it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s amazing how she?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s patient
Even more at times I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m not
She?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s my conscience
And who decided I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d be hers
I wanna hate them
Cos now I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t live without her
She changed my life
She cleaned me up
She found my heart
Like only a woman can
She pulls me up
When she knows I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m sad
She knows her man
Like only a woman can
Like only a woman can
And who decided I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d be hers
I wanna hate them
Cos now I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t live without her
Oh, and she changed my life
She cleaned me up
She found my heart
Like only a woman can
She pulls me up
When she knows I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m sad
She knows her man
Like only a woman can
Like only a woman can
Like only a woman can
Like only a woman
Like only a woman can
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Ah, like only a woman can. Can what? I’m pretty sure people can change their own lives around without a ‘woman’ who’s apparently perfect. Maybe I’m just cynical but humans are humans… This song is just an example of a second hander mindset, displaying a lack of ability to control his own destiny.
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Hilarious, but not for me.
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<3
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Matt