Selfishness

So I've started reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This book was recommended to me by my best friend who has read it before. I'm always up for reading something Tony recommends so this was a no brainer. It's a long book, something like 1100 pages, which is nice because it's going to take a while. I like books that take a while, it gives you time to observe changes within yourself as you read. The book starts off a bit slow and I found it sort of confusing keeping all of the characters straight. I also tried to think of how what I was reading would fall into what I think I know about the story. I don't like that I've done this and have since stopped, because it took away from the story. One of the things I always do in situations I know I will be involved with for more than a moment is try to layout a map of what will come. I believe I do this because I'm uncomfortable with myself in new situations, which really means I'm somewhat uncomfortable with myself in general. It's one of my self-destructive characteristics that I've been working on as of late.
Anyway, my first impressions of the story are simply this: what a fantastic book this will be.
There are certain books that depict the nature of humans that I wish to be true and Atlas Shrugged is one such book. Like many artists, Ayn Rand is on the extreme side of her vision of what people should be, so I take her views and ideas with a grain of salt. However, her insight into human nature is thus far quite acurrate and refreshing. I've read about half of another one of her works The Virtues of Selfiness and had to stop because she referrenced Atlas Shrugged too much. Her ideas on selfishness are somewhat like this: people who do not act in principle for their own interests are not realizing their potential and the alternative is quite destructive and dangerous. I love this idea because it challenges me and also polarizes humanity; I love to feel different from most and believe in many ways I am, especially in my thinking. Moreover, and I'll get to my personal insights on Rand's ideas in a minute, I believe her message is very needed as humanity is failing at life and is need of a new perspective. Now, selfishness does not mean that acting in one's own interests involves constantly being at odds with the interests and welfares of others, it simply means that a person's own interests must not be whimsically cast aside for the interests of others. People who aren't thinking clearly will say being selfish is inherently bad, but it isn't. We humans are social and must live with the wills of others. Moreover, we rely and depend on each other to maintain a level of civility and order on a day to day basis. Inevitably, our own personal interests must factor in what it takes to maintain our social environment at a level we find acceptable. Stupid individuals who don't consider this are the ones most people call selfish, those people who say to hell with you people over there I'm going to do what I want. The destructive part of that statement is the "to hell with people over there" not the "I'm going to do what I want" part. What a person wants is to do what the want, but in the context of a human reality. Most rulers of the world, past and present, haven't realized the negatives of the first statement and are forced to deal with the consequences. This is the case because most, if not all, of humanity is very short sighted in their visions of how they want things to be. Couple that with the fact that humanity has gotten lazier brained as the decades passed and you've got a situation where generally stupid people have tremendous power and don't care about the consequences of their actions.
I find it interesting that Rand bashes altruism in Atlas Shrugged. It's been difficult wrapping my mind around the logic of her point, but I think it's a good one. I've always had a problem with the idea of altruism, mainly because I could never see how someone could explain its existence without referencing some personal benefit to th altruist. Personally, I don't think there is such a thing. Rand believes the idea of altruism has the potential to destroy people and nations. Ah, I think I get it now! Sacrifice is the name of the game for altruism to work. One must forego their own interests (be unselfish) for the good of others or the group. If people are always doing so, and willingly, then people are always acting for the greater good. Unfortunately, sacrifice is not always the best thing, especially when a person's own interests benefit others. Rand chooses to illustrate this by highlighting the frustrations of uniquely talented people and their conflicts with societal values. The problem with 'unselfishness' is when it becomes morally good to sacrifice oneself. When this happens not doing so, no matter the circumstances, becomes evil, and if enough people think something is evil then things can get ugly quickly. One of the problems with the way people think, or not think, is that they do not consider circumstances. Everyone wants a cookie-cutter way of thinking, of approaching problems, of dealing with their brains. They want to know what to do in every given situation so that they don't have to worry themselves with the details of the situation. Thinking it is always good to sacrifice yourself for someone else is a bad thing. The yielding of one's self is the yielding of one's judgment and potentially one's principles.
One thing that's bothered me about myself is my inability to make tough decisions (or what I think are tough decisions). I find it hard mainly because I am considering how the people around me are going to be affected. I believe my caring for other people is one of my strengths, but the cost is my slow decision making process. What I've gotten from the book so far is a challenge to recenter my perspective when it comes to tough decisions. Being selfish requires a level of honesty that's not present when you are centered on the desires of others. In my case, my desires are often in conflict with what I perceive the other person wants from me. Being more selfish helps to better evaluate my desires as I have to first consider what it is I want. Fuck, I sound like I've just had a session with Dr. Phil.
What I've also realized is that I make a lot of apologies for my thoughts and behaviors. These are mostly little thoughts and behaviors, things someone would say are somewhat unique to my personality; the creative me. Society will ask a person to apologize for being different, but I didn't really realize that that request went as deep as my thoughts until I started reading this book. So much of what is normal, acceptable thoughts are constantly being entrained in us on a day to day basis. I've been far to receptive to this not so subtle requests. It's liberating to realize this and challenging to resist, but essential to practice. Why should I do things this way? Why should I think of things that way? Wonderful questions!
The last thing I'll speak on is my purpose in this life. I'm not sure what that is, actually, I have no idea what that is. At least I've not yet come up with an idea that gets me going. I don't like the world I live in by any means. Things are fundamentally wrong with humanity at the moment and I'm not sure if I have a place here. Most would agree that things are messed up, but would argue that they've always been that way and probably won't change. I hate to here this as it represents how messed up things truly are for people. People who believe this simply try to find a place in this world where they can be happy. I don't believe things have always been this fucked up, but maybe I've been romanticized by people like Daniel Quinn. Regardless of where or not things have been this screwy I refuse t believe the will probably always be this way. I have to feel like I am contributing to the change in humanity I want to happen. I realize that my lifetime is probably too short to see this change, but that's truly irrelevant to me. At the moment I'm sort of waiting around for this current system to collapse, something I think will happen within a few generations from now; maybe my great grands' time. I've been told that this is just lazy, and part of that is true. It wouldn't be lazy if I was actively searching for my niche, which I'm not doing as actively as I should. I know this because I'm not ready to quite my complaining about society. I wonder what I'll want to be/do.