h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I first came across Ayn Rand in my 10th grade and have been reading at least one of her works every year. I have read Fountainhead 4 timers and each time the book gets clearer and clearer. The mammoth philosophy... which is simple at the same time.... is so beautiful in content and form.
I hope to believe in what she says. Man is capable of making his own destiny. he is his own master. Something that motivates him to climb higher and higher is his quest for "JOY"... joy for HIMSELF.... even in distributing this joy he is selfish... as he derives GREATER joy for himself!!!!

I discovered Ayn Rand in the ninth grade and have worked my way through almost all of her books in about six months. Objectivism suits me perfectly and I am delighted to have found it. I agree with your statement that: "The mammoth philosophy... which is simple at the same time.... is so beautiful in content and form." Choices are so much easier to make when you have logical abstract ethical principles to aply to them.

I fully appreciate that
I am selfish, in completely self-contained way. That is, I do not attain my goals at the cost of others.
However, it gives me such joy to spread what I enjoy. If I read a good book, it gives me pleasure to suggest it to people I know will beable to appreciate it. Likewise for good music or a movie.
It gives ME happiness that I am creating in others an awareness of something beautiful, thereby increasing the chances of them being able to understand me and perhaps, be more like me.

Ayn Rand is not saying anything new. She is merely stating that which Aristotle and Plato said before. The only thing is that in her book, The Fountain head, the main character thinks it is wrong that they changed his plans, so he blows the whole place up...then he gives a speech about what a man is, and then he is set free.
This sort of behavior is a misconception of what the great ones said before. It IS happiness what we strive for, and we achieve happiness by doing our duty as best as we can. Our duty is in our design, therefore it is ascribed to us, we do not choose our innate talents, but we do choose to reason. When mr. Roark decides to do the building, it was because the other loser character asked him, and that fool asked him to lie, to do it without a contract. Roark should've seen the building changed, and realized, BUMMER, I am a fool for believing in a fat idiot who never overcame his delusions of inferiority, perhaps I was too excited about building buildings for people who'm I don't care for, to help guide this man towards the supposed hapinness I enjoy.
The truth is, our fellow human beings are confused...reason and happiness take practice and diligence, but if you are happy, it means you change those things you can change (for good), and you don't those you can't, and don't sweat it. That is doing your duty, like Socrates called it, his moral duty, to inquire everyone about their doings, which if everyone answered to honestly, the truth would roll out of their mouths and they could heal, towards happiness.
Ayn Rand sounded good to me a few years ago, because I was a teenager who had been thought that being humble was always right, but there is a balance. The blowing up building thing sounds extreme, and then the jury sets him FREE!! wow, it must be right, if a damn jury set him free, but the world doesn't work like this. There are true forms behind things, and it is through stripped down logic, and reasoning, that one achieves this. Plato, Aristotle, the stoics.

Remember that newness is not goodness. Not because something is old, it is not good.
Excitement isn't happiness. Pleasure is not goodness. Love isn't infatuation.

People say Love is dead, but you cannot kill love. Love is timeless.
Timelessness is that which all the forms have, that which is not infinite, but forever in the present.

Love,

Daniel