An Unfortunate State-of-Affairs

Alas, the college life, and graduate level to a higher degree, is a turbulent one. Life (the ontological form by which I'm often found saying, "How's Life treating you?") is contracted and condensed and spaced out and forgiving and damning all in the same week. Or, in this case, over two weeks. Last week was the oppressive version, while this week time has slowed to allow everything in. And while, as my best friends can attest to, I am in full contempt for Life during the negative-cycles, I have to admit the up-swings make it all worth it. Manic-depressive? Perhaps. Unstable? Obviously.

But based on a few close friends' insistence, I figure I'll use this time I've been given productively. So I started reading The Fountainhead tonight. I know; some love it, some hate it. But I've been told I'd love it, so who knows. I bought this and Atlas Shrugged a month or two ago, and though I'd given the latter a good attempt in middle school (yup, unstable indeed), I never really did get into it. However, not having even begun the Fountainhead tonight, I was taking a look at the introduction by Rand upon the 25th anniversary of this book (currently in it's centennial publication). In it, I found the following quote. And for this reason, I'm already beginning to understand why these close friends recommended this book so highly.

"It is not in the nature of man -- nor of any living entity -- to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose, and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential." (xi)