Friday, October 29, 2010

Ayn Rand's gospel of productivity / a backward glance

"Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work--pride is the result." ....Ayn Rand

As as willing and  well-read student, I'd come to adopt the "logical positivism" of Ms. Rand during the "great awakening" of my graduate school years, and had gone on to incluculate many of her assumptions in my affairs.  I'd loved the way she had adapted the novel to basically preach philosophical arguments, and had admired her fierce loyalth to the "No Bull S..."outlook.

I'd accepted on faith, that the proper place to be in life - animated toward a goal which is worthy and  to which one was well-suited to endevour - to be the guaranteed ladder to success up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  I'd come to expect or at least  have the right to anticipate a fair amount of self satisfaction in life, however limited my financial successes.

Working for a commission, one learns to see the glass as half full, at least in theory;   throughout the years and on most days.  And I'd read the proper positive-programming books, and listened to the peak performance tapes, and attended the seminars in hotel conference centers and ball-rooms to keep the flame burning, so to speak.

I suppose it's this lack of positive feedback from the universe -  more so than the empty pockets - that explains this empty hour-glass feeling, and this place where I am right now.  Where the sands inside the shape, are  fewer   and    further   between:   after  the torrent has slacked  into a river, which  tapers  to  a stream,  which   fizzles    out    into    a      trickle,     that   tails   off    into   a    drip   drip    drip        drip           drip                   drip

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