When I was a young man, I really wanted to explore all sorts of ways of looking at the world...

[WCGreen]

Last edited Wed Aug 15, 2012, 09:21 AM - Edit history (1)

I read The Fountainhead, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, On Walden Pond...

Then I read To Kill a Mockingbird, Blue Highways and the Tolkien Trilogy, The Razors Edge and Tom Sawyer a Gore Vidal's novel Julian.

I reread all of these again, over the last few years except for The Fountainhead.

Even as a young man who was fresh out of my childhood, I realized that the Fountainhead was basically the glorification of adolescence.

Think about it, in Randonia you are basically allowed to run free and do what ever you want and that anyone who challenged your ideas or freedom was a big fat sissy face...

There is a catch, you have to be strong and able to crush who ever stands in your way with withering prose designed to make those who stand in your way as sissy faces....

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. You got a really good education, reading all those books...

I think our society would benefit if more people did what you did.

[Jack Sprat]

2. Yes. I think society would

benefit if there were more CaliforniaPeggy's too.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Aw, you are too kind...Thank you!

[Ikonoklast]

4. In my life experience, I have found that people who dramatically disagreed with my opinions were

fairly large, bad tempered, and would have no problem smashing my face in if they felt like doing so.

In Libertarian Land, they are all weak, craven cowards.

Reality and Libertarianism met their first disconnect at an early age.

[Jack Sprat]

5. Zen and the Art

Was there another called Mortar Cycle Maintenance or was that a typo?

[WCGreen]

13. A typo....

[pinboy3niner]

6. When I was a young man, I went to war

I'd studied journalism, but I didn't go as a reporter, or even as an observer--though I observed.

My war experience taught me far more than I realized, or would even begin to recognize consciously for a very long time.

I. too, read a lot of books, but I also had an urge to EXPERIENCE things for myself.

Real bright idea--it nearly killed me, lol.

And I lost waaaaaaay too many friends.

Books are a great way to learn about the world. Travel is another great way. Going to war is educational, too. But it will forever haunt you. For the rest of your days... We never had a clue at the time.

[ellisonz]

7. We would not have gotten bogged down in Vietnam...

...if our political leaders had been better read (LBJ - cough - cough). I really do think that Kennedy would have blanched at the idea of sending hundreds of thousands of young American men to try and occupy an Asian nation. The only possible way it could have worked was to so brutalize the population of the country such that resistance was broken (see our occupation of the Philippines).

See the external links at the bottom for full text: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_The_Person_Sitting_In_Darkness

I do not believe that experience can be formed outside of the mental consciousness of willful decision. We are very much in control of our own destinies, of our own mind. Paul Ryan chose to read certain texts obsessively with no intention but other than to reconfirm his own prejudices. He has a very closed mind.

[pinboy3niner]

8. Obviously, the key is to read critically

I was fairly well-read before I called up my draft board and asked if they could take me. I'd been graduated with honors, editor of my HS newspaper, and had full-tuition journalism scholarships to USC. Yet I chose to go to war instead of college.

For all I knew, it turned out that I knew very little.

I don't believe that what one chooses to read is necessarily an indicator of their worldview or their politics. I read Ayn Rand very early on and didn't like it at all. Reading it had no influence on me. Maybe if Ryan had read more critically he wouldn't be as far out there as he is.

Luv to you and Alma...

[pansypoo53219]

9. i say guys tend to be gullible.

ayn figured that out.

[JohnnyRingo]

10. Sounds like the kind of person who would be a bully.

Perhaps the type who would hold someone down and cut their hair as a way of proving superiority. Maybe the type who would gladly cut a young mother off from the food that she needs to nourish her children. The kind of sadist who would gleefully watch a poverty srticken man die of cancer without medical care.

I don't think a person has to read Ayn Rand to act like a Republican, but she certainly wrote the book on it.

[Odin2005]

11. The setting of the game Bioshock is a futuristic Randonia.

[Enrique]

12. Atlas Shrugged vs. Tolkien

Various versions of this out there:

There are two books you can read in high school that will affect your entire life thereafter: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
One of these books is a far-fetched, totally unbelievable fairy tale that will stunt your emotional growth for years to come.
The other one has orcs in it.

[WCGreen]

14. I liked that the first time I read it and it still continues to provoke a smile.....