A Little Self-Exploration

Sometimes it's really easy for me to approach the world with a self-centered view. I think part of this stems from my personality: when confronted with a problem, I want to solve it.

The problems of this nation and this world, because we are a global community, are so vast that I often find it easier to shut them aside, and subscribe to a belief that is ideal, but not very real.

Two years ago, I first read the work of Ayn Rand entitled "Anthem" and the book spoke to me, because Rand explores the ability of society to shut out the individual and the importance of the word "I." Rand answered a question I was asking myself at the time, how can we fix the world if we are not fixed? Her answer is we can't.

And then a year and a half ago, I read her novel "The Fountainhead." And so many other questions were answered, I couldn't even name them all. But the point of that work, and the message I took and engrained in my life, is that a person's work is the essence of that person. It is hard to imagine work as perfect as Rand's world, but I started looking for that one thing that I could do as a profession that would allow me to feel that way. One of my favorite quotes from that book is Roarke, an architect, saying "I do not build for my clients, I have clients so that I can build." We can't all be architects, but shouldn't we all feel that way?

So last semester, I sat down to read her last novel, and her self-proclaimed greatest accomplishment "Atlas Shrugged." To say the least, the book is powerful. It took me literally the whole semester to read it, but I fell deeper and deeper into this political and philosophical world that she creates. I knew even then that Rand's ideas have holes, but her fundamental philosophy is very appealing. If every man stands up for himself, and if no one leans on anyone else, the world would be perfect. If every man answered the simple questions "What do I need? And how do I get it?" for himself and with integrity and self-pride, no man would be in need.

To understand the point of this post, you have to also understand that I have been extremely disillusioned in my faith in about the same time frame. I don't blame Ayn Rand for that at all. I was toying the line between anti-established-church and anti-god, and I think Rand was only a gentle shove toward the anti-god side.

But I have been thinking more and more that although her world is perfect, it is unattainable. The problems of the world are not just going to disappear, and although it is easier to share a belief that the problems are caused by human failure, maybe I could embrace beliefs that forced me to face those problems and look for solutions.

I'm not exactly saying I'm back on the Christian track, and I can almost guarantee I won't ever be back on the Catholic track. There are too many holes in the fabric of Catholicism for me to not see. I'm only suggesting that maybe the ideas behind it- loyalty and service and love- are things that I want back in my life, and things I want to stand for.