Atlas Shrugged... Distinction of Power vs. Force

"Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The lonliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you'd give a year of your life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"

Dr. Stadler to Miss Dagny Taggart
"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand PART II "Either-Or"

I went to the Illiad bookstore and replaced my tattered copy of "Atlas Shrugged," one of my favorite books. I also bought a copy of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" and tried to find a copy of "The Alchemist" but only found a copy in Spanish.

I love "Atlas Shrugged" because the heros are such strong personalities... strong meaning in spirit and passion... industrialists whose passions are the empires they build. And the heroine rocks. I want to be her when I grow up. She's the brains running a railroad empire who knows the company better than her brother who is the acting president. The power, the intrigue, the intelligence of the powerful and the cunning of the weak rolled into a concert of strategies.

The above paragraph really spoke to me that I copied it onto my journal... It speaks of power which I distinguish as something that wells from inner strength... and it speaks of force... the inauthentic power produced from weakness used in manipulation. There are those who find their source intrinsically and there are those who seek their source outside of themselves.

Nelson Mandela said something that complements the above paragraph ... which I've included in my journal as well...

"You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us... And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

On a more optimistic point he encourages one to integrate one's aspiration with their actions and way of being... you become a "second rater" once you dismiss the dignity of aspiration and opt for cut-throat competition with slippery tactics... Both writers would encourage to just focus one's self to the star which has one's gaze. As Leonardi da Vinci had put it...

"Obstacles cannot crush me, every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind."

What is excellence at the cost of integrity?

JNET

Friendships That Work and Friendships That Don't

I'm managing to spend some time with friends though it is feeling a bit intense seeing that I've just come off a very fast train.

CB is one of my closest friends in the whole world... We went to high school together, we moved to Boston together to go to music school and CB is still a friend that I can trust my world with fully. She is in San Diego and I miss not having her nearer. She's known me most of my life and she's someone that to my great comfort "gets me." I have a small handfull of people who orbit that close to my soul... where most people feel like travellers passing through.

My quiet world is a bit different when she is around for she is someone who shows up and sits in the very seconds of reality that I'm observing at the moment.

Experiencing friendship and reality at a level that is profoundly out of step from the daily groove, is refreshing. It's like having sunlight hit through a prism and enjoying rainbows. Time actually seems to stop for me... consistently between certain relationships.

Do you know those kinds of friendships where doubt and misunderstanding is rare... where acceptance and the virtues rule?

I want to understand what the winning formula is. Is it sharing history? Growing up together from childhood? A cheerful disposition and positive outlook?

I just had a tiff with a friend here in Los Angeles that has left me frustrated and a bit bewildered. We don't have enough shared history in comparison to other friendships. We didn't grow up together and we have different backgrounds. And I can't say that our friendship is framed in cheer and positivity.... She had gone on to say some things that I was sad to hear and wondered if she regretted saying them. All in the glory of honest confrontation and the battle to be right. It has left a gap in our friendship and marks another cold season coming between us.

I'm growing tired of the trend. Telling details of the conflict is just sharing a story... a story that ends with no friendship and no connection. She and I didn't create any happy resolutions.

If I could bottle what CB and I enjoy in how we relate, I would take a dose of it now so I wouldn't be so sad and disappointed at the stupidity of a fallen moments of friendship here. It would be an elixir that went down well and warmed the soul, oiled the brain and made laughter and smiles return to natural states.

I'm perhaps indulging my sadness a little much. I had a great time this weekend with friends despite one blow up.

JNET

POEM: Journey of Faith

A grain of sand in an hourglass finds a second
To sit quietly proclaiming no errors abound..
Floats in the space between paradise and a mountain...
Finding assurance in touching the ground...

Experience greeting with a wave of the hand
The sun's laughter heralds a new day
Such is the conversation between one and God
A private road, a sure path, and lit way

As minutes round about a new second
And detours interrupt daily routine
A parade of the mundane and adventure
Pays tribute to the serene and in between

Faith enduring the uncharted journeys
Recording discoveries from the course
Mapping the way for those who follow the song
Compelled and inspired to find the source

Trails bending with the choices declared
Views intensified by the dark and the light
A song notated upon a soul
Led by love and not by sight

Faithful soul claim this second
The eternity of paradise created for you
Putting aside all illusion of division
The song you hear is real and true

The song you hear is I and You
The song you hear is I love You.

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday