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My journey toward Ayn Rand and Objectivism I first heard her name mentioned by a colleague in graduate school, a colleague who thought I might already be an Ayn Rand fan. Upon this first mention, I asked the now-ironic question: "Who is Ayn Rand?" and I got a short answer: "She was a novelist/philosopher who promoted selfishness." I immediately shuddered in revulsion and I said, pretty firmly, that I am not the kind of person to align myself with someone evil like that. My philosophical background was a dinner plate of Christianity as the main course, and a heavy helping of socialism on the side. In fact, by this time, the socialism had been becoming the main course for me -- or at least my main focus. It was the year 2000, I was age 32, and I would forget about this evil Ayn Rand for another year or so. At age 33 -- the same age that Christ died and was resurrected into Heaven -- I was reading books by the Christian psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck (e.g., The Road Less Traveled) and, for some reason (possibly a web-search for Peck), I came across the name: Nathaniel Branden. Because of my interest in psychology and my pleasure in reading M. Scott Peck, I read a little online about this Branden guy. He seemed to me like he was a guy with a pretty good head on his shoulders and some skillful penmanship which enabled him to share that truth with the literary world. I was intrigued, so I looked into it some more. Eventually, searches gave rise to that name again: Ayn Rand. Hey! I've heard that name before ... she's evil! Wait! What in the Hell is going on here? If this Branden guy is associated with Ayn Rand and he is so God-awful astute, then wouldn't he have already caught wind as to how evil Ayn Rand was? Surely this Branden guy, a formidable intellectual giant, could not have been duped by this Ayn Rand woman! I couldn't let this go. I finally had to find out, one way or the other, what Ayn Rand was all about. I started with online searches. I got strong criticisms and strong appraisals -- but nothing in-between. Apparently, there was no one writing about this woman who didn't either love or hate her ... no one. Wow. I knew from my comic-book background as a kid that superheroes and villains were routinely only loved or hated, but I had not witnessed this phenomenon before -- at least not in real life on Earth. I decided that it would serve my piqued interest if I were to buy the Ayn Rand Lexicon and read some of the entries found inside. In doing that, I might get a picture of the mindset of this curious woman. I bought the thing and I was off to the races, with two caveats -- I could not read entries in the "A" section because that might include accidentally reading about the two entries: Atheism and Abortion, which scared me to death (these were "sacred" subjects to me and I feared that reading Rand's reasoning would incite something too terrible for me to be able to handle with equanimity). Needless to say, over the next two months, I devoured "B-Z" -- often re-reading entries and putting my own thoughts and reactions into the margins. It turned out to be too much for me, to ignore the "A" section, just because there were two entries inside of it that I could not bring myself to confront. With a now-ravenous intellectual appetite, I thought about all of the entries in the "A" section which I could be missing out on. How could I do that to myself? How could I, after reading Rand, willfully avoid exposure to more of the same? It was a conundrum that eventually busted wide open because of an unrelenting curiosity. The first time I read the entries on abortion and atheism, I had pre-decided to try not to react emotionally or to even ruminate on the issues. I was going to read them once and then put the book down and set my mind to other things. It didn't happen like that and I should have known better. Damn it felt good to be able to read about everything that Rand had ever written about every subject. But wait! I hadn't read everything. I noticed that all of these excerpts found inside of the Lexicon had come from other sources. Roughly half of the sources seemed to come from other non-fiction works by Rand (or others) and roughly half of them came from fiction works by Rand. My feeling of success was premature. While not as terrifying as the abortion and atheism issues, the notion that many of the original sources for these excerpts were to be found in fiction works were unsettling to me -- I hadn't read fiction in almost 20 years. I have an aversion to fiction which I do not totally understand. At any rate, I picked up every non-fiction work I could find at the bookstores, and devoured them just like the Lexicon. I found a forum (here) where I could converse and grow along with fellow fans of Ayn Rand and Objectivism. I obtained DVDs of The Fountainhead (1949), Ayn Rand: A sense of life (1997), and The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999). I thoroughly enjoyed all of these, but I couldn't bring myself to read Rand's fiction -- often said to be her greatest offerings to mankind. In February of 2007 (age 38), I knew someone who was not about to let me continue to avoid reading Rand's fiction indefinitely. I had the privilege of having had The Fountainhead read to me (like an audio book). I survived the ordeal. It was a source of enjoyment. I had already seen the movie by then, but the book was more rich and fulfilling. For some reason, I think I enjoyed the order of seeing the movie before reading the book. This is, to my knowledge, not normal. I have not ventured into the Ayn Rand fiction realm, where everyone and his brother has assured me there is metaphorical gold to find, since that time. Now (age 42), under minimal duress and a hint of kicking and screaming, I am about to purchase and read a novel on my very own: Anthem. It will be the first time I attempt this kind of a feat on my own (without someone to read it to me), in over 20 years. Wish me luck ... :-)
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