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I bolded "only" because I suspect that you use that word (and similar ones) to stop yourself from thinking. It is actually a very powerful word. If you look it up in the dictionary, it means things like "alone in kind or class," "sole," "standing alone by reason of superiority or excellence." So when you say "the only problems" that means you have determined that these problems are all there are to consider. They represent the complete class of problems which need to be solved in order to fix your reasoning. So how would you respond if someone came along and said, no, there are other problems to consider? What if, perhaps, one other problem is that you have stopped thinking about certain things? Why has it become difficult for you to spot your own errors?

People think in many ways and use various techniques. Some rely on words almost purely linguistically and manipulate them like in a game before translating them back into concepts they refer to while others think primarily conceptually and only when they can they will express the thoughts in words. Some rely more or less on abstraction and processing the abstractions and applying them to concretes, while others subconsciously hold the abstractions in the background, dealing with a few concretes which pull along the abstractions to arrive at general conclusions. At one far end of this are floating abstractions and rationalism and at the other concrete boundedness. Some people use deductive and inductive A, B, C, D implies X type structures to think, rigorous use of logic and abstractions, while others inspect a bunch of ideas, and upon reflection and introspection pull something out which feels like the correct conclusion. Many of the above can at times be useful in a process of thought, of getting to the right conclusions eventually, and I have not exhausted all the possibilities. I have encountered some who simply cannot think with rigor in any abstract way. While others cannot see how completely untied their artificial formulations are from reality. My suggestion is to try to identify which of the above and other strategies for thinking you currently use, and try to practice diligently some of the others. If I had to make a more specific suggestion once in a while exercise your thought process more along the lines of mathematics, abstraction, and rigor (give reflection and intuition a rest now and again). It might sound silly, but picking up an LSAT prep book to exercise the grey matter might be the particular work out for you.

My thinking is that it often reflects an insecurity to tell oneself "I'm great" as a form of meditation is going as far as to say emotions may be willed. What I tried to say earlier is that this isn't so good, and I say so from a point of view where I'm in a state where I feel balanced and successful.

I have only been on this board for a couple months, but I find you to be a particularly bright, intelligent individual with a happy sense of life. Whatever you might have been in the past, you have obviously changed for the better. I would recommend reading Dr. Joseph Murphy's "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind." I should warn ahead of time that the book is from a New Age author who was an ordained Jesuit minister, so there are references throughout to the "law of attraction" and miracles... Nevertheless I still recommend the book because Murphy does the best job of any author that I know of describing 1. the nature of the subconscious mind, 2. how to change its contents, and 3. how to harness its power. For only $1 on Kindle, I would consider that money well spent. Also know that "Life is practice." The learning and refinement process never ceases. It is a continual journey and you will gain wisdom along the way, knowledge of what you did wrong and how you could do better in the future. In that sense you are never a "finished product" and should never hope to be so... that would mean that your personal development has come to a stop. I wish you luck on your continued journey--and know that you will not be alone. I too am constantly refining my reasoning process, and my psycho-epistemology... I think Huey Lewis put it best... "All I wish for tomorrow, is to get it better than today."

Quite honestly I didn't believe you when I read that she rarely smiled. The glint in her eyes when she sets the stage for a profound abstraction is so poignant to me, I never questioned the joy I felt I shared with her in those moments. For some reason this makes me think of the opposite feeling I had when watching a video of a diplomat saying some horrifyingly nasty things while a smile was plastered on his face and his head was nodding up and down.

Love Caravan Palace! Over the Hills is definitely a good one, but my favorite Nightwish song is this: Nightwish - "Planet Hell"

This is a breathtaking post. I've been struggling with how to respond to it appropriately, because I think that there is something in its self-reflective honesty and genuineness that should be more applauded than questioned or argued with. I think the sum of it argues for the great value of truth, even while proclaiming that there are truths which are a disvalue (or a single one), and if this is where Objectivist dialogue were headed -- with greater introspection, discussion and reporting of inner struggle (even, or especially, when it fails to present us as faultless paragons of reason) -- I believe that the community would benefit, as a whole, and each of us individually. As to the specific suggestion of Objectivist Deism, I don't know that I would be critical of the adoption of the single belief in an afterlife, as such -- if I thought it could be accomplished without doing greater overall damage to one's beliefs. Because it seems to me that the single belief will need something like a support structure, if it is truly to be integrated (such that one could say, in anything like an "honest" manner, "I believe this"). Though I believe myself capable of evasion (as humans are, of their nature), I don't believe myself capable of willing myself to a particular evasion; or if I'm capable of that, I don't know how to achieve it, and again, I don't know how I could achieve it in reality without doing greater damage overall to my capacity to think in an honest manner. Otherwise, it occurs to me that the atheist's longing for an afterlife, or other form of immorality, is sometimes addressed by "scientific" fantasies (to some greater or lesser extent), such as To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, or a terrific episode of Black Mirror (which shall remain nameless out of fear of spoiling the reader; and go watch Black Mirror, if you haven't already done). Personally, when I refer to myself as an atheist, I continue to mean what I did before reading Rand -- which is that I hold no proof for any sort of divinity or afterlife or etc., and consequently no belief in any such thing. I draw a distinction between this and holding proof positive that such things cannot exist; and while I have ruled out the "supernatural" as a category, there are any number of things which would be naturally plausible (if arbitrary for me to suppose, at present) which could serve nearly any function of what we typically expect out of such entities, including the creation of an "afterlife." If I were to be one day "resurrected" into some highly advanced alien's world, I should count myself surprised... but not for too long. And yet, I must report that my current happiness does not seem to depend upon such admittedly remote possibilities. I was never taught to dread death by my parents, thankfully, and it isn't the dread of death which motivates me now. There are some things which I consider to be "worse than death," and this includes living a life rendered sub-par through the dread of death, and some of the subsidiary effects you've mentioned (aversion to risk, etc). In some respects, the truth about death -- insofar as I can understand it -- has led me to want to embrace not just survival, not just life, but a "human life," with all that entails (including the fact of death; and in this context, it occurs to me to recommend Neil Gaiman's Sandman series). I have no plans to resent my condition when I'm 80 or 90 (and the nano-tech to keep me going indefinitely has not yet been approved by the FDA, lol). Rather, I expect to be buoyed by my memories of a life well lived, and the knowledge that I did the best that I could, given the circumstances I was in. When I die, I don't want to have "lost" in some struggle, in my final moments, but I hope to be able to view it (honestly) as a kind of summation. I wish to die well (and I do not hold this to be a contradiction). Sometimes I think that the Objectivist Ethics can lead one to see everything in terms of a progression: we accomplish A so that we may accomplish B, and B so that we may accomplish C, and so forth. Given that this ends in death -- in "zero" -- there is the danger for this recognition to retroactively rob every previous step along the way of its meaning. But the meaning is not to be found in the end. Insofar as "meaning" exists, it is in the moments along the way. And when I stress the role of "pleasure" in life, it is this: that a life is not merely a destination (always in the distance, always fleeting, and finally, suddenly over), but it is the sum total of the moments along the way. My living happily right now is value. That one day I will cease to be, and I will have no memory of this moment (that there will be no "I" at all to remember) does not change the meaning and the value of this singular moment. That it existed is enough, is everything.

Yes. And you're right; death isn't inherently good or bad - when considered in complete isolation. However, as far as alternatives go, death is always worse than the continuation of life.