William O

I know it's much later but I just saw this topic, so idk if OP will see this reply. As a self-employed plumber, I can say that I in no way feel "less important" than a CEO of a large scale company. I would say that I resonate deeper with Hank Rearden than I do with Eddie Willers.
 
This is because I don't equate my success with how much my business grosses each year, or how much I "contribute to society".  I find great pride in my personal success and growth in itself, in relation to nothing at all. I have achieved great success through skill, dedication, and even character (A friendly, positive, and honest personality). My identifying with Rearden as opposed to Willers has nothing to do with Bank statements, it's all about viewpoint. I find pride in my ability and I know I do my job with 100% dedication. That's where the philosophy comes in. Its really not so much, what you do, but how you do it, and how you view it. I can't quote, but I recall Ayn Rand saying something to the effect of: even someone who just files papers for a living needs to use their brain and can find pride in it.
 
Would someone who handles millions of dollars a day consider my life and profession as "important" as theirs? I don't know... Should I care?

I'm listening to a lecture course about the history of American philosophy, and according to one of the lectures Hegel's philosophy came to the United States in part by means of theology. Theology students would often travel to Europe and bring back the philosophical and theological ideas that were current there. One of the first major Hegelian works in the United States was by a theologian who was trying to show how God had allowed history to develop through the thesis - antithesis - synthesis pattern Hegel described.
Theology has had a pretty big impact on intellectual life in the United States in general, not just in this case. The most important American philosopher of the 18th century was Jonathan Edwards, a theologian who wrote a treatise defending compatibilism about free will.
Also, from The Ominous Parallels, p. 119:
"During the nineteenth century it became a trend and then the rule for American students, especially in philosophy and theology, to spend a year or more in Germany absorbing the latest German culture. An army of American students absorbed it. They came home, and they repeated what they had learned. They repeated it throughout the country that had been founded on the ideals of an enlightened mind and man's inalienable rights."
So, yes, philosophy and theology students, but prior to the second World War when people started immigrating from Germany to escape the collectivism.

David Myers is a psychologist and the author of a very widely used introductory psychology textbook. He has written a book on how to become happy called The Pursuit of Happiness which provides concrete advice about how to become happy based on hundreds of empirical studies. In this post, I will summarize the chapter in that book dealing with fulfilling work and provide some integration of his points with Objectivist principles and values.
To begin with, Myers notes that people who are unemployed demonstrate remarkably lower low being than people who have jobs. Even people who have mundane jobs are happier than people who don't have any job at all. However, it is better to have fulfilling work, and it is even better to work in an environment with supportive people. The psychological effects of fulfilling or unfulfilling work are especially pronounced in single people, who don't have a home life to counterbalance the positive or negative effects of their work life.
This is consistent with the Objectivist view that morality requires productivity. Productivity contributes to our self esteem, which contributes to our overall well being. People who don't work don't experience themselves as productive, and therefore have lower self esteem and overall well being than people who work.
Myers identifies three benefits that work can provide to one's psychological well being: a sense of identity, community, and purpose. Work can provide a sense of identity because it enables us to say that we are worthwhile as a person, because we contribute to society in a specific role. Work can provide a sense of community if we work with other people who are supportive of us. And work can add purpose to our lives by giving us a worthwhile central purpose in life. People who experience a sense of identity, community, and purpose in their work almost always say that they would continue to work even if they inherited a large fortune. Myers also says that work can provide a sense of personal control if we are in a position where we have some control over our hours and goals and are allowed some input into decisions.
These are pretty clearly important benefits from an Objectivist perspective. An Objectivist gets a sense of identity from his work because productive work is a central value to him. A sense of community is also a legitimate benefit from an Objectivist point of view, because it is legitimate to want to have one's work valued by other people and achieve the psychological visibility that comes from working on a team toward a shared goal. And purpose is a central Objectivist value, so much so that Rand enshrined it in her slogan "reason, purpose, self esteem."
Myers next explains an important psychological concept relevant to fulfilling work called flow. According to Myers, when our skills are too low or we don't have enough time to meet our challenges, we feel stressed and anxious. When our skills are too high for our challenges, we feel boredom. Between these states is a state called flow, where we perceive ourselves as having high skills and meeting high challenges that match our skills. When we are in flow, we are completely absorbed in the task at hand, and time passes without our noticing. Flow has been studied in a variety of different groups of people across the world, and psychologists have found that people who spend a lot of time in flow, meeting a series of successively more demanding challenges as their skills improve, develop higher self esteem.
Flow is obviously relevant to the Objectivist ethics. For one thing, it provides confirmation of Rand's concept of "reason, purpose, self esteem," where rising self esteem causes and is caused by a series of increasingly demanding purposes. It is also relevant to Rand's view that people should be ambitious and continually expand their skill set and knowledge.
So, to summarize:
People who don't work have lower well being than people who work, and people who have fulfilling work are happier still. The main psychological benefits that we can get out of work are a sense of identity, community, purpose, and personal control. It is important to spend as much of our work time in flow as possible. The whole chapter is basically an extended presentation of evidence for the central tenet of the Objectivist ethics, "reason, purpose, self esteem."
I hope you found this post useful, and I look forward to your thoughtful comments.

David Myers is a psychologist and the author of a very widely used introductory psychology textbook. He has written a book on how to become happy called The Pursuit of Happiness which provides concrete advice about how to become happy based on hundreds of empirical studies. In this post, I will summarize the chapter in that book dealing with fulfilling work and provide some integration of his points with Objectivist principles and values.
To begin with, Myers notes that people who are unemployed demonstrate remarkably lower low being than people who have jobs. Even people who have mundane jobs are happier than people who don't have any job at all. However, it is better to have fulfilling work, and it is even better to work in an environment with supportive people. The psychological effects of fulfilling or unfulfilling work are especially pronounced in single people, who don't have a home life to counterbalance the positive or negative effects of their work life.
This is consistent with the Objectivist view that morality requires productivity. Productivity contributes to our self esteem, which contributes to our overall well being. People who don't work don't experience themselves as productive, and therefore have lower self esteem and overall well being than people who work.
Myers identifies three benefits that work can provide to one's psychological well being: a sense of identity, community, and purpose. Work can provide a sense of identity because it enables us to say that we are worthwhile as a person, because we contribute to society in a specific role. Work can provide a sense of community if we work with other people who are supportive of us. And work can add purpose to our lives by giving us a worthwhile central purpose in life. People who experience a sense of identity, community, and purpose in their work almost always say that they would continue to work even if they inherited a large fortune. Myers also says that work can provide a sense of personal control if we are in a position where we have some control over our hours and goals and are allowed some input into decisions.
These are pretty clearly important benefits from an Objectivist perspective. An Objectivist gets a sense of identity from his work because productive work is a central value to him. A sense of community is also a legitimate benefit from an Objectivist point of view, because it is legitimate to want to have one's work valued by other people and achieve the psychological visibility that comes from working on a team toward a shared goal. And purpose is a central Objectivist value, so much so that Rand enshrined it in her slogan "reason, purpose, self esteem."
Myers next explains an important psychological concept relevant to fulfilling work called flow. According to Myers, when our skills are too low or we don't have enough time to meet our challenges, we feel stressed and anxious. When our skills are too high for our challenges, we feel boredom. Between these states is a state called flow, where we perceive ourselves as having high skills and meeting high challenges that match our skills. When we are in flow, we are completely absorbed in the task at hand, and time passes without our noticing. Flow has been studied in a variety of different groups of people across the world, and psychologists have found that people who spend a lot of time in flow, meeting a series of successively more demanding challenges as their skills improve, develop higher self esteem.
Flow is obviously relevant to the Objectivist ethics. For one thing, it provides confirmation of Rand's concept of "reason, purpose, self esteem," where rising self esteem causes and is caused by a series of increasingly demanding purposes. It is also relevant to Rand's view that people should be ambitious and continually expand their skill set and knowledge.
So, to summarize:
People who don't work have lower well being than people who work, and people who have fulfilling work are happier still. The main psychological benefits that we can get out of work are a sense of identity, community, purpose, and personal control. It is important to spend as much of our work time in flow as possible. The whole chapter is basically an extended presentation of evidence for the central tenet of the Objectivist ethics, "reason, purpose, self esteem."
I hope you found this post useful, and I look forward to your thoughtful comments.

Here are some things I've noticed.  Where applicable, I have mentioned relevant philosophical works in the Objectivist literature. Can you think of something else that concepts do for scientists?
 
Investigation of a universal to be explained depends on a concept of that universal. Consider "heat". Without a concept of heat, it would not have been possible to investigate its referents. One cannot investigate without first mentally isolating something that can be investigated. One cannot hope to explain something without first mentally isolating what is to be explained.

What exists is classified as a particular instance of a universal on the basis of conceptual identification. For example, when one classifies something as "hot", the mind subsumes an aspect of a perceptual concrete under the concept of heat. In order to explain heat as an effect, scientists had to discover what it is to be heat. Since the concept of heat is an abstraction from abstractions, it was necessary to examine instances of heat.  The process of conceptual identification is clarified by Harry Binswanger in Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation.

The process of discovery is guided by other concepts besides the concept of the universal investigated. Scientists had to apply numerous concepts to factual data about the instances of heat: the concept of concentration, the concept of confining and enclosing, the concept of friction, the concept of chemical reaction, the methodological concept of comparative measurement, the concept of rarity of gas, the concept of motion, the concept of tendency, the concept of surface, the concept of particle, etc. 

The validity of an investigation depends in part on the validity of the concepts used throughout the process. Every concept applied during the course of a scientific investigation must be a valid concept. And every identification depends on correctly isolating a characteristic of the subject from all the other characteristics of that subject. A study of the history of the investigation of heat will reveal how an invalid concept can interfere with causal understanding and produce erroneous theories (e.g. phlogiston, which David Harriman mentions in Logical Leap).

Valid concepts enable the application of antecedent knowledge.
The concept of friction can be hierarchically reduced to earlier knowledge of motion and surface impediments to motion. The concept of motion, the concept of surface, and the concept of impediment were abstracted from entities. Thus it is perfectly valid to pursue the discovery of constituents and their interactions.  The concept of chemical reaction can be hierarchically reduced to the knowledge of combinations of pure substances and the concept of change. Concepts of substances were formed by distinguishing entities according to constituents. Thus it is perfectly valid to pursue the discovery of the constituents of chemical substances. The methodological concept of experimental confinement can be traced back to the knowledge that man is not omniscient and to the concept of causality. This methodological concept can be activated to carefully exclude irrelevant, interfering factors. Leonard Peikoff and Harry Binswanger have tips on performing hierarchical reduction scattered throughout their lectures and books.

Some instances of a universal can be used to demonstrate propositions applicable to more than one instance. Consider the expansion of liquid mercury and liquid alcohol when heated by fire. This demonstrates that the expansion of liquids quantifies the net effect of the behaviour of their constituents. Consider the fact that metal heated by the fire can produce the same amount of expansion. Consider the fact that a metal bar can be expanded by fire. Consider the fact that a metal bar is shorter in the coldest part of winter than in the hottest part of summer. Therefore we make measurements in reference to the net effect of the behaviour of the constituents.

Concepts of characteristics provide a context for identifying the fundamental characteristic. After you have identified a number of characteristics distinguishing the universal of inductive interest, you can determine which characteristic of the concept's units is the characteristic that causes or explains the most others known. The designation of the fundamental can be altered with the growth of human knowledge. It took centuries of discovery to proceed from the aspect of motion of particles to the more fundamental aspect known as the energy of the particles. Ayn Rand discusses the contextual nature of definitions in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, chapter 5. Definitions, pg. 43-45 of the English 2nd edition

Definitely don't give up on trying to make friends and socialize. Even if you don't find anyone you particularly like, it's important to develop and practice good social skills as a teenager. I am not advocating conformity or giving up on your principles, just acknowledging the practical reality that you are going to have to get along with a variety of different types of people in your professional life and you need to start practicing now.
For example, when your office manager is trying to decide who to give a promotion to, he is more likely to promote you if you can demonstrate that you can get along with people easily, because that will make you a more effective leader. It's not just about making friends and being popular in high school, being able to get along with people is a marketable skill, just like learning to program or balance a check book.

I think the OP is just trying to sort out some ideas he got from Nietzsche, so there's no reason to assume he would resist requests to clarify his position.

Eioul, I think a good way to proceed would be to try to identify the most fundamental point at which you disagree with Objectivism. Objectivism is a hierarchy, so we should be able to draw a line and say "we agree about everything before this point, but beyond this point we diverge."
You presumably agree with the Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology, or at least you haven't explicitly objected to either of them. You have also said that you agree that life is the standard, which means you accept Rand's solution of the is-ought problem.
So, the next step is the virtues. Do you disagree with Rand's account of the virtues, or is that common ground as well?

The Convert Series: Leah Libresco
The Toast is doing a series on individuals who have converted from one religion to another or even from atheism to religion as the linked story ties to. One of the books Leah happened to read was Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. On this, the article cites:
[It] was one I preordered, looking for contemporary atheist writers who would make moral realist arguments like Lewis, without the “and then God!” coda.  I was looking for a book I could offer back for my side, while people offered me apologetics, and this was a total disappointment. The focus is on subjective happiness, looking forward to the days when we can use brain-scans to check what makes us happy, which was way too much trust in ourselves for my taste. Being good might make us happy, but pleasure/pain was too crude a way to check on what was good.
I haven't finished his book yet, but reading that last sentence of Leah's evaluation reminded me of Rand's comparison between pleasure and pain to the body's welfare or injury contrasted with joy and suffering as emotional estimates of a similar nature. Harris has not introduced Man's Life as the standard, and instead deals with what he has been developing, so far as I've read, for what contributes to the "well-being" of human beings.
In Rand's Journals while writing Atlas Shrugged, she observed that the materialist, protesting the mystical morality and advocating no morality in its place, tended to drive people back to church, recognizing that they some form of morality to exist. It would appear some are not looking for subjective happiness either, or the reliance on the collective (such as others using brain-scans) to determine what makes us happy.
Here, again, Rand shines through. On this, in her Notes On Writing, October 6, 1949:
If any school of morality considers morality a social, not an individual, matter—i.e., a code for the relation of man to man, and not for man's own conduct in regard to himself—then, of course, it will necessarily be a collectivist [theory] and it will not work.
So far, Mr. Harris has been intent on identifying morality as it applies to humanity, rather than the individual. On this regard, it seems that some folk can sense that something is not quite kosher, that is, seemingly detecting a contradiction while not quite being able to put their finger on it directly.
People are looking for a form of salvation. I don't think it's salvation for a hypothetical eternal soul. It is a salvation from doubts and nagging questions about what existence is all about. It is a search for purpose above and beyond a causality as it appears to apply only to inanimate matter. Unable to see volition as a causal form, the riddle of consciousness, as is Ayn Rand's intertwined approach to morality, is unique. It is an approach that is essentially unimaginable to advocates of a nonobjective view of concepts.

Eiuol:
 
You claim your "position" agrees with Objectivist ethics, but disagrees only with its politics... i.e. that your politics can either be derived from Objectivist ethics or at least is not in contradiction with it.
According to you, what is morality? What is "the standard" of morality, what is the good?
When you "judge" your system (now politics), what is your standard?  How is your standard for judging whether your political system is right or good related to Objectivism's moral and ethical standard?
 
Of central importance to Objectivism is the principle of non-initiation of harm / individual rights.  It is the principle your system ignores and purposefully so as your system requires the initiation of force/violation of rights.  How do you reconcile the derivation of the non-initiation of harm and individual rights from Objectivist ethics with your system which completely contradicts it, and yet "claims" not to be in conflict with Objectivist ethics?
 
What arguments do you "see" as "possible" when taking such a stance?

Jenni: 
I currently have no friends at all and would love to have people in my life (my real, physical, real-world life) that I can share  and discuss my values (objectivism and capitalism) with. What can I do to find such friends in real life? I live on the east side of Indianapolis.
Closely related: I have been studying economics on my own and have been thinking I should major in it since I enjoy learning about it so much and it might put me in touch with other pro-capitalist people. On the other hand, given the schools that dominate the econ departments today, I'm thinking it might be a mistake to do that.  --Chris
These aren't really philosophical questions per se, so the only real way to go about answering them is to use my own past experience with life.  So the answers are probably going to seem a bit unscientific.

In essence, the answer to the first question is that if you want to meet people, you need to go where the people are.  I don't mean move--I live in Ohio myself, and I know for a fact that there are a fair number of Objectivists and/or fellow travelers in the local area.  Some I've even met via this forum.  There usually aren't enough in a small geographical area to form an actual "club", and for friendship it's really not enough that you both be interested in Objectivism or Capitalism, odd as that may sound.  Friendships generally form around a shared interest in DOING things, not just talking about them.  So you need to go to where people are doing things together.  This has the added benefit that if you don't hit it off with anyone particularly well, hey, at least you got to enjoy the activity.  Almost every group of people that is enthusiastic about an activity is looking for more people to join them, so it's pretty easy to find the equivalent of a "beginner's class" for just about anything, if you just look.
While it's great to have people around who agree with you on politics and philosophy, I think you'll find that for genuine friendship and companionship this isn't really all that necessary (or sufficient, for that matter).  I actually know plenty of people that I agree very strongly with on many issues, yet I cannot STAND them, personally.  I know many people that I disagree with on a large number of issues, but we're quite close.  And every possible degree of shading in between.  I've found in my own life that it's not so much specific shared values that drive the closeness of a relationship (although that's usually how the relationship gets started and how you maintain it, by sharing activities), but a similar APPROACH to those values.  Pretty much all the things that get lumped under the vague heading of "personality" or "sense of life".  So, really, that's it--you'll have more success with meeting people if you . . . go out and meet people.  Yeah, it's a tautology.  But it really does work.

As for your economics studies . . . I am going to give you what is probably going to sound like completely insane advice.  It is not the advice that pretty much anyone else will give you regarding college, but this is based on some HORRIBLE experiences of my own and those of many of my friends, so LISTEN UP.

DO NOT pick your major in college based on what you enjoy learning/reading about.  If you don't have a particular educational goal in mind re: college, DON'T GO AT ALL.  Get a job, ANY job, instead, and cultivate your JOB SKILLS.  Meet people who are successful in their positions and cultivate your relationship with them.  I don't mean be a suckup.  I mean, talk to them, learn what they know that lets them do what they do, study their personal behavior.  It doesn't hurt to be friendly because they may be able to give you a line on an opportunity or three, but don't depend on that.
Once you have some kind of notion of what you do and don't want to do CAREER-wise, THEN it's time to start looking at educational opportunities, and it's very important to keep in mind that what you are making here is a FINANCIAL INVESTMENT.  You are looking to get value out of this, and most college courses are INSANELY overpriced at present.  Don't disdain vocational training or local community colleges--the value they offer for the amount of money you have to spend is often much, much better than anything else you'll find.  Don't spend more money than you have to and pay cash if you can.  If you can manage to live with your parents or a roommate or otherwise save money on housing and other living expenses, do so.  You're not being a "parasite", you are building your future.  The more money you can save in the beginning, the better off you will be later on.  Borrowing money at this stage in your life is like putting an anchor on a leaky rowboat.  You're not even all that sure you can float your own weight, much less that great heavy mass.

Ultimately my educational advice is that if you're going to be spending money on it, you need to be absolutely as cold-blooded as Midas Mulligan in how you treat the transaction.  Be a total hardass and DEMAND your money's worth, because this stuff is EXPENSIVE.  Aside from a house, a college education is probably the most expensive single thing you'll ever buy in your life (and maybe even MORE expensive than that house, in some cases).  Would you buy a house based on liking the looks of it?  No.  Would you buy a car because it has a nice paint job?  Heck no.  Don't stumble into an educational decision.  And don't listen to the educational advisors who insist that "you can change majors later".  Sure, you can, but remember that their job is to SELL YOU COLLEGE.  Treat them like what they are, salespeople, and question whether you need what they're selling AT ALL.  Then be prepared to walk away from that deal if you aren't sure what you want or aren't getting it.
You will save yourself SO much grief later on in life.  And also, once you're firm in your mind about what you want to get out of college, you will have the motivation you need to sweat it out even if the program is filled with poncy twits.  So, if the thought of poncy twits in your program is worrying you, that's a good sign that it's not something you want to plunge into right now.  You have other options.  College is not some kind of way of putting off adulthood.  It is jumping in head-first without bothering to check how deep the water is.

The thing with depression is that physiological causes are rarely ever the whole story. There is also some amount of one's position in the social world, or some deeper things besides strictly how your brain is working. It's difficult at times to keep up a motivated outlook. Sometimes, physiology makes it more difficult than for other people. Personally for me, there is a mix of all this that leads me to show symptoms of depression.
Objectivism has had an important role for me so that while at times depression is there, it helps me to prevent things like self-hate, or beating myself up as a bad person. I don't feel that, and I attribute it to a few principles of Objectivism. Some Nietzsche, too, but my opinion on him is complex.
1) Benevolent Universe Premise
No, this doesn't mean the universe "wants" you to be happy. Rather, it's a belief that evil doesn't win out over the good, that is, if one acts justly and acts virtuously, evil cannot last. This isn't to say tragedies don't happen - after all, Rand wrote "We The Living", which is really good at making the point that on a wider scale, the triumph of good is affected by things like respect for individual rights.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/benevolent_universe_premise.html
2) Art fuels one's passions
Rand wrote this, I recommend reading all of The Romantic Manifesto:
"Since a rational man’s ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a lifelong process—and the higher the values, the harder the struggle—he needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved. It is like a moment of rest, a moment to gain fuel to move farther. Art gives him that fuel; the pleasure of contemplating the objectified reality of one’s own sense of life is the pleasure of feeling what it would be like to live in one’s ideal world."
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/art.html
3) Celebrate the good
Perhaps this is obvious, but it is important to see the good in the world and celebrate it. Some people are truly jealous of success, seeing happiness as zero-sum, and think a successful billionaire is inherently bad. This is what Rand pointed to as hating the good for its good qualities. At times, a depressed person may want to wallow and blame others. If you go out of your way to admire the good, you'll have an easier time recognizing that it is possible to achieve your goals by your own efforts. It's a sense of self-responsibility.

I have read Spinoza's main work, the Ethics, and some secondary literature. I am by no means a scholar, though.
I think the main difference between Spinoza and Rand is that Spinoza is a hard determinist and Rand believes in free will. The basis for this difference is how they each interpret the shared premise that everything that exists is necessary. Spinoza interprets this as meaning that everything acts according to strictly deterministic physical and mental laws, whereas Rand thinks that there is room for free will because free will follows from the nature of man.
Spinoza is also a psychological egoist, or at least pretty close to it. He thinks that everything we do is done out of self preservation, which is related to his determinism. Rand would say that we can choose to act out of self denial, like when we evade or act according to false moral premises that we have accepted from the culture. James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged may be a good illustration of the difference, here, because if I recall correctly his basic premise turned out to be nihilism. Spinoza would say that such a person is as impossible as one plus one adding up to three.
Spinoza and Rand agree that the goal of life is happiness, and they would agree that reason is the way to arrive at happiness. Their specific approaches are different, though, because they have different views about human psychology. Spinoza puts more emphasis on scientific and philosophical inquiry, because he thinks that they can help us achieve tranquility by grasping nature as a unified necessary system. Rand's ethics is a bit more action oriented.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in this post, and I appreciate any further thoughts anyone may have.

I have read Spinoza's main work, the Ethics, and some secondary literature. I am by no means a scholar, though.
I think the main difference between Spinoza and Rand is that Spinoza is a hard determinist and Rand believes in free will. The basis for this difference is how they each interpret the shared premise that everything that exists is necessary. Spinoza interprets this as meaning that everything acts according to strictly deterministic physical and mental laws, whereas Rand thinks that there is room for free will because free will follows from the nature of man.
Spinoza is also a psychological egoist, or at least pretty close to it. He thinks that everything we do is done out of self preservation, which is related to his determinism. Rand would say that we can choose to act out of self denial, like when we evade or act according to false moral premises that we have accepted from the culture. James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged may be a good illustration of the difference, here, because if I recall correctly his basic premise turned out to be nihilism. Spinoza would say that such a person is as impossible as one plus one adding up to three.
Spinoza and Rand agree that the goal of life is happiness, and they would agree that reason is the way to arrive at happiness. Their specific approaches are different, though, because they have different views about human psychology. Spinoza puts more emphasis on scientific and philosophical inquiry, because he thinks that they can help us achieve tranquility by grasping nature as a unified necessary system. Rand's ethics is a bit more action oriented.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in this post, and I appreciate any further thoughts anyone may have.

I have read Spinoza's main work, the Ethics, and some secondary literature. I am by no means a scholar, though.
I think the main difference between Spinoza and Rand is that Spinoza is a hard determinist and Rand believes in free will. The basis for this difference is how they each interpret the shared premise that everything that exists is necessary. Spinoza interprets this as meaning that everything acts according to strictly deterministic physical and mental laws, whereas Rand thinks that there is room for free will because free will follows from the nature of man.
Spinoza is also a psychological egoist, or at least pretty close to it. He thinks that everything we do is done out of self preservation, which is related to his determinism. Rand would say that we can choose to act out of self denial, like when we evade or act according to false moral premises that we have accepted from the culture. James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged may be a good illustration of the difference, here, because if I recall correctly his basic premise turned out to be nihilism. Spinoza would say that such a person is as impossible as one plus one adding up to three.
Spinoza and Rand agree that the goal of life is happiness, and they would agree that reason is the way to arrive at happiness. Their specific approaches are different, though, because they have different views about human psychology. Spinoza puts more emphasis on scientific and philosophical inquiry, because he thinks that they can help us achieve tranquility by grasping nature as a unified necessary system. Rand's ethics is a bit more action oriented.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in this post, and I appreciate any further thoughts anyone may have.

When you say that you are not cut out to be an intellectual, keep in mind that Objectivist intellectuals like Yaron Brook have been studying Objectivism seriously for many years with the help of Leonard Peikoff. It's not fair to compare where you are now with where they are now.

You might be on to something. I'm not acquainted with Spinoza, but he gets some brief mentions in the Objectivist literature. Rand somewhere (I can't find the passage) mentions him in passing as one of the great system-builders, along with Plato and Aristotle.
Peikoff's OPAR mentions him twice:
248: Because of the influence of religion, the code of sacrifice has always dominated the field of morality, as far back as historical evidence goes. A handful of Western thinkers did reject this code. The two with the best and fullest ethical systems were Aristotle and Spinoza, each of whom sought in his own way to uphold the value of life, the virtue of rationality and the principle of egoism. But even these rare dissenters were influenced, both in method and content, by Platonic and by subjectivist elements
460:"All things excellent," said Spinoza, "are as difficult as they are rare." Since human values are not automatic, his statement is undeniable.
In 1961, Esquire published a letter from Peikoff in response to Gore Vidal's piece on Rand, mentioning Aristotle and Spinoza as counter-examples to Vidal's assertion that nobody in the history of philosophy had ever presented an ethic of self-interest. He also said that Vidal displayed "an ignorance of the history of philosophy that would be shocking in a college sophomore." The assertion is good evidence for this.
As a onetime philosophy student I would advise you to argue that their systems show similarities in important, principled respects and not to to try to prove that Rand knew Spinoza and was consciously imitating him. According to the biographers, she learned most of the history of philosophy from Peikoff after her theory was in place.
Let us know what you find.

When you say that you are not cut out to be an intellectual, keep in mind that Objectivist intellectuals like Yaron Brook have been studying Objectivism seriously for many years with the help of Leonard Peikoff. It's not fair to compare where you are now with where they are now.

I have read Spinoza's main work, the Ethics, and some secondary literature. I am by no means a scholar, though.
I think the main difference between Spinoza and Rand is that Spinoza is a hard determinist and Rand believes in free will. The basis for this difference is how they each interpret the shared premise that everything that exists is necessary. Spinoza interprets this as meaning that everything acts according to strictly deterministic physical and mental laws, whereas Rand thinks that there is room for free will because free will follows from the nature of man.
Spinoza is also a psychological egoist, or at least pretty close to it. He thinks that everything we do is done out of self preservation, which is related to his determinism. Rand would say that we can choose to act out of self denial, like when we evade or act according to false moral premises that we have accepted from the culture. James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged may be a good illustration of the difference, here, because if I recall correctly his basic premise turned out to be nihilism. Spinoza would say that such a person is as impossible as one plus one adding up to three.
Spinoza and Rand agree that the goal of life is happiness, and they would agree that reason is the way to arrive at happiness. Their specific approaches are different, though, because they have different views about human psychology. Spinoza puts more emphasis on scientific and philosophical inquiry, because he thinks that they can help us achieve tranquility by grasping nature as a unified necessary system. Rand's ethics is a bit more action oriented.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in this post, and I appreciate any further thoughts anyone may have.

The misunderstanding that the OP had about Objectivism has been clarified, so I'm going to add a point that I think more people need to realize about interpreting philosophers correctly: In general, don't trust any claim about what a philosopher believed that you find on the internet, on radio talk shows, etc., unless it is backed up by textual evidence from the philosopher or you know that it is true on independent grounds. If you have the opportunity, then you should also ask the person who made the claim for concrete evidence that that is what the philosopher believed. 
People are way too quick to accept claims about what a philosopher believed given how hard it is to interpret a philosopher correctly, and there are misconceptions in circulation about most philosophers. Usually these are just honest misreadings, but there are also more serious misconceptions about Ayn Rand and other philosophers who said very controversial things, like Nietzsche, that could be malicious.
Here is the rule I use: You know that a philosopher thought X if and only if (1) you have read something they wrote in context and know of specific passages that support the claim that they believed X, or (2) you have read a reputable secondary source and confirmed that the secondary source says that they believed X.

I apologize for that. In my defense, the forums I usually post on aren't Objectivist forums, so saying that someone is acting as a rationalist is not taken as the deadly insult there that it is here. I need to get used to the social norms on this forum.

The misunderstanding that the OP had about Objectivism has been clarified, so I'm going to add a point that I think more people need to realize about interpreting philosophers correctly: In general, don't trust any claim about what a philosopher believed that you find on the internet, on radio talk shows, etc., unless it is backed up by textual evidence from the philosopher or you know that it is true on independent grounds. If you have the opportunity, then you should also ask the person who made the claim for concrete evidence that that is what the philosopher believed. 
People are way too quick to accept claims about what a philosopher believed given how hard it is to interpret a philosopher correctly, and there are misconceptions in circulation about most philosophers. Usually these are just honest misreadings, but there are also more serious misconceptions about Ayn Rand and other philosophers who said very controversial things, like Nietzsche, that could be malicious.
Here is the rule I use: You know that a philosopher thought X if and only if (1) you have read something they wrote in context and know of specific passages that support the claim that they believed X, or (2) you have read a reputable secondary source and confirmed that the secondary source says that they believed X.

Dr. Hurd has several articles he has written over the years with regard to regret as well.
After flipping through a few of them, I ran across The Regret-Filled Mindset which suggests thinking of regrets as unwanted psychological visitors.

Right now, list five areas of your life that you want to improve. Write them down, then write down what concrete goals you want to accomplish in each of these areas in one year and five years. Having specific goals will make you more confident and focused.

Dadmonson,
 It appears the negative emotions you're experiencing are relatively normal for a young man living in his parent's home. Think of the household duties as a form of payment, the sort of payment you will one day have to accept when the day comes that you will be more independent of parents, school, or other obligatory authorities. If you work toward an independent future, a rational future, a future of your own choosing, then no matter the difficulties with emotions, your sense of achievement and pride may overcome your negative emotions. And the non-productive activities (playing video games, etc.) may seem less relevant, maybe ever less enjoyable, if that's possible. One day, you may look back at it all and wonder why it seemed like such a struggle.