Jill

Isn't Atlas Shrugged propaganda for Objectivism?

Could you please provide the source where Ayn Rand says this?

http://www.doctorhurd.com/index.php/Daily-...-attitudes.html Can't the second attitude often lead people to strive for what is not possible for them? It's not realistic for everyone to be a great singer, for instance.

I made a commitment to resolve this although I feel otherwise. I'm not sure about seeing a doctor for medication, though. Thank you all.

Great Aunt.

I'm not interested in little things.

There's many things I think it would be cool to do, but I know I can't.

The things that have meaning to me are not possible anymore, so how is happiness possible?

That's not what I meant. I meant that my mind was at its best then. I don't have the same capacities anymore. My life and what I am to this world just doesn't interest me. I don't think anything can help at this point.

Thanks everyone for your posts. Nick, I have read Atlas as you recommended. I liked it very much, it's a very original and well written story. I learned a lot from it, but it didn't inspire me as I hoped. Thomas, your post was very informative. I have a question for you: what can a professional psychotherapist do for a person that a person cannot do for himself? The core reason for my depression is having to live as the common person I am. I'm not an original, or a prime mover as Rand would say. Whatever potential I had was reached in my childhood and it was nothing of relevance to anyone but myself. Can one really say there isn't a higher purpose than oneself? Is there really a way to truly live for oneself? Wouldn't it require a form of self-denial? Whatever a person does, no matter how selfishly, is ultimately for the world, because the world outlives the person. Doesn't that make the person a tool for a higher purpose? The world is in a constant process of knowledge growth and it outlives individual minds. It seems to me that either you love life above you or you cannot stand it.

Was it right of Vincent to use Jerome? Is it really a voluntary trade situation when one person is self-destructive?

Hello everyone, Of late, I grew interested in Ayn Rand's philosophy. I have read the Virtue of Selfishness, which I liked. I also started reading The Fountainhead but I haven't gone far yet. Today, I was browsing the Ayn Rand Lexicon website, when a couple questions came to mind: Can rationality alone cure suicidal depression? If so, what steps would it take for one to commit oneself fully to reason, when one is in a perpetual state of suffering? Thanks in advance for your replies.