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Career Guidance and A Sense Of Life

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A bit about myself. I am a 16 year old Chinese student from Singapore. I am not sure at what age do the teenagers in your respective countries graduate from high school, but this is the year I am. As you might guess, I am at something of a crossroads of my life, and I recently discovered objectivism, and I was glad I did.

A Sense Of Life

For quite a while, the past three years or so, I have been struggling with a sense of guilt, or rather, an undefined fear that I am unable to put my finger on. I still cannot truly grasp the nature of that fear. This might sound completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is the question of my prospective career, but allow me to continue.

Ayn Rand's writings have resulted in a significant change in thinking, that I am sure most, if not all of you experienced on first contact with her ideas. My only regret is that I did not discover her ideas 3 years earlier, when it might have made a larger difference.

You see, I have been entertaining thoughts of this nature for the past three years : That I am fundamentally flawed in some manner.

Of course, back then the thought of it was incoherent, and I did wrestle with it, some part of me recoiling at that thought, and what it meant by implication. I had mood swings, black moods descending out of nowhere in an instant, at some trigger, a senseless act I read on the news, the irrationality of other people, etc. Even then, I had a respect for the rational, or rather, ''the things that made sense'' or are self evident. In fact, I took personal pride in my own perceived rationality above others, though now I realise how much I have to learn about reason and its applications.

I understand completely if you are thinking that I was suffering( and still am) from depression, though I hesitate to call it such, despite having been diagnosed as such before(After several outbreaks of violence, none of which I am proud of, in any way.). After all, I am not certain what constitutes depression and I am generally mistrustful of doctors of the mind in general as they would have everything to gain and nothing to lose with that diagnosis (I would have to come back for therapy and medication).

This is just background information, and I apologise if I bored you, but I see it as essential in order to appreciate my situation.

(Continued) I have questioned relentlessly on questions I thought fundamentally and vitally important to me in the past three years. I am not certain if this ''awakening'' of the consciousness is unique to me, or to all the teenagers in the world, but though I used to revel in the knowledge that I am somehow ''different' by virtue of the thoughts I hold, it used to cause me pain as well, back then, when I tried, and failed to find satisfactory answers to those questions. Some of them are ''What is the meaning of life?'' ( I know how Ayn Rand hated this question. She states that it is self-evident in the fountainhead) ''What is the ideal life?/What should a man be?, ''What is happiness, and how does one achieve it, and when one does, does he place it above all other areas of consideration?'', and so forth. You probably get the drift, by now. My parents, my teachers, and god forbid, my friends, have served only to muddle, to distort, or even sometimes, to try to comfort me in the knowledge that they don't know the answers, that, maybe, there isn't a way to truly know the answers, and that the best thing to do would be probably just to live life as it is.

The worse criticism was probably from my parents: ''Why do you have to be like this?'' ''Why can't you simply just be like other kids, and get good grades, and be happy?'' And even sometimes, I received attacks on my intelligence. On Chinese New Year (an annual gathering with distant and near relatives) My father even once mockingly said loudly to all present, whilst pointing towards my cousins (some of whom are incredibly successful students). ''There are your cousins, why don't you go ask them all your useless questions?'' That incident, though it took place many months ago, still stings. I remember the humiliation, and the shame, as though I was a bright student, I was vastly overshadowed by my cousins, and academic achievement, in my country, and especially among those of my culture, is held to be a hallmark, a sign of future success, of doing honor to one self and one's family. I had no way of venturing any form of dignified response then, without appearing to be a pretentious upstart, out of place, and insignificant. As probably was what my father intended to achieve - ridiculing me. I knew my parents could not offer me any answers. They were not inclined to consider those questions and often had stock answers to give me, quick responses for every kind of situation, some of them blatantly contradicting. ''never trust anyone'' says my mother, one of her more favourite quips. And on other occasions, she calls me selfish, for my moodiness, my questioning. I understand that I am probably to blame for some of those criticisms directed at me.

However, the evasions, the stock answers and the direct insults to my intelligence, are unforgivable. ''You'll grow up.'' ''The reason why you are so ungrateful to question such stuff is because you've never suffered.'' I feel as if they are bludgeoning me with a club that they, with greater age and experience, whatever that counts for (notice how we have to respect age in most cases, as if it confers some unseen dignity or clarity of insight to a person by virtue of being older, or having more wrinkles), have the privilege of wielding. I don't want this to be a whine against life in general, though it probably seems like it by now to you, reader. I am not as bitter as I sound while typing this, nor am I wrecked with teenage angst, I am just vaguely reflective. To be frank with all, I do not know for certain, why I posted here looking for answers, except that I have a tremendous respect for Ayn Rand's philosophy, and seeing as she founded the objectivist movement, you guys can't be that bad.^^

After discovering Ayn Rand's philosophy, I felt spurts of inspiration and moment of truth. Brief glimpses of ''Ah! That's how it is! I agree, and I am so glad that I've found you, you who sees the world as I do and understand what I am feeling!'' which only truly insightful and poignantly beautiful art can induce in me. Most of you would understand what I mean. I have always felt the urge, the need to give shape to something by my life, to state boldly that ''But for me, that thing wouldn't exist. But for me, that would not have occurred. I am the source of conscious, directed change''. '' I have devoted my life to a purpose. That purpose is me''

And now, to the first main issue.

I feel...I know that thought precedes emotion in most cases, but in my case, the emotions are rather overwhelming.

I feel...crippled in some sense. I know of what Ayn Rand meant by a sense of life, of how it works subconsciously when a human is too young to rationally integrate concepts. But I fear in my case (oh how I wish that it might not be so!) that the damage to my sense of is beyond repair. I feel spurts of inspiration and moments of truth, I have said, but yet in most of my waking moments, I am deprived of that sense of joy that seems to pervade Ayn Rand's heroes. My respect for Objectivism lies in the fact that it is ''What can be, and what should be'', that the ideals are achievable, that it is not impossible to be both practical and idealistic, and the union of those two principles is undiluted happiness.

But I can't. The happiness, the joy, so clear, so bright to me in some moments, are lost in others. I feel like I am grasping at phantoms and ghosts. I want the happiness, and I want the certainty. I feel crippled. Betrayed, in some way. Crippled in that all the subconscious junk I have absorbed is too much for me, and betrayed in that it need not have to be so, that it could have been different, that I wish...I wish that someone had told me all these before when i was younger, so I would never know the fear that Ayn Rand describes so well ( The fear of life, of the irrational in life, that nothing makes sense and nothing will, because you cannot know for sure). The fear that made me turn to existentialism for answers once, when it sounded to promising, only to realise that it merely reinforced what I thought then about the human condition, but offered no remedy, no solution. It's back, and I don't know how to fight it. Many times in my life, I have felt this, this black wave of despair collapse on me. Many times, even before I discovered Ayn Rand, I had felt moments when it lifted, when I told myself, ''Alright, this is it, you'll never let yourself be eroded by that blasted thing again.'' Needless to say, I have failed in that promise, time and time again. The thing about it is that it's a despair that creeps up on you. That begins with a feeling of vague discontent, which triggers the thoughts, which increase the discontent etc, until all is left is an avalanche of negativity, of twisted, raped illogic that I consciously acknowledge as such, but am unable to deny. Is my sense of life too deeply ingrained in me? I don't feel I deserve, in fact, I don't feel anyone deserves this. I am not consciously trying to sound pitiful. I see no value in being sad, unlike many of my peers, I do not think there is anything romantic about being a tragically melancholy person.

Share your experiences with me, maybe offer some advice. I am prepared to wrestle with this for the rest of my life, no way in hell will I commit suicide or self destruct, but please, if you have anything at all to say that can help me. Please do.

Crossroads

I stated earlier that I am at a crossroads of my life. Well, I still am, at the point of writing this post. ^^ Though most would tell me not to worry about it, that I still have my time in college to think it over, this question of what I am going to do for the rest of my life bothers me, as my decision in this would determine my present actions.

For the purpose of keeping this simple, there are two viable career paths, they differ in that one is a radical step away from the accepted norm within my culture, unlike the other.

One is the pursuit of something which I have a passion for (which has in some ways, been corrupted by my sense of life as well): Music.

I love music, and I know I can do something with it with the appropriate hard work, discipline and persistence. I play the drums, and I aren't bad at it at all. I like what music represents, speaking in a language of the senses, a musician being a person who perfects something of a third language. A musician's skill reflects his ability of self expression, and a perfect, ideal musician is a medium, a conduit, for his thoughts, his feelings, his sense of life.

However this would represent a break in tradition, I am not going to attempt to be modest by saying I'm a fairly good student. I am a brilliant student, and I know it. My cousins may overshadow me in this respect but it's not through an overabundance of talent on their part. I can match them, To accept music, which most regard as a dead end career as it conjures up images (at least in the minds of most people I know) of starvation, of constant struggling and of life in relative ignominy, would be, to my parents, a betrayal, of all the money and time and effort they spent on raising me. And I can't deny that. I feel I owe them something in return, and this is a source of conflict for me.

The other path should be known to all. The ''right'' track. Getting a good job, with definite prospects, and (what else!) making it big, getting rich, having...whatever it is you do with your money. Contentment and general happiness follows, along with the right to say at the end of your life that you've lived it well. Oh, don't forget the lovely, pretty wife and a few kids as well, hopefully all on their way to becoming a success, just like their old man. It isn't that bad, actually, and I hope I don't come across as cynical. That was just a reaction to the general opinion of people's view on life ''as it should be lived''. I know most people are not mindless drones in their work. It means something to them, and that is how it should be. And this course is not entirely without merit either. I could (possibly) find fulfillment in this path. However, I fear being disillusioned as times goes by, and of regretting. I have a certain revulsion towards such a life that I can't coherently express. That my life, might have no significance whatsoever, that I might be part of the status quo. Here is when I start losing my train of thought. Pardon me if my statements here lack particular clarity. I am fully aware that my state of mind is not optimal at the moment. Hah, optimal. Always wanted to use that word.

I know none of you are obliged to offer me any advice. Some of you might even sneer at this display of teenage ignorance and think that I am struggling with childish concerns you have long outgrown. I do not blame you. Perhaps you have outgrown me, I cannot judge you, for you have offered me nothing to judge, while I have...well, I have sort of confessed alot here, haven't I? :o

So.....there's that. All of you are lovely people, and I love you all.

Whimsical whimsical whimsical

The other path is probably what most would consider the safest bet to a good life. What do you think?

Edited by Xavier Koh Yan Hui
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Hey,

you're really writing pretty impressive stuff considering your age.

I'm sorry I haven't had the time yet to look closely at everything you wrote.

So for now, I would have some suggestions:

Always make a comparision. Look closely at all the possibilities, the alternatives you can choose from right now. Try to put the best one of them into some form of image. Paint it, or if you have any idols representing your goals, get their pictures, put them somewhere where you can see them all day long.

Write down your goals on a piece of paper, a goal card, carry it with you every day and read it as often as possible. It might sound corny, but you really need to do it. It DOES make a difference. You must train your subconscience to know what to do all the time. You must keep your goals on your mind all the time. The fact that your environment can drive you into different directions does not mean that it's because you don't know what you want. It's because you havent programmed your subconscious to take and stay on the course to where you once saw you wanna go. The process of realizing what's best for your life does not occur by looking at what looks good and worth following around you. It occurs by COMPARING all the possible "around-you's" you've collected so far, including the ones one could think of by combining elements of what you have perceived. Once you've seen what's best, the next step would be to create ways of programming the goals involved into your consciousness, using the means mentioned above besides others.

This has helped me to achieve things in different fields and I believe it will help you, too.

I frequently have a look at the mr. olympia pages, and articles about different bodybuilders. I'm not going to be a bodybuilder, but I'm trying to do quite some bodybuilding on myself. And even if I know I'm never gonna be like Schwarzenegger, I always pretend like I'm getting there. I prefer to set goals that I can never achieve, but always approach and get closer to. If you don't aim at the top, you might not even land in the middle sometimes. And let's be honest, it's much more enjoyable "making yourself a Schwarzenegger" than just "giving yourself some clear muscle definition". I especially enjoy working on my goals after watching some good movies with characters who have achieved them.

I hope this helps keeping you "on track" a bit. I might have a better look at your post sometime, but for now, I hope I have touched some parts of what you said.

And also, I think you should still consider yourself pretty lucky to have had a life changing discovery of a philosophy before even becoming an adult, and highly grateful to yourself to have already developed those mental abilities and accumulated such a big treasure of concepts and conceptual integrations at that early age.

Cheers ;-)

Edited by softwareNerd
Edited to remove huge quote of entire preceding post.
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Hey,

you're really writing pretty impressive stuff considering your age.

I'm sorry I haven't had the time yet to look closely at everything you wrote.

So for now, I would have some suggestions:

Always make a comparision. Look closely at all the possibilities, the alternatives you can choose from right now. Try to put the best one of them into some form of image. Paint it, or if you have any idols representing your goals, get their pictures, put them somewhere where you can see them all day long.

Write down your goals on a piece of paper, a goal card, carry it with you every day and read it as often as possible. It might sound corny, but you really need to do it. It DOES make a difference. You must train your subconscience to know what to do all the time. You must keep your goals on your mind all the time. The fact that your environment can drive you into different directions does not mean that it's because you don't know what you want. It's because you havent programmed your subconscious to take and stay on the course to where you once saw you wanna go. The process of realizing what's best for your life does not occur by looking at what looks good and worth following around you. It occurs by COMPARING all the possible "around-you's" you've collected so far, including the ones one could think of by combining elements of what you have perceived. Once you've seen what's best, the next step would be to create ways of programming the goals involved into your consciousness, using the means mentioned above besides others.

This has helped me to achieve things in different fields and I believe it will help you, too.

I frequently have a look at the mr. olympia pages, and articles about different bodybuilders. I'm not going to be a bodybuilder, but I'm trying to do quite some bodybuilding on myself. And even if I know I'm never gonna be like Schwarzenegger, I always pretend like I'm getting there. I prefer to set goals that I can never achieve, but always approach and get closer to. If you don't aim at the top, you might not even land in the middle sometimes. And let's be honest, it's much more enjoyable "making yourself a Schwarzenegger" than just "giving yourself some clear muscle definition". I especially enjoy working on my goals after watching some good movies with characters who have achieved them.

I hope this helps keeping you "on track" a bit. I might have a better look at your post sometime, but for now, I hope I have touched some parts of what you said.

And also, I think you should still consider yourself pretty lucky to have had a life changing discovery of a philosophy before even becoming an adult, and highly grateful to yourself to have already developed those mental abilities and accumulated such a big treasure of concepts and conceptual integrations at that early age.

Cheers ;-)

Thank you. Haha, I too, am a fan of bodybuilding, as soon as I graduate, I'm going to start bulking ^^. Thanks for the advice, especially the one about comparing the different possibilities and conditioning myself to them, I never really thought of that before.

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Well, you listed two choices: become a musician, or become a career man. Have you considered a third alternative: becoming an entrepreneur?

When I was faced with the choice of "what to do for the rest of my life," I found none of the available choices to be acceptable.

Should I do something I love? In that case I would become a game developer, and I would wind up working like a slave for low pay. I would enjoy my working hours (more than another kind of job, at least), yet the rest of my life would be unfulfilling.

Should I work my ass off at something that I don't enjoy, and make a good amount of money? I'd earn enough to live what people consider a "successful" life-- yet I'd be doomed to spend the majority of my waking hours until an old age doing something I dislike.

Both choices seem equally undesirable to me. So, I choose the third alternative, which is to create my own path and opportunities. I will get my education, get experience, save money, do research, and start a business. I will grow it into a large and successful one.

It seems to be an immense goal, yet I know that I have the mental strength necessary to achieve it. The key is the will to consistently apply that strength, every day, toward my goal. This is impossible when you have no future to look forward to. Only by aiming for the moon is a man's creative and productive potential unleashed.

The question is: can you do it? I know I deal with people all day, every day, who don't have the ability required to fulfill a dream like that. If they "aim for the moon," as I suggest, they just set themselves up for humiliation and failure.

In my opinion, you seem like the type that can do it. You have both insight and intellect. But it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's a sure thing that if you believe you can't achieve a goal, you won't.

EDIT: Bodybuilding is good too. Build up both your body and your mind.

Edited by grim001
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Well, you listed two choices: become a musician, or become a career man. Have you considered a third alternative: becoming an entrepreneur?

When I was faced with the choice of "what to do for the rest of my life," I found none of the available choices to be acceptable.

Should I do something I love? In that case I would become a game developer, and I would wind up working like a slave for low pay. I would enjoy my working hours (more than another kind of job, at least), yet the rest of my life would be unfulfilling.

Should I work my ass off at something that I don't enjoy, and make a good amount of money? I'd earn enough to live what people consider a "successful" life-- yet I'd be doomed to spend the majority of my waking hours until an old age doing something I dislike.

Both choices seem equally undesirable to me. So, I choose the third alternative, which is to create my own path and opportunities. I will get my education, get experience, save money, do research, and start a business. I will grow it into a large and successful one.

It seems to be an immense goal, yet I know that I have the mental strength necessary to achieve it. The key is the will to consistently apply that strength, every day, toward my goal. This is impossible when you have no future to look forward to. Only by aiming for the moon is a man's creative and productive potential unleashed.

The question is: can you do it? I know I deal with people all day, every day, who don't have the ability required to fulfill a dream like that. If they "aim for the moon," as I suggest, they just set themselves up for humiliation and failure.

In my opinion, you seem like the type that can do it. You have both insight and intellect. But it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's a sure thing that if you believe you can't achieve a goal, you won't.

EDIT: Bodybuilding is good too. Build up both your body and your mind.

Thank you for your detailed response. I have a question though. In your third alternative, do you still get to do what you love (Your game designing), or are you pursuing a different kind of passion (Business)? You have my admiration, though, for having the guts to go for business. I am sure you (like me) have been told that it's risky, and that you'd be foolish to do it, yet you tried, and succeeded anyway.

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(Continued) I have questioned relentlessly on questions I thought fundamentally and vitally important to me in the past three years. I am not certain if this ''awakening'' of the consciousness is unique to me, or to all the teenagers in the world, but though I used to revel in the knowledge that I am somehow ''different' by virtue of the thoughts I hold, it used to cause me pain as well, back then, when I tried, and failed to find satisfactory answers to those questions. Some of them are ''What is the meaning of life?'' ( I know how Ayn Rand hated this question. She states that it is self-evident in the fountainhead)

No, she wouldn't say it's self-evidence. She has said that the question smuggles in an unstated premise, that there is some sort of supernatural being that has put you here for a purpose. She rejected that. What you can ask is "What meaning will I give my life?" It's up to you what meaning you want it to have. You have a blank slate upon which to write and create your life.

The worse criticism was probably from my parents: ''Why do you have to be like this?'' ''Why can't you simply just be like other kids, and get good grades, and be happy?'' And even sometimes, I received attacks on my intelligence. On Chinese New Year (an annual gathering with distant and near relatives) My father even once mockingly said loudly to all present, whilst pointing towards my cousins (some of whom are incredibly successful students). ''There are your cousins, why don't you go ask them all your useless questions?'' That incident, though it took place many months ago, still stings. I remember the humiliation, and the shame, as though I was a bright student, I was vastly overshadowed by my cousins, and academic achievement, in my country, and especially among those of my culture, is held to be a hallmark, a sign of future success, of doing honor to one self and one's family. I had no way of venturing any form of dignified response then, without appearing to be a pretentious upstart, out of place, and insignificant. As probably was what my father intended to achieve - ridiculing me.

'I may not climb as high as an oak, but I will climb alone!' -- Cyrano de Bergerac

But I think you could climb as high as an oak as well, you just need to find a path for yourself.

However, the evasions, the stock answers and the direct insults to my intelligence, are unforgivable. ''You'll grow up.'' ''The reason why you are so ungrateful to question such stuff is because you've never suffered.'' I feel as if they are bludgeoning me with a club that they, with greater age and experience, whatever that counts for (notice how we have to respect age in most cases, as if it confers some unseen dignity or clarity of insight to a person by virtue of being older, or having more wrinkles), have the privilege of wielding.

Experience in the real world, lots of it, has a way of hammering home facts which people must adjust to. This is what lots of adults have that kids don't. Adults have that advantage, and the advantage of time to have evaluated things and assessed them properly. To be sure, this is no guarantee, because obviously lots of adults are not rational, but it is what experience provides. Reality hammers on you, like the waves against the ocean shore. Still, I disagree with your fathers approach, though I'm sure he wants the best for you.

I don't want this to be a whine against life in general, though it probably seems like it by now to you, reader. I am not as bitter as I sound while typing this, nor am I wrecked with teenage angst, I am just vaguely reflective. To be frank with all, I do not know for certain, why I posted here looking for answers, except that I have a tremendous respect for Ayn Rand's philosophy, and seeing as she founded the objectivist movement, you guys can't be that bad.^^

Keep asking questions, that's the way you learn. Believe me it's very normal, and probably more so for the more intelligent. Don't leave anything unquestioned, especially if you see it as important.

I feel...I know that thought precedes emotion in most cases, but in my case, the emotions are rather overwhelming.

This is because it takes time for your emotions to get in line behind your thoughts, especially if you are switching gears completely, and have a new outlook. But, the fact is, the more time you spend devoted to the ideas, so long a they are rational, the more your emotions will fall in line. It's a delayed process, which is part of the difficulty.

I feel...crippled in some sense. I know of what Ayn Rand meant by a sense of life, of how it works subconsciously when a human is too young to rationally integrate concepts. But I fear in my case (oh how I wish that it might not be so!) that the damage to my sense of is beyond repair.

Not at all. If you have read an agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy, then look over her 7 primary virtues. If you practice them as best you can continually and on principle, you will turn yourself around so that your emotions are in harmony with your thoughts.

But, what is really important at your age is deciding on a career path and pursuing it with passion. This is the big decision for you, and it's a very personal one.

I feel spurts of inspiration and moments of truth, I have said, but yet in most of my waking moments, I am deprived of that sense of joy that seems to pervade Ayn Rand's heroes. My respect for Objectivism lies in the fact that it is ''What can be, and what should be'', that the ideals are achievable, that it is not impossible to be both practical and idealistic, and the union of those two principles is undiluted happiness.

But I can't. The happiness, the joy, so clear, so bright to me in some moments, are lost in others. I feel like I am grasping at phantoms and ghosts.

I want the happiness, and I want the certainty. I feel crippled. Betrayed, in some way. Crippled in that all the subconscious junk I have absorbed is too much for me, and betrayed in that it need not have to be so, that it could have been different, that I wish ....

It doesn't work by magic. You have to be dedicated to the ideas. You have to be committed to them and act on them and see them further your life, and slowly you will gain momentum out of the mental fog you are in now. I'm sure the mental fog is caused by uncertainty and doubt. Nothing like dedicated rational thought to clear that up, but it takes time. I would think within weeks and months you'll notice a positive difference, but it can take longer, sometimes years, though I would think it would only take years for someone who is older, and thus has a bigger array of bad ideas to fight.

Also, you're very young, so don't worry about that part.

I want the happiness, and I want the certainty. I feel crippled. Betrayed, in some way. Crippled in that all the subconscious junk I have absorbed is too much for me, and betrayed in that it need not have to be so, that it could have been different, that I wish...I wish that someone had told me all these before when i was younger, so I would never know the fear that Ayn Rand describes so well ( The fear of life, of the irrational in life, that nothing makes sense and nothing will, because you cannot know for sure). The fear that made me turn to existentialism for answers once, when it sounded to promising, only to realise that it merely reinforced what I thought then about the human condition, but offered no remedy, no solution. It's back, and I don't know how to fight it. Many times in my life, I have felt this, this black wave of despair collapse on me. Many times, even before I discovered Ayn Rand, I had felt moments when it lifted, when I told myself, ''Alright, this is it, you'll never let yourself be eroded by that blasted thing again.'' Needless to say, I have failed in that promise, time and time again. The thing about it is that it's a despair that creeps up on you. That begins with a feeling of vague discontent, which triggers the thoughts, which increase the discontent etc, until all is left is an avalanche of negativity, of twisted, raped illogic that I consciously acknowledge as such, but am unable to deny. Is my sense of life too deeply ingrained in me? I don't feel I deserve, in fact, I don't feel anyone deserves this.

It's hard to concretize precisely what you are feeling, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to give us such personal details, but you can turn it around, absolutely. Irrational thoughts lead to mental anguish necessarily. This is because contradictions lead to anguish. They lead to anguish because they lead to mental conflict, which you have to endure. It's hard! There isn't a human being who hasn't felt that, and if you are full of lots of contradictions in major areas, it can only be worse. The way out is reason. Set rational goals to conquer each one of your problems, taking on the biggest first, or the ones you thing you can make headway most against, and then go for the next on the list. Cut down the weeds in your mind, and plant your own mental garden, or build a beautiful city. Make the goals small and manageable, as you can’t cut down a jungle in a day.

Btw, one of the problems is that society can foist irrational ideas on you, so you may have to fight that too.

I am not consciously trying to sound pitiful. I see no value in being sad, unlike many of my peers, I do not think there is anything romantic about being a tragically melancholy person.

Don't worry about this, just work to improve. Happiness is not automatic, it is an achievement of thought and action, lots of thought. It's a life time endeavor.

For the purpose of keeping this simple, there are two viable career paths, they differ in that one is a radical step away from the accepted norm within my culture, unlike the other.

One is the pursuit of something which I have a passion for (which has in some ways, been corrupted by my sense of life as well): Music.

I love music, and I know I can do something with it with the appropriate hard work, discipline and persistence. I play the drums, and I aren't bad at it at all. I like what music represents, speaking in a language of the senses, a musician being a person who perfects something of a third language. A musician's skill reflects his ability of self expression, and a perfect, ideal musician is a medium, a conduit, for his thoughts, his feelings, his sense of life.

However this would represent a break in tradition, I am not going to attempt to be modest by saying I'm a fairly good student. I am a brilliant student, and I know it. My cousins may overshadow me in this respect but it's not through an overabundance of talent on their part. I can match them, To accept music, which most regard as a dead end career as it conjures up images (at least in the minds of most people I know) of starvation, of constant struggling and of life in relative ignominy, would be, to my parents, a betrayal, of all the money and time and effort they spent on raising me. And I can't deny that. I feel I owe them something in return, and this is a source of conflict for me.

You don't owe them your life. You're not a slave. You had no choice about being born, that was their choice. You owe them respect, but not your life. Your life is yours, so make it what ever you want, but follow reason.

Best of luck! :D

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Only by aiming for the moon is a man's creative and productive potential unleashed...I deal with people all day, every day, who don't have the ability required to fulfill a dream like that. If they "aim for the moon," as I suggest, they just set themselves up for humiliation and failure.

Grim: What has led you to conclude this? (Insert topic split here...)

Xavier: Your family life sounds rough. Is it feasible for you to come to the United States for college? Not that that would solve everything; it might, however, be a step in the right direction.

(Xavier is a good name, btw :D )

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How does one know what career is best for him? Through introspection? I know life is the standard of morality, but aside from sustaining life, it also said something about ''living as a man i.e living as a rational being.'' To live as a rational being, one must apply reason to one's life. Thing is, there is little in the way of rationality in one's choice of career, other then whim.''I simply like it.''

Grim: What has led you to conclude this? (Insert topic split here...)

Xavier: Your family life sounds rough. Is it feasible for you to come to the United States for college? Not that that would solve everything; it might, however, be a step in the right direction.

(Xavier is a good name, btw :thumbsup: )

Thanks, i like my name too. United States scares me a bit. I don't know much about it, but it seems to be vastly different from Singapore, with fundamentalists and all that. Perhaps it's just a stereotyped impression. I do know that United States is known for free speech and freedom and everything, but it seems that many Americans are unhappy with their country and many countries (mine excluded) criticise the US alot and give them quite a bit of flak.

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Xavier,

Very few people are born with a singular talent to guide them to a particular career in life. For most people, there is no single path that is right for them – that choice is a combination of talent, environment, opportunity, and inspiration. You DO NOT have to make that choice right now. Even if you are passionate about something, you should not pursue that avenue to the exclusion of all other options. You might love music right now, but then again you might also love chemistry, mathematics, or biology.

The best thing you can do right now is maximize the opportunities available to you when you have explored all your options and are ready to make a choice. That might not happen until you are well into college, or perhaps even later. You may decide to practice music as a hobby while working at another occupation.

There is no shame in not knowing what you want to do with your life. One day you will be doing it and realize that it is what you want to do for the rest of your life. (Even then, you might still be wrong.) Until them, you can be proud of pursuing your life to the best of your abilities.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You sound all too human. Your questioning and confliction and lack of clarity strike me as natural for a student who is discovering his/her brilliance. I wouldn't expect too great a life without some sort of internal struggle to overcome or without major obstacles along the way.

From perusing your post it sounds to me like you are quite far away from achieving the apotheosis of a "sense of life". I personally don't think you can chase Rand's "sense of life"; you just have it or you don't. When you do meaningful work (do what you love!) and quit being a student and forget about everything else -- including unsupportive parents (who has supportive parents nowadays?!) -- then a "sense of life" will overwhelm you! You'll wake up one day and feel alive like you've never felt before.

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I can relate to your struggles, and it sounds like Objectivism is coming to you the same way it came to me... slowly. But I assure you, every issue you are asking is helping you integrate who you are, whether you're able to see it yet or not.

You are fortunate to be asking these questions at your age, at the cusp of independence (or at least that's how American culture traditionally views that age). I did not start examing philosophy seriously until after I graduated from college when an extremely wise man gave me Atlas Shrugged as a gift. It was the first writing of Rand's that I read and I will honestly tell you that it cured me of my clinical anxiety that I had once had to take medication for. But it hasn't been a quick fix for me. I think the person who gave me the book gave it to me because he understood that contradiction in me that I could not yet put my finger on (and I did not even do that until just months ago), in that I worshipped all these great heroes -- great rational thinkers in history -- and yet instead of striving to understand their values and trying to use that comprehension to improve myself, I just wallowed in the frustration of "gee, their thinking's nice, but that would never work anymore. Not in this world." I was miserable, and every night I physiologically struggled with my overactive mind and persistant, haunting sense of doom and hopelessness. What Atlas did for me was to initiate the process of what I like to consider my rebirth. It seemed to say not only is that kind of thinking possible, it's also right and inarguably moral. Anything is possible if you believe in the power of reason to initiate change, whether on a personal or global level.

So, as I said, Objectivism came to me slowly. The first thing I got from it, from Atlas, was that sense of possibllity, which at least helped me escape the despair that was physiologically dragging me down. I was able to take myself of the anti-depressants, and have never had a relapse because I started to pursue the philosophy further. But that does not mean I was "cured" right away, for there was a deeper, darker philosophically sinful element of my conscience that continued to loom over me for years and I have only just recently cast it off. I will confess it, and bear the castigation it will bring from other Objectivists, because I believe the confession is what helped me finally shake off all elements of self-doubt. The sin? I was guilty of evasion, namely of trying to reverse cause and effect. Sometimes I even failed to see that a cause was necessary for a desired effect to occur; an action which violates pretty much all of the axiomatic concepts. Inspite of all my philosophical sins, I carried that sense of hope in the power of reason within me (though my actions clearly indicate I didn't have that concept fully integrated...yet). My misdeeds, ultimately wrecked a potentially fantastic relationship simply because I did not have confidence in who I was. My lack of confidence caused me to lie, to make myself into someone I wasn't; to "have" accolades without having ever earned them (or actually having them in reality). I thought the relationship was great at the time, but I was blind in so many ways, mostly toward myself. The man? Fantastic. The irony? Understanding yourself at the end of the realtionship instead of at the beginning.

Here's where reason and objectivism have helped me: when I finally had to face myself in the mirror and admit all of my errors one by one, it was HORRIBLE but necessary. I came to the conclusion that I was living my life based on how others perceived it, not for myself. I was substituting their judgments for my own, and all that did was rack up a whole stack of philosophical contradictions I have just now sorted out. That's also where all the lies came from, most especially how I lied to myself and stiffled myself for so long. I had lived like Keating, and even though I have read the Fountainhead three times that admission did not hit me until I had to confess the one particular lie that cost me that romance; a romance I did not understand how much I wanted until the moment I lost it. While I wasn't necessarily living for others I was living according to them. Maybe that's the same thing... Anyway, realizingthe detrimental consequence of letting others' perceptions of you dictate your course of action in life, and love, was my awakening. Objectivism was always interesting to me, but now it is necessary and its validity has finally soaked in. That, to me, sounds like what you are the cusp of: shaking off other's perceptions and embracing your own. Don't let other people tell you you're dumb in a left-handed manner; be who you are and at this point don't feel like you have to explain that to anybody but yourself (especially to irrational people). Focusing on understanding yourself for your sake and your sake alone will bring the resolution you seek. It did for me. Best wishes - and be patient. Think things through and avoid making deicions on a whim at all costs. Find what your long-range goals are, and cast off your short-range doubts. You'll get there. Anyone who embraces reason in full inevitably will.

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