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I am a 35 year old IT Project Manager with a Masters Degree in MIS.  Since high school I considered myself strongly libertarian and have had a major resentment of how virtues are denigrated by popular culture and law - a mental, if not physical, assault on honesty, integrity, hard work, and individualism.  I am a really, really nice guy.  I go out of my way for others.  I work out, and take care of my body.  I work hard to study topics that are important to me.  I work really hard to achieve the goals in my life that are most worthy of my efforts.  I am an Eagle Scout with a Masters degree and a good job and have never taken from anyone that which is unearned.

And I have always resented being told that I must pay penance for being successful in my life, and that my accomplishments weren't mine to claim but my failures were to be hung around my neck and borne alone.  I fundamentally resented the evasions that take place when it comes to race and religion and poverty, and despite not having a name for my thinking, or a framework for my morals  I always felt uneasy about faith and religion, despite being a devout Christian at the time (now firmly atheist) - but I didn't know a name for my uneasiness.

Until I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time, after being laid off for the second time in a row, while working as a security guard and nightclub bouncer (I had a little time on my hands!).

I cried multiple times.  My mind was blown.  Atlas Shrugged put into words what I had always felt to be true but couldn't quite put together into a cohesive structure in my mind.

I realized that I have ALWAYS been an Objectivist - I just didn't know what it was called until that point.  Rands fiction, and later her non-fiction, has clarified in my mind what I have always known.

I have read pretty much everything she has written (at least once).  And I am still learning so much, especially thanks to this forum.

I am now exploring Peikoff and Branden, as well as other contemporary Objectivist authors such as Roslyn Ross and Tara Smith.

I find Objectivism to be somewhat lonely - my wife understands and agrees with the basics but doesn't have the same passion about philosophy that I do.  This forum has been indispensible for me during my darkest hours, when my mind has been plagued with questions that haunt me.  And I have not been let down.

This philosophy is so deeply, deeply relevent to me.  I truly believe that Objectivism teaches us to love the very best in each other, and to appreciate the beauty of everything this world has to offer, because there is no other.  Objectivism gives us the framework for morally interacting with other human beings in non-sacrificial, mutually beneficial way.  Objectivism tells us that we are NOT evil, that we are right to be proud of ourselves and to seek our achievements in an upright posture.

As Rand writes in Atlas Shrugged: “It’s only human,' you cry in defense of any depravity, reaching the stage of self-abasement where you seek to make the concept 'human' mean the weakling, the fool, the rotter, the liar, the failure, the coward, the fraud, and to exile from the human race the hero, the thinker, the producer, the inventor, the strong, the purposeful, the pure—as if 'to feel' were human, but to think were not, as if to fail were human, but to succeed were not, as if corruption were human, but virtue were not—as if the premise of death were proper to man, but the premise of life were not.”

Edited by Reasoner
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It is interesting to note how many people find Miss Rand's works are appealing, especially with regard to how the various aspects of her writings resonate with their core view of existence and consciousness held implicitly—that she essentially gives voice to, in a way, a perspective hitherto unknown.

Welcome to OO.

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