Hello, all! I’m a desktop publisher and indie musician from rural Michigan. I was first introduced to Ayn Rand by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart and his acknowledgement to her in the liner notes from the band’s 2112 album. Curiosity prompted me to read Anthem, on which 2112’s title piece was based, when I was fifteen. I tackled Atlas Shrugged the following year, encouraged by my high school science teacher and librarian, both of whom were fans of Rand’s work. In my senior year, I quickly read The Fountainhead so that I could enter the Ayn Rand Essay Contest (I ended up winning a $500 third prize). Over the next several years, I read some of Rand’s non-fiction work, as well as reading Dr. Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand and listening to a few episodes of his radio program. Eventually my exploration of Objectivism tapered off as I became engaged in other things. I certainly never stopped holding a positive view of individualism, capitalism, romanticism, etc., but not really having anyone with whom to talk about such things, I mostly just ended up dealing with the various concretes of daily life for a while.
Having a very limited knowledge of major areas of interest to many Objectivists like politics and economics, there are many subjects here to which I’m not qualified to contribute very much, but it would be good to have a place to visit now and again and hang with people who share my basic values.