I have come here in hopes that whenever I happen to come upon some contradiction I can’t see my own way out of or something that I know to be true yet do not understand the exact reasons behind it I can find an answer here. My experiance in coming to Objectivism has been rather rough, mostly unneccesarily, but I am throughly pleased with the current state of my life.
I’m quite ashamed to admit that a year ago today I was still a avid believer in Christianity. I had disagreed a lot with the ideas it preaches, but took those as signs of me being an evil person. I didn’t bother asking why these things were true, because the same answer I always got was “the bible says so.” I assumed that this document had some sort of reason or explaination I couldn’t grasp and let that idea satisfy me without ever checking it’s validity. As soon as I did start reading it I realized what horrible of a mistake I had been making.
Once free from this belief I stumbled blindly for what is true. I came to the assumption that nothing could be absolutly proven to be true, aside from logic, which I still believe. Starting from the basic truths that have to be true, such as “A is A” and that I have to exist in some shape or form because I have to exist in order to do anything, which I obviously am as I am pondering that very question. But unlike most people who believe this, I realize that all that means is this world is ethier my imagination, or real. There is no point in assuming I’m a raving lunatic imagining away his own little world without any reason to. I do however have a very good reason to believe that the world I precieve is reality because as of yet, doing such has kept me alive. I do not see how I could still remain alive if I am fumbling around in my dream world. So I trust my senses so long as they do follow logic. If I precieve a contradiction, I know that I’m ethier hallucinating psychologically or have been decieved. The chain of what I believe goes in the order of: logic, perceptions, logical conclusions made from firsthand preceptions, all othe logical conclusions based on the previous conclusion, information recieved secondhand from others, logical conclusions made integrating things already known and the secondhand information. When I find a contradiction I start at the least certain assumption made. I do not know how this differs from Objectivist Epistomology, as I haven’t quite gotten around to reading the book on it… it’s sitting there but it makes so many refrences to other philosphies and philosophical ideas that it’s been a challenge to read.
I went through my life from then until a few months later trying to figure out what I should think until my older brother reccomened to me that I read Fountainhead, which he had read for the essay contest held by the ARI, saying “This guy(Howard) is just like you.” Now at this stage I was far from being such a logical and great being as Howard, but still the closest thing he had seen to him. I started reading and found it very very useful. It gave me reasons behind the things I felt to be true all along and helped me realize a lot about morality and altruism.
Around my completion of the book an assignment was given to me by my English teacher that seems to me to be the conerstone of my self-esteem. The assignment was to “do two hours of selfless service and write about your experiance and how it helped you to grow as a person.” At this time I had started to read Atlas Shrugged, which only reaffirmed to me the principles I now know to be true. Well I refused to do the assignment as such and wrote a paper instead on the futility of such an assignment, explaining the lack of virtue in selfless acts and how they cannot possibly make someone “grow as a person.” I presented it to a standing ovation of my classmates. This is one of the greatest memories of my life, not because of their approval, but because of this was the first time I ever I had said this is what is right, this is why it is right, and I am completely certain of it. The teacher however gave me no credit for the assignment, which I expected and accepted as I did not do what was asked of me. I didn’t think about it then, but I should have asked what 2 hours of selfless service has to do with my education in English.
Since that day I have been trying to read and learn as much as I can about Objectivism and here I am. I didn’t really mean to write such a long post 
These days, you’re right: I couldn’t bare to associate with brainless people. But when you’re young, you’re supposed to be able to goof off with friends even though you’d sooner ignore them on serious matters.