Posted on 03/10/2017 9:24:55 PM PST by Zeneta
My Daughter, Ran away from home today.
My little girl left this morning from her home with the clothes on her back to head out to work like every other day and she's never going back.
And I couldn't be more proud of her.
Atlas Shrugged is the book always associated with Ayn, but her political philosophy was just what logically follows from her ideas about human individual values.
So ... Ayn is Trump's favorite thinker, Fountainhead is favorite book (He's said this.) I already trusted Trump before I knew this. But he said it in an interview maybe 6 months ago ... was happy but not all that surprised.
Warning never to substitute the movies that have been tried for any of Ayn's actual writing. It's not that they did a bad job ... it's just that her novels aren't really there the be stories, except that the story is there to serve the communication of her thinking, which is a very very precise thing. It's not a visual experience ... and it's not really a narrative although as humans we need stories to illustrate things.
Ayn's view of the heroic man (which means mankind in this instance) ... is not about heroics. It's entirely to do with integrity and value -> not in the sense that we regularly weaken the word integrity by thinking it just means 'honest in word.' This is the kind of integrity that you might say 'does this building have integrity, does this boat have integrity.'
I wish everyone would read that book ... it makes you understand yourself ... in a way what you always knew, but what the soft evil hypnosis of groups of men - whether at the family level or the so called 'community' level - steals from individuals.
There are many who simply blame their family (or something else) for bad outcomes (Ayn's book really has little to do with family -> but it applies at all levels where an individual is interacting with other men and groups of mankind) ... it's interesting that usually those people never actually separate from their family - they require keeping the poison near, and have become the poison, because it serves as a ready explanation/excuse to oneself for a life without integrity - or a life with, say, 80% integrity - which is a life with zero integrity.
That’s the story that came to mind.
Wonderful. And you sound like a wonderful father.
Congrats to your daughter but she needs to understand and break the cycle she’s in.
Have your daughter (and you) watch some of these videos - pick specific titles of mothers/wives to start.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQfkvK7oGMVY2nJNtufhoMg
The Fountain Head
by
Ayn Rand..
Thanks tinyowl
On my list now.
Thank you. (I should have known from your sig line to take the hint.) Next on my reading list!
Bfl*
It's the Best. Book. Ever ... that allowed the Best. Election. Ever ... ... ... because Trump is one of those people who's just a pure reflection of what's inside him, and Ayn is a big part of what's inside him.
Roarke's life, in some ways, actually parallels Trump's (I'm going to guess that Trump would have loved to have been an architect, and has more admiration for Roarke's talent than his own in business, which is obviously connected to architecture.) The interesting thing about Trump is that on the outside he trolls his enemies by appearing to be the exact opposite of what Ayn is talking about. She would be smiling.
And of course Ayn came from the USSR, so this is more where Atlas Shrugged comes from -> the political/economical expression of her personal values. But the sickness that is the USSR is actually experienced at the personal level. I lived with and almost married a girl who came here from St. Petersburg when she was 19, was in school during Breshnev.
Getting back to the family stuff -> an oppressive and sick family is no different from an oppressive and sick government when it comes to the effect on the human spirit. You can call it God's or nature's way -> all things are created with an inheritant integrity that is neither good nor bad -> it's that 'they are what they are' -> anything that introduces chaos into that integrity will cause resistence within that things essense, and that is what we as humans call negativity or misery.
The thing is, we don't get to choose the nature of our integrity -> that is, what we were designed to be -> we only get to choose whether we keep it and maintain it, express it 'as it is'.
For me, that gets to what is the humility of being Christian, the ability to accept that you are not your creator, you can't 'be whatever you want to be' -> you are only what in fact you are, no words or concepts will change that, and you go from there.
Most of life is a hostile challenge to what that is. The Liberals are of course an outright assault on it ... and ... sick families ... getting back to the thread ... are an even more insidious poison to the integrity of how humans are designed, and it's why mental illness takes so many forms, can never really be categorized. We all know what an intact crystal wine glass should look like. Shatter it on the ground - that is - disintegrate its integrity as a crystal wine glass ... and you'd be hard pressed to look at 1000 instances of that and characterize them in terms of 'how they deviate from a normal wine glass.'
So ... it's all about integrity vis a vis an original design none of us chose, but which we're bound to maintain. Don't maintain it -> becuase of family -> or because of society/government -> and you may survive physically, but you perish spiritually.
It's very odd that Ayn was an atheist. Ann Barnhardt in one of her older videos brings this up too ... Ayn Rand was like one one-billionth of a millimeter from hopping from the conceptual/philosophical understanding of what it is to be human to absolute faith in God. Her grasp of integrity actually is faith in God. And one could argue that the words 'faith in God' are themselves only conceptual, not that actual faith, so in that sense it's not important, the end result is the same. Probably what Ayn rejected, and rightfully so, was the conceptual representation of God which of course man has twisted to his own liking and hence from which man has removed the integrity.
Lastly, I would say that I'm thankful for the dysfunctional family in which I grew up - but you can only say this if you first survived it, then left it. You DO learn about what Evil is, and no one in my family, as far as I know, is intentionally evil. Evil is distance from integrity, of which keeping your word to others is a necessary minuscule grain, and not proof of actual integrity. (Note the enormous weight, though, that Trump places on keeping the promises he made in the physical world to physical people -> that's not just some isolated quality. He consciously chooses this because understands that his own integrity rests on it. It's not a favor he does you or me. It's him saying 'I understand what I am, what is my design.')
Come to think of it, it is my tagline. It's the only true thing you can ever say. And corruption is corruption, and to willingly engage with corruption once you've been shown enough evidence there is no changing it, or to refuse to confirm that and choose instead to tell oneself stories and concepts and narratives to fool oneself otherwise ... ... ... in the Garden of Eden ... that is what the snake was.
So, original sin is really no different from corrupting one's integrity either due to willful choice, intentional lack of awareness, or ignorance of one's design. But to be ignorant of one's design, one must willfully look away from oneself, so already there has been a corruption.
The Bible points out that throughout his history, man does this consistently as part of his nature, and therefore the only choice is a life of maintenance of integrity and repairing of integrity. The 'World' as Jesus called it, is hostile to it. It just is. Our nature is hostile to it. Buddhism's way of referring to this to say 'Life is suffering, and ... there is a solution.'
Ayn's way is to tell the story of Roarke, but the story is told entirely separate from any philosophy or religion, She came up with this on her own ... which points to the notion that we are already born with this silent knowledge. To hold onto it religion may be and probably is important and in many cases necessary, but a man born on the moon alone who never hears a word about religion is no less capable of knowing God or Enlightenment. All of it comes down to integrity -> that A is A.
Ok well back to vacuuming :-)
BEST BOOK EVER!!!!!
This is better described as “breaking free”, and it can be very hard to do—you’re having to recognize and accept that the entire world-outlook you’ve learned from your family over the years was wrong, if not an outright lie, and that it was imposed by pressure instead of freely developed. And once you’re out, you have to learn what reality is, and finish unlearning all the wrong that was programmed and drilled into you..a scary proposition for many.
Many narcissists don’t want those around them—especially their dependents and children—to break free. Consciously or not, they depend on them in an unhealthy manner, and will do whatever they feel they must not to lose control of them, even if it costs their children dearly.
Fantastic post, tiny owl!
Thank you!
Prayers for the continued well-being of you and your daughter.
Good for her. Praying she continues on her journey to a happy, healthy life.
At 12 she was putting her drunk mother in the shower to wash the puke from her hair. Waking her mother up each morning so she could get to school on time. Cooking her own meals and fending off her mothers boyfriends.
Been on her own?
At 14 she was her mothers designated driver.
And it continued. At 18 she got "Power of Attorney" for her Grandmother who was losing it both physically and mentally. Managing her own school life only to go home to literally clean up her grandmothers crap. Fix her dinner, check her blood sugar and keep her calm. Managed ALL her finances and took her to the hospital on countless occasions. Never mind the times she took her own mother to the hospital for any number of "psychotic" events.
On her own?
Paying her own way through College. Buying her own car. Working nearly full time and paying her own bills.
On her own?
Filing taxes for her Grandmother, Mother and her Ex-Pat Grandfather. Meeting with their accountants and attorneys. Negotiating Real Estate transactions on their behalf.
On her own?
She knows more about Insurance, Doctors, Lawyers, Prescription medications and that entire racket than most.
It's all about guilt.
Her mother and their family guilting her into accepting their insanity as something that is both normal and her fault for not participating.
She has hundreds of emails and texts messages that document this. She has hours of recorded phone calls with her mother's insane rants.
Does that make a difference?
Thank you Rita.
We spend a lot of time discussing conservative principles and the politics of the day on this forum without discussing the real challenges many face in their every day lives.
Just a few hours ago I told my Daughter that I posted her story here on FR. I relayed all the positive feedback and prayers that have been extended to her and she is sincerely thankful.
I’ve read to her many of the comments posted.
And you’re correct that she has a book here. I’ve been telling her that for over 5 years.
Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers.
Well of course it does.
No harm meant.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.