Tag: A Is A

December 2, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:2

December 2, 2022 /

I think I can see the end is near, at least I think I can. Have you ever ran a long race? I did a half marathon one time and you could see the mile markers. At mile 10, you didn’t know quite what the finish line would look like but you knew that if you kept going you would make it. That is kind of how this feels.

As books go, this chapter was a long one. At almost 60 pages and tiny font, it feels like I could have read a book just in this chapter. I am going to try and not spoil the plot by talking around what is going on. I will let you infer what happens without me outright saying it.

The citizens of Galt’s Gulch give Dabny thirty days to choose to stay or to leave. It is their hope that they can prove life is superior here to the outside world. I would say that Dabny takes advantage of her time and waits to the last minute to make her decision.

While there are so many parallels to real life in this book, there are just as many results of fiction as well. The book would have you believe that a small group of doers could disappear and put the foundations of a modern society together by chance. Somehow, it would all work out because every person would fill that exact niche in an economy.

Someone would grow all the wheat needed, someone would mill it and package it and someone would sell it. Someone would make the machinery to harvest and process. Someone would make the packaging. Someone would mine the ore to refine to metal, and someone would take that metal and make equipment with it to harvest the grain, even if it is just a scythe. And this is one food item.

I will say, ‘in the real world’ I will talk about two types of people in this category. There are the citizens of Galt’s Gulch and those that haven’t yet given up or seen the light. Within that latter group, there are some that simply won’t give up. I think that this is what makes society work. Just like the song says, the world needs ‘All Kinds of Kinds‘.

There is some advice that I wish I could more easily follow. To find your passion or maybe better, to truly be happy you need to quit. You need to quit doing the things that make you miserable be it a job, an education, a habit or a relationship. As I have eluded to in the course of my writing, the only major thing I have ever quit was my job in 2019. Even then, I only did it because my wife forced me to choose my job or my marriage.

I never give up or surrender if there is a chance that I can still persevere. I was always taught that this quality was admirable so it is ingrained in me. But, it also lacks the true secret to happiness because you spend all your time fighting to win and when you do, it is hollow and empty.

I would wager that a higher percentage of rich people are high school/college dropouts. Why is this? Because they didn’t waste their time, marking time, getting programmed. It is us that followed the path all the way through to start a new journey of someone else’s vision for our lives that didn’t get it. They quit because the status quo didn’t work for where they wanted to go.

I am not convinced that every successful person followed their dreams to what they are doing. I think that their true dreams were to be free and independent whatever business endeavor that manifest itself in. And even then, the creative types try new things, sell their endeavors and try to start over.

Think about Elon Musk for a moment. He was set for life when he sold PayPal. But, then he started Tesla and SpaceX and bought Twitter. I can’t speak for the financial state of the sum of the businesses. But, he didn’t sell PayPal to buy Twitter. He sold PayPal because he was ready to do something else. That is quitting something (like running a company – forever) to try and develop new interests.

To me success is not achieving a goal, it is enjoying the journey. By that definition, there is no possible way to be successful when the journey is miserable. There is a commonly held belief in business that if the business is not growing, it is dying. Why is this? There is no number that a business can achieve that is definitive because it is almost a living entity itself. A business is measured against it’s continual advancement, not what it did, once. So should we behave as people.

End Your Programming Routine: I knew that I would not be successful when I took a job in 2021. The reason being is that nothing changed, only the nameplate on my LinkedIn account. It wasn’t who I was working for that made the difference, it was the fact that I went back to doing the same things as before I quit. The one thing that did was that I started Altf4. The smart person would quit because it hasn’t made a dime. But, you know me: I won’t quit.

November 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:1

November 23, 2022 /

Surprise! It is a short week so I am doing Atlas Shrugged on Wednesday this week. I may or may not be working on the site during this period, but we both deserve a rest. I want to wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to be thankful, not just making turkey.

I didn’t fully get what was going on at the end of the last chapter. I even re-read some of it to try and follow but I couldn’t. Apparently, Dabny was flying a plane and it turns out following another plane. I got the part where she was flying but I missed that she was following someone else. As it turns out, John Galt was flying with Quentin Daniels. In the course of flying, she ends up crashing the plane.

The reason that she crashed was that this particular valley is covered by some sort of mirage. This is the same mirage that protects Galt’s Gulch from being seen from the air. If you haven’t read the book, Galt’s Gulch is where all of the industrialists have gone to check out from society.

This was a mistake. While the industrialists are keeping an eye on her, their modus operandi is that this move is free will. It will happen when the person is ready and not without prompting. So, Dabny has not made the full commitment but gets a preview for what is possible.

When John Galt declares that he is going to stop the motor of the world, he does. He takes his revolutionary invention of a motor that derives electricity from static and declares that this world will never have it. He did however perfect his invention to power the community of Galt’s Gulch.

Every single industrialist that left the previous world has taken residence here and has assumed a menial role in society such as grocer, farmer, plumber, handyman, etc. This is really the means to an end because whatever their true passions are are pursued for the benefit of themselves only. They work a small amount or as much as necessary but the rest of the time is leisure time.

“I swear by my life that I will never live my life for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for me”. This is the one pledge to enter or join life in Galt’s Gulch. I find it ironic that I am reading this book at this time. Maybe if I would have read the book earlier, I would have seen the parallels earlier but for some reason the time is now.

The very concept of social justice is the manifestation of what this book is trying so hard to combat. From Wikipedia “Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society”. There is something in me that just rails against the premise. Didn’t we tell ourselves in grade school that this was the land of opportunity or anything is possible? Social justice exactly contradicts this idea.

You cannot attain your vision because so and so has more power or this or that and/or the color of you skin prevents success. We must take from others to equalize this injustice. An acceptance of the principal of social justice is a denial of self-sufficiency. And that is against my grain.

Before this is taken completely out of context, I am not for poverty, racism or even inequality. I do have compassion and understand that these subjects are complicated. I do feel that these issues are largely self-inflicted. But, I reject the argument that these problems are my fault or the fact that I am a member of a socioeconomic group by your labels or how or where I was born. I am just as resistant to my stereotyping as social justice warriors are purporting that my group is labelling theirs.

End Your Programming Routine: I am a strong proponent to the concept of giving a poor man one million dollars versus making a successful man penniless. Success is always about mindset and not the assets. Sure, it is easier to make money starting with some money, but still not impossible. The answer will never be taking things in the name of equality whether it is money or respect. If it is not earned, it wont be valued and if it is not valued, it wont be kept.