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Flint · 08-15-2018, 05:36 PM

I like Roark. Like all Rand characters, he cartoonishly adheres to stark principles, but they're good ones. Focus on an area you have passion for, and become an expert in that field. Do it because it resonates with you and comes naturally. Develop your own original ideas. Do not betray principles which you have personally verified to be sound, simply because of the pressure of those who do not possess the same expertise as you have spent a lifetime's work to develop. Pick your projects and set your parameters the way you want--because you can, because that's how good you are. Others will enjoy different forms of power, manipulation, and coercion, but if you have the strength of your own core beliefs, eventually you will still be standing upright and with your dignity intact after the winds of change have blown away the transitory and opportunistic conditions that others once believed they could use to have advantage over you. And after all, the condition of being self-realized, and the inner peace and clarity it unlocks, is the true reward that those who subsist on false power will never be able to achieve.

...

I don't know enough about being an architect to know if that was the right profession to make this analogy with, but I do know that blowing up a building is a pretty flashy metaphor for the value of intellectual property --the physical object is removed, but the idea remains, and can never be removed by external force.

08-15-2018, 05:36 PM	#30
Flint Snowflake Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Dystopia Posts: 13,136	I like Roark. Like all Rand characters, he cartoonishly adheres to stark principles, but they're good ones. Focus on an area you have passion for, and become an expert in that field. Do it because it resonates with you and comes naturally. Develop your own original ideas. Do not betray principles which you have personally verified to be sound, simply because of the pressure of those who do not possess the same expertise as you have spent a lifetime's work to develop. Pick your projects and set your parameters the way you want--because you can, because that's how good you are. Others will enjoy different forms of power, manipulation, and coercion, but if you have the strength of your own core beliefs, eventually you will still be standing upright and with your dignity intact after the winds of change have blown away the transitory and opportunistic conditions that others once believed they could use to have advantage over you. And after all, the condition of being self-realized, and the inner peace and clarity it unlocks, is the true reward that those who subsist on false power will never be able to achieve. ... I don't know enough about being an architect to know if that was the right profession to make this analogy with, but I do know that blowing up a building is a pretty flashy metaphor for the value of intellectual property --the physical object is removed, but the idea remains, and can never be removed by external force. __________________ **************** There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio** Last edited by Flint; 08-15-2018 at 05:50 PM.