Who is John Galt?

The hero of Ayn Rand's bk Atlas Shrugged. That book has cost me at least 6 hrs of time that could have been sleep. =X

I like it, but it's a bit too preachy. It's a philosophical treatise cleverly disguised as a work of fiction. Her characters go on and on in long tirades that span pages and pages. after a couple paragraphs into their speeches the characters (in my head) morph into Ayn Rand standing at a podium of some philosophical conference. I mean, Come ON. I get the point after a while. No need to take me for an idiot, and repeat urself another 25 times.

I dun wanna talk about the anti-communism theme of the book, 'cos after pages and pages of it, I've gotten pretty bored. but there were other issues that were interesting.

Frm the bk:


"Do you still need proof that I'm always waiting for you?" she asked, ... ...
"Why is it that most women would never admit that, but you do?"
"Because they're never sure that they ought to be wanted. I am."


"Are you saying," he asked slowly, "that I rose in your estimation when you found that I wanted you?"
"Of course."
"That's not the reaction of most people to being wanted."
"It isn't."
"Most people feel that they rise in their own eyes, if others want them."
"I feel that others live up to me, if they want me."


"Money is only a tool... It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires... Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek."

[hhm. so true. like vacuum cleaners are just tools. You think that once you get one, life will be perfect. You dun realise that YOU have got to drive the damn thing around in order to get a nice clean carpet.]