Hi. My name is Norbert
Posted by greybear22 3 years, 8 months ago to The Gulch: Introductions
I'm very happy to have landed in the Gulch. I arrived to this site looking for like-minded people. I've worked myself up on the career ladder making extra point in never using personal connections to have shortcuts.
After years of hard work and a lot of learning I realized, that the majority of my work's benefits went to people around me, and I'm in a place without much perspective to reach my own dreams. I'm not yet in a stage to let everything go, partially in order to give all I can to my child.
So for now, I'm in the grid phase. This site will hopefully be an outlet, and show the perspective in my future.
After years of hard work and a lot of learning I realized, that the majority of my work's benefits went to people around me, and I'm in a place without much perspective to reach my own dreams. I'm not yet in a stage to let everything go, partially in order to give all I can to my child.
So for now, I'm in the grid phase. This site will hopefully be an outlet, and show the perspective in my future.
I just read your other post and the comments posted by my contemporaries, The questions you have asked are insightful.
First; this is a forum that was founded to support the film production of Atlas Shrugged. The forum is peopled with those who have substantive and developing awareness of philosophy. Ayn Rand posed that it is impossible for humans to live without a philosophy, and that most of these proposed in the past imposed self-sacrifice as their underpinning rule. From her developmental background and her energetic awareness and thinking she refuted these and offered an alternative...Objective self awareness and self value based upon being alive, a life form. From here I let her legacy speak. An essay; The Objectivist's Ethics, delivered by lecture in 1961 at the University of Wisconsin is, I think, the most profound of her work.
This country, US, is politically charged by two basic philosophies: Self Worth and Self Sacrifice. To understand the difference requires a lot of study and learning. Most have not had reasonable exposure to philosophy of either context. You will find here a group of individuals that have been challenged by their respective lives and have made a choice to find equity of expression and action on behalf of themselves, their children and their world
I have checked out a summary of what you wrote. Based on that I would say, I might try and refrain from posting in the forum for now. The summary sounded overly simplistic and overly complicated at the same time, for different areas of it.
I am quite sure (assuming the best), that the full document makes more sense. But summarized it sounds like a failed attempt at figuring out the purpose of life (be useful, enjoy, and leave legacy).
Additionally, politically charged debates tend to make me flinch a bit on this site. For me, Ayn Rand was an introduction to the libertarian way of thinking. The concept, that says politics should be as restricted as possible. Supporting politics with passion is the key to make people involved in it - as with any controversial marketing campaign. Because people then see everything through a political lens.
Seeing things through any political lens makes people forget though, that politics can't fix things, regardless of sizes (as politicians are politicians, not engineers, financial experts, or taxi drivers). Politicians are the people, who change the rules of the card game during the game, as they see fit.
In this case, the distinction between self worth and self sacrifice sounds way too similar to ideologies, that said divide people to two groups, who are black and white, jewish and christian, communist and imperialist. While on paper, used by a selected few, these were harmless, on scale any simplification with estimations will be a system with serious flaws (the listed ones costing human lifes too).
So to sum it up. Thank you very much for participating in the creation of a remarkable piece of art. I will definitely read more about the ideology you described. But unless it is significantly different from what it seems to be now, I will refrain from posting in the forum for a while (of course answering anyone gladly, just not starting up discussions on my own). Admittedly, I moved away from the left side due to people over there becoming ignorant. This doesn't mean however, that I agree with right wing ideologies, as represented by most. And so far I can't see a difference between the main topics of the forum and eg. Trump's narrative. While I have a hard time matching the messages with Friedman's ideology.
Again, I am new to this side of the deal. And I will definitely read more about the topic. So it's definitely not intended to be a goodbye. Just a see you later probably.
For your investigation and familiarity, if you click on the pseudonym of an individual, it will take you to another screen where you have the option of looking at this persons history of posts and comments.
Looking forward to your participation and insights.