how atlas shrugged by ayn rand changed my life

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i want to share a tip which made a dramatic difference for me, and maybe can help a few others here.

a few years ago i was going through a horribly tough time.. some business deals hadn't worked out and i was almost totally broke.. and before that nothing in my life had really been working anyway.

then a mentor suggested i read "atlas shrugged" by ayn rand. i actually had the book lying around but had never gotten around to reading it.

well the first 120 pages were totally boring.. but when i really started on it, it just was reshaping my mind.. finally everything started to logically make sense.. it took maybe 4-5 days to read the full 1,200 pages, and required a lot of thinking and rethinking.

and, several years later, i became pretty damn successful. i won't go into specifics, but i will say i became far more successful than 99% of people my age. the core reason this happened was from reading atlas shrugged. no question whatsoever.

now, if you're an aspie who lives in his parents basement with no job and can barely go outside because of the sunlight and your clothes scratching on your body how is this relevant to you? obviously i'm fairly high functioning.

the reason is this:

as aspies, we know we have social problems. we don't understand other people properly and it causes huge problems in every aspect of our lives. i've lived it all my life too.

but the message of atlas shrugged STRIPS away all the social stuff. it says that at the core, people want to exchange value for value, and they should be PROUD of doing so. they should NOT care about what society says or what their parents think as long as they are doing GOOD.

this is a phenomenal message for someone who has social skill problems. because mentally we CAN reject a lot of society's programming, and do things our own way. this can be a little harder to absorb if you're surrounded by artistic or humanistic people who have a deep embedded hatred of ayn rand. but remember they have a big difference to us -- they have great social skills and intrinsic understanding of life situations which we don't have. so if you can put aside the message frmo your surroundings, i strongly recommend you buy a copy of atlas shrugged by ayn rand (or watch fountainhead, the movie from the 50's). actually i'd recommend a serious study of all things ayn rand for any aspie. i read several books and studied it intensively online.

your therapist won't agree with this either btw (i've asked 2 top aspergers therapists and they both really dislike it). but u gotta remember, anyone attracted to working with dorks like us isn't in it for the money, their motivation is purely humanitarian (and thank god for them!). but, also remember they DON'T have aspergers so they have solid social skills and understandings of social situations which we don't. life naturally treats them well.

i hope this is helpful. i don't post here much but i will try to respond to some questions.

Eh. I skipped the 120 pages of boring and read Faith of the Fallen. Same message (with other messages mixed in).

Terry Goodkind is actually a major fan of Ayn Rand and a lot of her philosophies can be found in the Sword of Truth series.

Edit: For the record, I firmly believe that Faith of the Fallen is the primary reason why I'm alive today. Given how things have played out recently, I actually think that a re-read might do me good.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- from the blog of Paul Klugman, Nobel Prize winning economist

I'm glad her book helped you become more self-sufficient. I'm not too fond of Ayn Rand myself, mainly because so many people whose opinions I fundamentally disagree with seem to worship her. Also, I am artistic, but also autistic, so your statement that artistic people have "great social skills" is very, very wrong. Maybe some do, maybe most do, but I definitely have severely impaired social skills and I am most definitely an artist (and a scientist, and a historian).

I love that quote. Rand is a pretty decent writer of fiction (so I've heard) but Objectivism is not really a legitimate philosophy in any sense and has been continuously rejected by almost all mainstream philosophers for decades. Mostly it seems to be Tea Party types who find it worth living by. If it helps someone, then whatever, so long as they don't become Randroids I could care less

How terrible.

In all seriousness, though, "mainstream" (though your definition may vary) psychologists love the idea of letting anger out, a theory that's been thoroughly debunked (letting your anger out is actually harmful over the long term). Just because something is in the mainstream doesn't make it right. Philosophy especially is a tricky topic.

One of the greatest quotes ever. Ayn Rand worshiping has become a cult to some people. Her followers preach greed and selfishness while conveniently overlooking the fact that she gladly accepted Social Security and Medicare when she was diagnosed with lung cancer and needed the collective to bail her out.

I am glad you think her "teachings" are helping you to be successful, but if you push everyone else out of the way in the name of success, you are setting yourself up for a bigger than necessary fall when you hit an inevitable rough spot.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j56IiLqZ9U[/youtube]

i appreciate the responses. i hope you guys who disagree with ayn rand are all leading happy lives though. because i'm showing you something which i believe can be a magic ingredient for people with aspergers to have big breakthroughs.

some responses to various points:
- <ayn rand worship> for me personally not at all. its not about changing ALL your values. just some. its certainly about RETHINKING your values and deciding which ones you will keep. but if you're an independent thinker, why wouldn't you be opening to reviewing your values? personally i hate the tea party and strongly believe in UK style public health insurance for the USA.

- <success at the cost of others> c'mon guys, are you really all such happy empathetic beings? the reality is that aspergers is a condition MARKED for problems with empathy. Thats at the core of why we have lower social functioning. yes, i know the two types of empathy, and we have feelings etc. but you don't have to do bad things, just not care when other people disagree with you -- follow your OWN moral compass. or do you prefer to blindly follow the NT moral compass??

- <legitimate philosophy> if you are a mainstream thinker looking for mainstream philosophy then you are NT, so you shouldn't be posting here. IMHO there is no legitimate or illegitimate, there is what works for you and helps you live a happy life.

- <artistic people and ayn rand> -- hey if you're artistic, thats awesome. you can still absorb her thoughts so you can focus on producing art people want which makes it easier for you to live a self sufficient, happy life independent of others imposing their will on you. i think it could even make you a much better artist. even banksy does ok right?

- <other material similar to ayn rand as a replacement> -- i would suggest nothing can replace the power of spending the time to read the 1200 pages of atlas shrugged and contemplate it. this is deep stuff, and a cliff notes version isn't going to lead to the same understanding. i'd guess u got maybe 10% of the real message.

the problem with ayn rand and atlas shrugged is that you have to overturn a huge amount of social conditioning and social pressure.

but lets ask a straightforward question: how many of the posters in this thread have read all of atlas shrugged with an open mind? if not, are you really an aspie, proud of making your own decisions? or are you just trying to follow yet another NT way of thinking which doesn't work for us.

and I see the straw men everywhere, anyone have some matches?

Very happy, thank you. I am more interested in the philosophy of Sun Tzu



That's just ridiculous and somewhat insulting. One does not need to be a 'mainstream thinker' or 'NT' to reject pseudo-scientific or pseudo-philosophical ideas. You are correct about 'whatever works', but many philosophers who are widely accepted are certainly not mainstream thinkers, and they out right reject Rand's ideas because of the inherent flaws in them that lead some (emphasis here) to believe that Objectivism justifies their selfish & callous behavior due to their own crude interpretation (another emphasis to ensure you I'm not attacking you, good sir ) of Rand's writings

I've never read it. Maybe I should, just to see what the fuss is about. I found other books and philosophies that helped me, so I don't really need a radical shift in outlook or beliefs or what have you.

I'll recommend a few that had significant effects on me at various points in my life

Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man
M. Scott Peck - The Road Less Travelled
Alan Watts - The Book: On the Taboo Against Being Who You Are

Last edited by Moog on 08 May 2011, 6:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Read it, the main messege I got from it being "The poor are lazy, worship the rich, they are better then you and deserve every penny they get".

remember the bit where the train blows up and the narrator explains why everyone on board deserved to die cause they were all part of the evil socialist government in some way? That was fun, but I don't expect it to mean anything to you since there are two books where about anyone who likes them can say without flinchs "you're taking it out of context", the Bible and Atlas Shrugged.

Also, Rand took social security benefits.

On the subject of books that changed my life..hmm, well I base my political beliefs on Finnegans Wake.

edit: I really like the Op's interpretation of Atlas Shrugged, I just wish more people interpretted it like that, as opposed to a justification for being selfish and despising the unproductive.

I prefer humanism. It's given me an appreciation for life, and a drive to live my one shot at life to the fullest. I also find it more satisfying than a philosophy that advocates a dog eat dog world where people don't generally help eachother and the poor/handicapped are treated like scum.

I would also mention that the libertarian/Austrian understanding of economics is infantile and simplistic. The study of economics has advanced greatly since Friedrich Hayek. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that disproves many of the assumptions of Austrian "economists." In order for people to continue following the Austrian school in modern times, they either have to be ignorant of the empirical evidence (sometimes people just aren't aware, that's not always their fault), or they have to ignore it.

Magic ingredient?

This is where you lose me. There is no magic ingredient..

A book that really shaped my thinking: Godel, Escher And Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid. But it has no magical powers, even if it did win a Pulitzer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

"In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter has emphasized that GEB is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms. In the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants."



I'm glad you are doing well, but Ayn Rand is just another data point in the stream.

I have many thoughts about Ayn Rand, but I hate talking about her, so I'll leave that alone.

I will say that what works for one person won't work for every person. I am pretty sure if I described a few of the things that made a dramatic difference for me, many people would find them difficult or unnecessary for their own mental health.

When you find something that works, that's great, but don't expect it to be generalized to everyone. I don't think Atlas Shrugged is the magic ingredient that will help everyone.

exactly. In fact I prescribe to Existential Nihilism more-so than anything. Its just one of the few philosophical beliefs that resonates with me the most. I actually more or less look at things reference and such, then patch together my own framework.