Herb: In Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine", the young boy protagonist has a similar event with shoes... The book is short and a wonderful view into a summer in a small town in an American past. I think you would like it.

There is something about the self-absorption that an active mind could do that back then. The self contentment there was in just playing outdoors, letting your imagination create all kinds of scenarios you could share with other kids just wanting something to do the same and to interact together.

There was not the omnipresent 400 channels of distracting crap and the ultra realistic games that rob your imagination of any such creativity.

It is a natural human tendency to be curious, to seek fascination and pursue it down every avenue at all stages of life. Once this is realized cognitively, and especially when young, it will always be part of you.

I thank the stars that public education did not kill my mind. And you know what? The stirring of the imagination of comic books, sci-fi, and Ayn Rand - no thanks to public education which wasted so much of my youthful developing period - is what kept my mind alive then, and to this day.

That, my friend, is why we are here.

The areas where truth matters most, at least as far as I'm concerned, are beyond knowing, at least while I'm alive. Everything else has its place in my personal flavor of constitutional conservatism, which is not that far removed from Objectivism in many areas.

One unfortunate response is that some people have labeled AR as "racist," and therefore refuse to read anything she says. Even when told that it's a lie, they hold onto the accusation, as if an honest reading of her work would overturn their pet hypotheses (which it will). The refusal to face reality is the worst possible type of evasion.

OK
But you tempt me to get into the discussion about the nature of truth. Truth is not an opinion. It must be the foundation upon which one's premises are built, whether you like the truth or not. When forming your core beliefs you must make sure they are real and true. If not,
you are as lost as a Kardashian in a Louisiana swamp.

A cactus, prickly on the outside, but sweet inside, as I heard it many decades ago.

Not as simple a simile as most portray it to be.

Reminds me of a life lesson learned by my son. He was a pre-schooler and insisted that his next pair of shoes must be Hush Puppies. After a bit of pleading when new shoe time came along, he got his Hush Puppies. Joyfully, he ran out of the store on to the sidewalk, and immediately started to cry. Why? Because he'd been subjected to commercial after commercial showing that when a kid wore Hush Puppies, the cement turned to foam rubber. He expected that to happen and was terribly disappointed when it didn't.

Truth is that which corresponds to reality.
Take out reality and truth, any truth, is not possible. Experience can reinforce a truth, but in and of itself experience must be tested before you can say it's true.

The old saw, "I don't know and I don't care." Ignorance and apathy.

Hayek was an idiot with a large vocabulary.

I'm amazed at the similarity between the route of comic book heroes, to SciFi, ro A.S, that so many of us took.

Growing up in the 60's, the comic books were great. Heroes were heroes and villains were villains. It was a more innocent age. A lot less of the confusion that came with comics later with anti-heroes, LGBT agendas, dark negativity, etc.

Imagine the surprise I found when I progressed from comics to Sci-Fi - Heinlein, Asimov, etc, then to Ayn Rand, when I learned that the artist of my favorite character, Spiderman, had become an Ayn Rand fan. Steve Ditko, that prolific artist of 50's mystery and sci-fi comics, and the co-creator of Spidey along with Stan Lee, published a bunch of proto-objectivist pieces like Mr A, etc. Really cool.

MichaelA: Ever so true.
And yet thinking is the one difficult thing since it requires dedication to concentration.

P.S. I have been following your comments lately-
they are deadly serious and yet some comical, antagonistic and complimentary, precise and also expansive... You seem quite the enigma.

What if the political beliefs were well thought out and were true? Does experience change truth?

Herb: I find this statement frightening. Mainly because I have witnessed this happening.
I use Democrats for an example here, due to so many experiences that I have acquired over time among many acquaintances of university professors in later life and earlier with students among whom so many were Democrats. Any attempt at questioning their allegiance was met with absolute defiance, liberal platitudes and consternation. There was no reasoning, no attempt to construct a rational discussion. I have found this utterly inconceivable, in other words, "if you can't explain it, it doesn't exist". In this realm of contention it was evident that so called "smart" people were completely deluded. They were blind, staunch supporters of anything that carried the "democratic" nuance as if this was a sanction of the good for all. There could be no exceptions and no questioning only that this was the way it had to be for them. It was as if they had been born Democrats. "Prisoners of their own device".

Rand's writings were a revelation for me as a student and it was like breathing air into scorched lungs. Finally, something that responded to questioning, actually welcomed it. Objectivism was open to dissection and the parts always returned to form the whole. It was a mathematical formula that always gave the same results. Pure. Simple. So simple that there was no escaping its reasoning. "You could run but you couldn't hide", "You could check in but you couldn't check out"... Ahhh the days of the "Hotel California" bring back my introduction to AS.

Anyone who relies on beliefs of any type to deal with the world, rather than objective facts and rationally derived knowledge and understandings, will of course resist learning anything.

If they were capable of learning, they'd never have accumulated the beliefs in the first place.

Sorry, the first word I learned was why, next was how. Then I stayed up all night to catch Santa, pulled the same thing on the 'tooth fairy' and caught Mom with a nickel.

You are very fortunate to have had that type of parenting.

Thanks for that revelation. I know that many cultures use generic default terminology to insult the shallow folks in their midst.

Incidentally: When Jesus was referring to "neither toil nor spin" when speaking of plant life, he was trying to get across the point that they don't need a "boss" and that they live according to their nature.

Something that we as humans should do...

you're right on it it, sir!!! -- j
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