"...it reflects a man’s deepest values; it is experienced by him as a sense of his own identity."
"[T]he myth of a supernatural recorder from whom nothing can be hidden, who lists all of a man’s deeds ... That myth is true, not existentially, but psychologically. The merciless recorder is the integrating mechanism of a man’s subconscious; the record is his sense of life. ....
"What he does not know is that every day of his life is judgment day — the day of paying for the defaults, the lies, the contradictions, the blank-outs recorded by his subconscious on the scrolls of his sense of life. And on that kind of psychological record, the blank entries are the blackest sins.
"A sense of life, once acquired, is not a closed issue. It can be changed and corrected — easily, in youth, while it is still fluid, or by a longer, harder effort in later years. Since it is an emotional sum, it cannot be changed by a direct act of will. It changes automatically, but only after a long process of psychological retraining, when and if a man changes his conscious philosophical premises.
"Whether he corrects it or not, whether it is objectively consonant with reality or not, at any stage or state of its specific content, a sense of life always retains a profoundly personal quality; it reflects a man’s deepest values; it is experienced by him as a sense of his own identity."
~ Ayn Rand, from her article 'Philosophy and Sense of Life' (collected in her book The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature)
1 comment:
That's a very good quote I'd never previously heard from Rand. I think there are two qualifications that should be added to this to avoid some common misinterpretations:
1. The "psychological retraining" can only happen primarily from action, not from introspection. It's not an introverted process. I used to think, as many still do that before you take action down a desirable path, you firstly have to be motivated, non-fearful, and ready in the head to take that action. I've come to learn that's trying to put the cart before the horse. You must take action, do what you think you should be doing even when you're uncomfortable, and only then will you start to become more motivated and comfortable doing it.
2. It's easy to become too concerned with never committing a "sin", that it stops us taking the necessary action. Better to give things a go and not be too concerned if you fuck it up. Just learn from them and do it differently next time. Better to do that then maintain some platonic perfection. I'm confident she didn't intend it, but the way Rand talks of "sin" in this quote seems more aligned with the religious concept of sin.
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