Rational passion and passionate reason
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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 85% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 4% Intervene massively—as it's doing 2% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 2% Something else (specify) 7% Total votes: 55
 Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
 Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
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Atlas Month—My First Love Submitted by Prima Donna on Tue, 2006-04-04 07:09.
From The Free Radical's special Ayn Rand Centenary issue, March 2005) I met him when I was twenty-two. My life would never be the same again. Not every woman has the incredible fortune to meet a man who offers a profound source of inspiration. I was utterly captivated by the depth of his soul; my eyes twinkled when he expressed childlike innocence and laughter. He was passionate, confident, brilliant, athletic, and he radiated competence — he was everything I wanted a man to be. For four days we did not leave my bedroom, save for the necessary breaks. I was so enthralled with this mysterious, romantic creature that nothing else mattered but being wrapped up in him completely. His name was Francisco Domingo Carlos Andrès Sebastian d’Anconia, and I fell head over heels in love with him. At last, here was a man who simultaneously embodied integrity and limitless joy. Here was an aristocrat who was as comfortable in a drawing room as he was on a factory floor. Here was a creator who exemplified what man might be and ought to be. My love for Francisco has only grown since I met him a decade ago, and each year I revisit him in the world of Atlas Shrugged — just to get a fix of his magnificence. The first time I read the book, I skipped most of Galt’s speech just to get to the end; I had to know the fate of the last of the d’Anconias. When he lost the woman of his dreams, I wept for him. Such an ending seemed heinously unfair to me — and still does. But Francisco set an impossible precedent for the men who would later enter my life. Such an act is hard to follow. For years I was on a quest to see if I could find the living embodiment of him anywhere on earth; he became the benchmark against which to measure all men. This impractical goal led to much heartbreak, and many broken hearts, but such was the significance of his impact on me. There were days when I cursed Ayn Rand for showing me such beauty — for once one’s eyes are opened, they are not easily closed again. Now that I am older, and hopefully wiser, I have a better understanding of the foundation of my love for Francisco, and my need to keep him alive in my imagination. Quite simply, his sense of life is a mirror image of my own. His capacity for joy is one I feel each day, where there is, around every corner, a question to be answered, or a problem to be solved. Nothing is more gratifying or fulfilling. And like Francisco, I take my joy very seriously, whether it is to be found in a flirtatious remark to a worthy recipient, or in the satisfaction of a job well done. For the two of us, life is a constant source of excitement: to think, and then to do. Francisco’s mastery of life is a pursuit that echoes deeply within me. The thought that “I can do it!” is the fuel that drives me to reach goals that might seem impossible at the outset. His magnificent spirit is a beacon that guides me toward paradise on earth, where the world is a vast treasure map and I am a crafty seeker of riches. His words even echo through my head on occasion. Questions like “Why should there be a limit?” Or quips like “It is not advisable…to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.” And my favorite: “Isn’t it wonderful that our bodies can give us so much pleasure?” Of course, this glorious aristocrat would be nothing without his ingenious creator. I am grateful to Ayn Rand for many things, but most of all for her conception of this larger than life character who has come to mean so much to me. Her words were so incredibly vivid that Francisco jumped from the pages of Atlas Shrugged to pull me into his world and live in it alongside him, moment by moment. In the end, what Rand gave to me in Francisco d’Anconia was a kindred spirit who, though he lived only in the pages of a novel, could be honored and celebrated with every one of my heartbeats. It is interesting to me that Rand had the same kind of symbol in her life: her beloved Cyrus. She discovered this heroic character in a short story as a young girl, but carried his spirit with her for a lifetime. I did not learn of Cyrus until many years after reading Atlas Shrugged, and the parallel struck me as a poignant one. Her description was eerily familiar: It was a love affair from the first installment…the kind of feeling I had for him, it still exists…There’s nothing that I can add in quality to any important love later on that wasn’t contained in that. Except that being the first, the intensity was almost unbearable. I was a woman in love in a serious sense…If, before, I felt that I was imprisoned among dull people, now it was: They don’t know, but I do — this is what’s possible. (Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, 12.) For Ayn Rand, Cyrus provided a springboard from which to craft the ideals and ideas that would follow in her fictional novels; for me, Francisco d’Anconia provided a springboard from which to craft my own sense of life, and to evolve into the kind of person he represented. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never met him. Perhaps a little bit easier in some respects, but not enough for me to trade the utter bliss that has come from making his acquaintance. Published in February 2005.
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 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
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A Thousand Pardons
I don't mind at all, dear friend. You've painted a lovely picture here, and one that illustrates all of your wonderful sides. I hope you find him.
And that he has a friend.
-- The Gilded Fork
Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.
A similar kind of thing
Jennifer, I hope you'll pardon me posting something I wrote to your thread. It is in the same vein, something I wrote yesterday while thinking about the man that I hope I will find someday, just as you hope your Francisco will come to you. Here it is:
I have always felt joy and desire and pleasure and love with a fierce intensity - an intensity that makes life rich and glowing. But the price I pay is the equal intensity of my sorrows, my losses, my blighted hopes, and my loneliness. What makes sorrow worse is my lack of a soul friend. That place filled, sorrow would be christened into a kind of stark beauty in the telling of it. My sould friend could never be placid and never cruel. He might be angry or pitying or wildly happy or content and still like water not yet at boiling point, but his feelings, whatever they were, would always be beautifful. Beautiful in agony or delight, beautiful in clear hatred or in love. I miss that friend, and when I run to David and Aquinas with the deepest things I know and feel, I always think of him, of how he could understand the depths of me, constanty stirring somewhere deep underneath, waiting always for the the life tremors that will call up the storm. He would not be afraid of the wind and the thunder or of the waves and waves of joy that would crash at his feet. He would not row on lakes and meandering rivers, but set sail in the changing oceans of me. He would not be the sea himself, but an adventurer, a sailor called by his nature and mine to leave familiar ports and range wild over my unknown oceans and learn the secrets of all the stars and islands and vast stretches of water lying uncharted in me. He would know how to be hard without cruelty and still without placidity. He would know how to love me. But he isn't here yet, and so I find the likeness of him in books and poems and imagination. I find pieces of him in all the people I love, and I love them more in seeing him reflected there.
Kelly
Rex...
...without any snark intended, if you are going to ask me a question, it really needs to be legible. The soul of which I speak is not a mystical one, if that is what you're asking.
-- The Gilded Fork
Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.
"Man's soul is his
"Man's soul is his consciousness"
It's a figurative term not representing a literal ghostly being which lives inside human bodies.
---Landon
Inking is sexy.
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes
Free Radical
Hi guys I just read down the column and am new to this site so was hopeing for great things in the FreeRadical and I drop in to what I have to say is a lovely looking ladies story about a raunchy encounter with her first love,I was doing nzd for that where,s the political animal desperate to wrestle the controls of our nation from the limp grip of fundementalism,So miss Donna,you percieve that people have a soul do you?what exactly is a soul,allso as a habit most say ,my god,jesus bloody christ,oh for christs sake,this is all brainwashing and I am training myself not to use any such ignorance,if you need to say,oh godfree.
Great piece. I'm not sure if
Great piece. I'm not sure if I've read it before (ok let's be honest... I'D REMEMBER SOMETHING LIKE THIS!) Your admiration of my own favorite Rand character and how you expressed it was inspirational to see.
---Landon
It all basically comes back to fight or flight.
HUGE News!!!!
That big news announcement can now be found here!!
-- "The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star." Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste
Ack!
Ed, rest assured that the mindless place known as the Food Channel will never want the likes of me.
We are forging our own way instead, and there is a whole lot happening behind the scenes right now, so keep an eye out, including an amazing development that we expect to announce tonight (and oooh! I can't say what, but I'm dying to!!!!).
I have started podcasting, however, so you can listen to me via our newest project, the Culinary Podcast Network, and we'll soon be doing videocasts. Some of my snippets are here on SOLO (smell, sight, and touch), and my second Food Philosophy show will come out tomorrow night.
Thank you for rooting for me, Ed.
My partners, colleagues and I hope to blaze a new trail in food media that is refreshing, intelligent, outspoken, and actually has some substance. It is much needed. Happily, we're finding that the public agrees.
xo
-- "Good God!! I thought that was the end. SOLO was out. My DSL was down to 2 mbps and I had a really nasty itch I couldn't reach." Ross Elliot
Yup
Yup, mhuh -- I'm on it, 'lright.
I don't make it over here quite as much as I make it other there, though (I'll assume you know of which 2 places I herenow 'speak').
One lil' funny that I had wanted to share with you was when I heard a news story of a new 'food gal' -- I think it was a new Food Channel host. I don't know her name, but she's quite popular now -- with her TV food show. Anyway, when I had heard that a zesty new gal had taken over as the host of a food show, I thought: JENNIFER! It's YOU (I thought)! You go, girl! Good for you!
Then I found out is was some other gal ... talk about disappointment. But I was rootin' for ya', though! Besides, I know you have it in you -- ie. I DO expect you to have an aired food show (to compliment your magazine), at some point in time.
And thanks for the warm (and zesty) 'hello!'
Ed
Ed!!!!
I didn't know you were on SOLO, Ed! It's *wonderful* to 'see' you too!
(This post has a lot of exclamation points!! Because I'm really really excited to see Ed!!)
And, uh, thanks Dan. It was all about you.
-- "Good God!! I thought that was the end. SOLO was out. My DSL was down to 2 mbps and I had a really nasty itch I couldn't reach." Ross Elliot
Beautiful love story
Jennifer, that was -- no, is -- a beautiful love story (and, as John said, it is good to 'see' you again).
Ed
*Blushing*
Jen,
Ya know you make me blush when you write about me
Very well written, so sweet, I loved it!
--Dan
Casey, I'm far prettier than
Casey, I'm far prettier than the young Shatner
Just check out my profile page for the sordid truth...
No, sadly...
...that *is* Kirk.
Bill and Jody, thank you. I thought perhaps a lift of spirit was in order.
-- "Good God!! I thought that was the end. SOLO was out. My DSL was down to 2 mbps and I had a really nasty itch I couldn't reach." Ross Elliot
A Kirk look-alike?
Eh?
Thanks
Jennifer,
That is a sweet post. Thank you.
The Objectivist movement needs statements of positive values like this to show what it is really all about. Sometimes the ratio of squabbling to value creation gets a little too high otherwise.
-Bill (not exactly able to erase my own name from its prominent place among those dragging us down into squabbling...)
Exactly the kind of writing
Exactly the kind of writing I've come to expect from you Jennifer: gorgeous storytelling.
Thanks John. Ross, I don't
Thanks John.
Ross, I don't even dare to venture a guess as to what you mean...
-- Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.
Ahh, so *that* explains it
Ahh, so *that* explains it
Beautiful, heroic, touching,
Beautiful, heroic, touching, sentimental....This is wonderful Jennifer. Good to "see" you again