Fountainhead Phase: Ayn Rand Anyone?

OK – this Sunday’s theme: willpower. Perhaps a worthy topic for those taking inventory of their lives at the division between Oh-nine and Oh-Ten. Anybody out there thinking of New Year’s resolutions? And if you are…here’s a question: How does one get the power, the willpower, to change? To become?

Kicking around in my cluttered head amidst this rumination is…Ayn Rand. I will confess: I have never read The Fountainhead. Read a summary or two, and have read up on “objectivism” and its relationship (and to some degree non-affinity) with brother Friedrich Nietzsche.

One of the most hilarious bits of lit I’ve read in the past couple years is Tobias Wolff’s depiction of Ayn Rand in his wonderful little book Old School. (A quick read, totally worth it; one of the books that made me boo hoo like a babe at the end….). In it, he describes the main character’s “Fountainhead” phase – disdaining all forms of mediocrity, and “second handers'” attempts to bring down his quest for excellence. A hoot.

The reason I mention this: Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche are frisky atheists – the latter brilliant, the former banal in my humble opinion – but both are poster children for the philosophical school of thought that focuses on self-will. The chief gift of being human is the ability to create, and to create one’s destiny apart from the mediocritizing influence of the madding crowd. In this mode of thinking, faith misdirects our human will toward that which is unworthy of us; toward a “slave morality” as Nietzsche put it, which lauds the lowly, and shuns the great. (Love to hear from any Nietzscheans or anti-Nietzscheans out there).

Read Nietzche and you’ll see he’s got a lot to say, even to Christians. Not so much (OK, not having really read her) Ayn Rand, but I’m still open.

But to the point here: where does the power to change come from? The power to become who we are truly meant to be as humans? Does it come from our human will and determination? Or is there something to the notion that that power in fact comes from a source beyond human; and we put it to use in simply trusting it, believing in it.

Those in 12-step programs call it a “higher power”. I would imagine such folk are not terribly simpatico with likes of Rand and Nietzsche. Theirs (and mine) is the belief that change requires something beyond us, a power that is higher than the human will. According to John, a power “to become children of God, who [are] born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” Read the full text of John 1:1-18 here.

Where do we get the power to change? Love to hear any stories about how folk have found the power and ability to do that – to change something about themselves. How did you decide what needed to change? What was it that prompted you to do so? Setbacks and backslides? Success and confidence? Love to hear from you – by email or, heck, responding here….

Lastly…anybody out there who also had a “Fountainhead Phase”. (I know a few of them…).

Meanwhile – Happy New Year! And good luck with those resolutions.

Jeff V.