“Who is John Gail?”
Since Part I - I started and ended with this question, I thought why not do the same with this blog post. The question has clearly made it into our culture’s fabric (modern day proof, see Google suggested search to the right).
Looking over the table of contents, I’m thinking we’ll revise the reading schedule from 25ish pages per week to one section a week.
I’ll be writing a new blog post for each week’s section, so if you find yourself behind or are starting late, no worries. Just read and comment on the blog posts as you make your way to the corresponding sections (pictured right: my brother sends me a photo from an inter-island jet as proof he’s begun the journey … one chapter a week, we all can find the time my friends!).
I’d like to thank Matt Camp for being the first commentator to the Ad Hoc Atlas Shrugged Book Club. For everyone else, looking forward to your chiming in, or at least “liking” the links to each blog when I post them to Facebook.
Some of the folks who have signed on, showed interest or who are trying to decide to embark or not with us on our jounrey, include:
- John Roth
- Matt Camp
- Walter Roth
- Matt Nelson
- Randy Roth
- Susie Roth
- Tom Roth
- Cassie Roth
- Lennie
- …more but unlisted
If I’ve missed your name, comment below or let me know on Facebook. If you want to invite others, please do and have them catch up!
I’ll write more later. Until then …
“Who is John Galt?”
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
walter.roth 07.24.10 at 3:35 pm
Wow. One of my favorite parts of chapter I section II, seemed an anthem to entrepreneurs:
“The feeling was a sum, and he did not have to count again the parts that had gone to make it. But the parts, unrecalled, were there, within the feeling. They were the nights spent at scorching ovens in the research laboratory of the mills —
–the nights spent in the workshop of his home, over sheets of paper which he filled with formulas, then tore up in angry failure –
–the days when the young scientists of the small staff he had chosen to assist him waited for instructions like soldiers ready for a hopeless battle, having exhausted their ingenuity, still willing, but silent, with the unspoken sentence hanging in the air: “Mr. Rearden, it can’t be done–”
–the meals, interrupted and abandoned at the sudden flash of a new thought, a thought to be pursued at once, to be tried, to be tested, to be worked on for months, and to be discarded as another failure–
–the moments snatched from conferences, from contracts, from the duties of running the best steel mills in the country, snatched almost guiltily, as for a secret love–
–the one thought held immovably across a span of ten years, under everything he did and everything he saw, the thought held in his mind when he looked at the buildings of a city, at the track of a railroad, at the light in the windows of a distant farmhouse, at the knife in the hands of a beautiful woman cutting a piece of fruit at a banquet, the thought of a metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever done, a metal that would be to steel that steel had been to iron–
–the acts of self-racking when he discarded a hope or a sample, not permitting himself to know what he was tired, not giving himself time to feel, driving himself through the wringing torture of: “not good enough . . . still not good enough . . .” and going on with no motor save the conviction that it could be done–
–the day when it was done and its results was called Rearden Metal–
–theses were the things that had come to white heat, had melted and fused within him, and their alloy was a strange, quiet feeling that made him smile at the countryside in the darkness and wonder why happiness could hurt.”
Wow.
I’ve felt this way many of times in life. Currently everything I see online directly or indirectly makes me think of my current endeavor, Appfeeds.
Even though the section. was under 30 pages … this one just one BIG IDEA or BIG THEME that was explored. I had to stop and reread a few times. Very powerful section.
Matthew Camp 07.28.10 at 1:14 pm
You captured some great quotes Wally. This really was a great chapter that gave us insight into the mind and personality of Hank Rearden. He is obviously a driven man with a vision of the future, but one has to wonder at what cost. He maintains few emotional ties to his family and his relationship with his wife seems superficial in some ways, even through she does seem to appreciate and understand him. One line in particular struck me in his conversation with Paul Larkin. Larkin says “That your only goal is to make steel and to make money.” To which Rearden replies, “But that is my only goal.”
Is that accurate? Is that truly his only goal? He obviously has a passion for making the best steel alloy in the world, but does Rearden not really understand himself well enough to know what is really driving him?
What I can associate with in this chapter is that you can get so hung up in work that your relationships and connections to friends and family can become strained when you are singularly focused on a goal. While Hank’s family and friends are far from perfect, I definitely feel that Hank’s focus on Rearden Steel has strained his relationship with those he may be closest with. It’s a difficult balance we all face when juggling our career goals and aspirations with developing meaningful relationships.
Walter R. Roth 08.03.10 at 5:21 pm
Matt — Great comments!
I too struggled with that a bit when I read it. I have found myself losing the work life balance most my life. Only now am I experiencing better balance with more results in both spheres.
That said, I get the sense the bigger issue at hand isn’t the Work/Life topic … but rather something even more fundamental. Something way more insidious. Its not just the Mom, Brother, friend and Wife dynamic. Its the under lining principles that each one represents. Lines are being drawn in the sand.
Chapter I II is titled “THE CHAIN”. I get the sense that its not referring to the old traditional “ball and chain” that one might suspect as we meet his wife. Its a much deeper sense of imprisonment.
On the other hand, I’ve been warned by a mentor not to take the book too seriously. I agree with that. The characters are both admirable as well as impossible. Its easy to become unbalanced, or worse off, self loathing, if one was to hold themselves up, literally, and try to live up to each character’s overall standards and accomplishments. I think the book presents a purest’s view, and people are to take aspects of it that enrich their life and fit the standards they create for themselves, and allow the rest to be pondered and disposed of as they see fit.
Greg Chadwick 08.19.10 at 1:41 am
Henry Rearden is one passionate, singularly focused dude. If Henry Rearden is Rearden Metal, is he not also the chain? His gift, that of himself? He is an innovator. Reminds me of the patriarch of Standard Oil. He does what he does extremely well and is both rewarded and suffers a disconnect in others perception of him. Seems to me that the gift of the chain and it’s meaning was lost on Lillian. Will Rearden Metal suffer the same fate?
Cheers!