Suppose that you are an astronaut whose spaceship gets out of control and crashes on an unknown planet. When you regain consciousness and find that you are not hurt badly, the first three questions in your mind would be: Where am I? How can I discover it? What should I do? You see unfamiliar vegetation outside, and there is air to breathe; the sunlight seems paler than you remember it and colder. You turn to look at the sky, but stop. You are struck by a sudden feeling: if you dont look, you wont have to know that you are, perhaps, too far from the earth and no return is possible; so long as you dont know it, you are free to believe what you wish — and you experience a foggy, pleasant, but somehow guilty, kind of hope. You turn to your instruments: they may be damaged, you dont know how seriously. But you stop, struck by a sudden fear: how can you trust these instruments? How can you be sure that they wont mislead you? How can you know whether they will work in a different world? You turn away from the instruments. Now you begin to wonder why you have no desire to do anything. It seems so much safer just to wait for something to turn up somehow; it is better, you tell yourself, not to rock the spaceship. Far in the distance, you see some sort of living creatures approaching; you dont know whether they are human, but they walk on two feet. They, you decide, will tell you what to do. You are never heard from again. ... - Ayn Rand, from her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point New York — March 6, 1974 You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. - Ayn Rand
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 04:49:15 +0000
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