The world is not as you imagine it to be through the lens of your prejudice.
If you approach the world as a child and play with it and do not worry about what others think of you then you will see truth.
As Keat’s said:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know.”
This is the artists creed.
The trader is an artist who serves the cause of truth as a warrior from the tribe of the way of the turtle.
We have left for Galt’s Gulch.
We’ll show the world who the looters and thieves are:
Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.
Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury of the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal’s lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.
The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot are traders, both in manner and spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder, or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit—his love, his friendship, his esteem—except in payment and in trade for human virtue, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the trader and held him in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of the sneers: a trader is the entity they dread—a man of justice.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
“This is John Galt Speaking” Chapter VII
We’ll see you in Galt’s Gulch.
Peace,
Curtis
Trading From Your Gut
Way of the Turtle
Inside the Mind of the Turtles
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Where is Galt’s Gulch?
Read Atlas Shrugged to find out.
Curtis,
Galt’s Gulch does not exist. Not now, not even in the nearest future. I am an objectivist too and I do miss it when I have time to philosophise.
You ARE the most capable from the original Turtle group and you know it. No wonder Richard promptly spotted it. Being too young when you start is a double-edged sword.
Put some effort and get back to what you are passionate about. I know you can.
Peace,
Vlad