Drop That Foolish Delusion???

I.  Introduction


This writer is a voracious reader without the time or visual strength to read voraciously. Thank God for technology that spawned CDs, MP3 players, public libraries and www.onthegobooks.com!  


The current read/listen is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.  Have you read it?  Or, perhaps, you may have read her Atlas Shrugged.   Both of these mammoth works of fiction are fraught with critically thinking idealists ("CTI"), on the one hand, and sorry-butt sluggards who never seem to transcend a state of group mentality ("Slugs"), on the other.   My dilemma is that while I tend to agree more with the CTIs rather than the Slugs, I find the CTIs to generally be a cold, unfeeling, dispassionate bunch.  That makes me a little uneasy, as my cold, unfeeling dispassionate self is quite a bit smaller than my warm, feeling, passionate Andrea -- at least so I believe.  [Some folks may beg to differ; so be it.]  Still, the Slugs tend to trample on my last nerve with their whining, conniving, manipulative, selfish-in-the-name-of-the-people and deceitful ways.  Oh, but for a bit of balance!  It is my sad acknowledgment that Slugs tend to outnumber CTIs in all areas -- family, work, school, whatever/wherever (perhaps the 80/20 rule applies here?).  


The Slugs of the world would have us all believe that the only way to make it in this little world (it is, indeed, quite small when you look at the big picture) is to follow the masses in all respects.  And to the extent one's dreams, desires, ambitions, aspirations, and even opinions and thought processes are skewed from those of the masses, there is no place for that kind in the world.  


The Slugs of this world -- the ones who would dare say drop that foolish delusion -- be damned!  There is a price to pay for that kind of edict, and many CTIs have paid dearly.  Still, if one who is a peace-loving, nonconforming traditionalist, often misquoted and misunderstood, still refuses to march to the beat of anyone's drum except one's own, as led by one's God, then so be it.   What for most is a foolish delusion may be a solution to a problem that benefits not the CTI so much as it does the masses -- including the Slugs.  It is the lack of confidence and downright slothfulness of the Slugs that stifle the nurturing, growth and development of the masses.  And the masses are too blind, starved and stunted to see and understand their deprivation.


In the coming blogs we will examine some CTIs and and Slugs -- some from works of fictional and some real*, with the intent of trying to find some balance between the two.  I hope you will stick around for the next few entries.    


Grace & peace,


Andrea


*Out of basic human respect, no real person will be labeled "Slug" or "CTI."  Then, again, if it looks like a Slug, acts like a Slug . . . well, you get the point, don't you?