Heart of the Home, and the Process of Writing

My wife Kristin is creative in a scrapbook-ish way. She's got impeccable taste and knows how to make a house into a home. Still, I never thought I would be quoting one of my wife's favorite authors: Susan Branch. I know this was her intention because, when I removed the letter from my keyboard, I noticed there were copious highlighted portions and lots of exclamation points for emphasis.

Writing a book, like everything else, isn’t all roses, for those of you who want to or are trying to, here’s a bit of a secret I thought you might like to know. When I first started writing books, no one told me about this thing called “process” – rather an important little tidbit of information. I didn’t get the picture until I read the Autobiography of Mark Twain, and he told me. What I found out was that all that time I was fretting or worrying, feeling uninspired because I didn’t have the answer to a problem or idea, feeling stumped My favorite word is pumpkin. You are a pumpkin or you are not. I am.because I didn’t know what to do, this was actually normal.. Not understanding this, I would be very impatient with myself. Which didn’t help, in fact it made it worse. Until I finally figured out that this waiting period was part of the process and actually what I now call the “foundation for the creation.” Mark Twain dealt with it by keeping creative doing something else; leaving his “problem” to solve itself.
Sometimes it seems to take forever, but now I know I’m working on it even when I don’t feel like I am! This is the deeper meaning of the words, "just sleep on it." I trust that my inner self has the answer, and will, in good time, give it to the outer me so I can get on with my life. In the meantime, reading the book The Artist's Way was a huge help to keep myself focused.

It's always encouraging to hear how someone overcame the same barriers and challenges I am facing. As and update, I am still plugging and chugging, with the goal of finishing by the end of the year.

Ayn Rand on The Daily Show

This week on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, Jennifer Burns talked about Ayn Rand and her new biography Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jennifer Burns
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

A great interview. I look forward to reading Prof. Burns' book.

Ominous Parallels

Here is an email I received from the Objectivism Seminar. I have listened to some of the discussions, and I really appreciate the work that several people have put into the material. It's very illuminating.

The Objectivism Seminar just wrapped up its intensive tour of Dr. Leonard Peikoff's seminal book, _Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand_. It was great! We got to chew on the entire system and its distinctive methodology in the course of some 53(!) sessions, going section by section from metaphysics to aesthetics. Some of the participants already had a decade or three of study under their belts, while others were brand new -- but we all came away with a more grounded, integrated understanding relative to where we started (that whole "spiral theory of learning" thing :^). The recordings are available for anyone who wants to join in after the fact -- just visit The Objectivism Seminar's page at TalkShoe to listen or subscribe to the podcasts. But it's much better to actually be a part of the conversation, so please join in on our next adventure: Dr. Peikoff's other book, _The Ominous Parallels_! It seems so fitting with our current political trajectory and speed. "Is the freest country on earth moving toward totalitarian dictatorship? What were the factors that enabled the Nazis to seize power in pre-war Germany? Do those same conditions exist in America today?" "These are the questions raised -- and answered, with frightening clarity -- by Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, in his powerful book The Ominous Parallels." "We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully," Peikoff warns. "But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason." The first session will be in about one week (September 7), so you have time to dust off your copy and be ready to bring your knowledge and questions to the conversation! This isn't as technical a work as _Objectivism_, so we're planning on moving at the rate of about a chapter each week or two. Please visit www.ObjectivismSeminar.com for more information.

Piekoff's book is especially interesting to me in the context of Friedrich Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom, which I am also reading and discussing. Hayek presents a compelling argument that socialism's failure, not capitalism's, led to fascism in Europe in the early 20th century. As always, I'm interested in your thoughts.

Ayn Rand and Goldman Sachs

While I can't say I agree with everything in Ayn Rand's Objectivism, but I watched a disturbing interview on MarketWatch.com, in which two individuals were speaking in a language that was disturbing, if not unintelligible. First, having worked at Goldman Sachs, I disagree that the culture is characterized by "selflessness." Second, I disagree that "selflessness" is the road to making money. Thirdly, it was apparent to me that both Rand and Goldman were mischaracterized. As always, I'm interested in your thoughts.

Faith vs Reason, or Faith vs Works?

I have spent many posts discussing the ethical conclusions that Objectivists and Christians have in common. But the means of knowledge are sometimes opposed at their foundation. Both the Objectivist and the Christian embrace reason as a means of knowledge, but the Objectivist makes no room for faith.

Objectivism explicitly rejects anything that entails “blind acceptance of a certain ideational content.” The term used to describe this action is “faith.” - Leonard Piekoff.

Understood properly, biblical faith isn’t juxtaposed against reason, but against “works.” At this very point of contrast, the Old and New Testaments contrast religion and Gospel Christianity. No human being can please God by self-improvement, and yet that is the default-mode of the human heart. We want immediately set up a tit for tat relationship with God in our mind. “If I live up to a particular standard—say, the Ten Commandments—then God will bless me.” The secular version goes like this: “If I do certain things in life that are under my control, I will achieve happiness.” The Gospel, however, says that we were created to be in deep, satisfying relationship with our Creator, but we’re separated from him here and now, By trusting in Jesus—his performance and resume, not our own—we may be set right before God by faith, not by trying to be good. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatian church in the first century, talks about his faith experience this way:

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man: so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living in not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. …If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. - Galatians 2:19-21