Pure irony at the ASP3 editing facility last night...
I haven't been in the Gulch much lately because we've been working 14-16 hour days editing the film - I just had to stop by and share this quick story though.
First, the setup...
In the book, when Dagny's deciding whether or not to go back to the world, John says "If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and your mind, follow your mind."
Remember that nugget?
So last night, we ordered Chinese. Imagine my surprise when I received the MOST IRONIC fortune cookie ever...
Needless to say, we all had a pretty good laugh. :)
First, the setup...
In the book, when Dagny's deciding whether or not to go back to the world, John says "If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and your mind, follow your mind."
Remember that nugget?
So last night, we ordered Chinese. Imagine my surprise when I received the MOST IRONIC fortune cookie ever...
Needless to say, we all had a pretty good laugh. :)
My favorite fortune is (I have it on my fridge) "Never doubt logical things". My second favorite is, "Pick another cookie." :)
All fortune cookies are true. If it's not YOUR fortune, maybe it's someone else's. My favorite one said, YOU LIKE CHINESE FOOD.
A friend got one that read, YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU DESERVE. She says she was terrified.
Excellent paraprosdokian!
It isn't even possible to totally shut off emotion, anyway. All thought, whether emotional or logical, is simply a matter of frequency, and attempting to shut down the emotional frequencies typically only ever results in the suppression the finer and more delicate emotions, such as love, kindness, and generosity, while allowing the denser and more base emotions like hate and anger to take complete and total control. Most people here probably don't know this, but telling people to suppress their emotions and listen exclusively to logic is actually a tactic that's used by Islamic terrorist groups to make their jihadists more radical and more violent. And you know what? It works.
So forgive me, but this is one area of Ayn Rand's philosophy that is not just merely wrong – it is also dangerous.
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Quotes from Albert Einstein:
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge."
"All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration.... At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason."
"We are inclined to overemphasize the material influences in history. The Russians especially make this mistake. Intellectual values and ethnic influences, tradition and emotional factors are equally important. If this were not the case, Europe would today be a federated state, not a madhouse of nationalism."
"Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man."
"Many people think that the progress of the human race is based on experiences of an empirical, critical nature, but I say that true knowledge is to be had only through a philosophy of deduction. For it is intuition that improves the world, not just following a trodden path of thought. Intuition makes us look at unrelated facts and then think about them until they can all be brought under one law. To look for related facts means holding onto what one has instead of searching for new facts. Intuition is the father of new knowledge, while empiricism is nothing but an accumulation of old knowledge. Intuition, not intellect, is the 'open sesame' of yourself."
Intuition, in my perception, is a reinterpretation of prior knowlidge. It provides a different understanding of that knowlidge, as if looking from a different angle and spotting a door which leads to a new path forward. If you are a professional problem solver, you will know, I think, exactly what I am trying to describe.
I think that describing different emotions as having different frequences and ,consequently, subject to filtering does not make sense. They are just different emotions, frequently blends of more than one. It seems to me that every sane human being is capable and inevitably experiences the full range of human emotions. It is the knowledge acquired through education, and thus establishing that individuals moral standards, that enables the individual to prevent own action based on excessive emotional urge. Did you ever think of how many people regretted own actions embarked upon on the basis of lust? I happen to think that lust is not a mortal sin, but it is certainy a sane himan emotion.
Describing someone as radical or violent to me describes somebody willing to take irrationally extreme actions or using an extreme force in those actions. I percieve that as not mind controlling emotions but exactly the opposite.
Finally, using that kind of untrue analogy to say that Ayn Rand's philosophy is dangerous is ... I have no words polite enough.
I have a bit of trivia regarding the book. I was reading Atlas Shrugged at every chance I got, in order to get through it in a timely manner. On my birthday, January 29, I cracked the book open to read it at my desk while I ate lunch and the first thing I read was the part where the huge callendar over the city read..."January 29". What are the chances of that? A little birthday gift from Ayn Rand...
I kept that fortune for years!
Jan
I got it while in AIT for the army...
My favorite inscrutable Chinese saying is from a movie, the Selleck/Armstrong adventure flick "High Road to China." They're trying to find directions to find the girl's father, and Selleck's character, after asking an old Chinese guy for help, says "Can you tell me anything else?" They guy says: "The oxen are slow - but the Earth is patient." There's a second where Selleck just stops and stares before turning to leave that's just priceless.
It says "Follow the advice of your heart."
Intuition doesn't tell me to buy lottery tickets; sentiment does. And I'll continue buying them if I should become wealthy.
Confucious say: Man who fall into vat of optical glass make spectacle of himself.
That was one of the more repeatable ones. I guess these harmless sayings have fallen to the onslaught of political correctness.