I'm curious as to what everyone thinks about the percentages of people in Objectivist circles that are happy, possess a high degree of inner peace, and are achieving high levels of success in their chosen life paths. I'm also wondering if some meaningful, calm, and respectful responses would be made to the question of whether anything in Rand's philosophy needs any substantial revision if the majority of her adherents are not what they'd like to be (or even envision themselves to be). I've been hesitant to try and join the official Objectivist circles since reading her over 20 years ago, and then being influenced by Branden's biography. I saw real life evidence to support his assertions, although at the time I thought that he came across as more of a second-hander than he wanted to see himself. The more independent I've become over the years, the less I see him in a positive light, and think that he was mostly living off of Rand's "reflected glory", acting the part that he knew he should - while never truly achieving the inner qualities that he was trying to convince others (and probably himself) that he actually possessed. Of course this is only what I can glean from his writing and youtube videos, having never met him to talk about it and not having been there to see what transpired with my own eyes.

I wanted to become independent on my own rather than fall prey to the short-cut temptation of acting like people who I would be learning Objectivism from (like Branden did perhaps). Having been raised as a second-hander, I know the temptation would be strong, so I wanted to avoid that. I've had a great life in the past 20 years applying what I learned intellectually into the "grand empirical experiment" of living a philosophic life, and have achieved most of the characteristics that I defined at the outset of the journey I started on back then. And I've been influenced along the way by a great number of seemingly disparate sources, including Gahndi, MLK, Ron Paul, my parents, various friends, and many other sources that on the surface are opposed to Rand in different ways, yet have similarities in others. Knowing that an individual's character is always somewhere along the continuum of ultimately bad to perfectly ideal, I've tried to weed out the good and bad, and learn from both. As a result, I can be completely happy in loving relationships with my christian family while not abandoning my integrity of rational and independent thought, have mutually positive business relationships with various proponents of statism, and be in a completely fullfilling, peaceful, and passionate relationship with the mother of my first child on the way, who happens to believe like a democrat but lives like a libertarian in her personal interactions.

I'm learning to be happy with the small part of the world (i.e., my world) that I have control over, and am actively engaged with all different people from all parts of life, finding joy in the things we have in common, and having patience with their self-destructive opinions and actions whilst doing my own small part to model a better way myself, and to encourage them (where and when I can) to see things through a different light. I've learned that the right kind of humility is a virtue - not the kind that makes one non-assertive and fearful, but the kind that acknowledges the facts of reality, even when they contradict our own self-image or misinformed beliefs. I mention humility because I was severely lacking in it during most of my 20's after I read Rand. My fault entirely, but I'm wondering if anything in her content or style makes that more likely to occur in second-handers who wish to become first-handers.

I was also wondering how many people can relate to this, because I would love to find more friends (even it's online only) with these traits/beliefs in common! :)