I have to thank the anonymous reader who recommended it while commenting on one of my older posts. Reading the book is such a blissful experience. Ayn Rand presents the true human values with such clarity and with a multitude of characters that probably sums up the various kinds of people around us. As you read the book and think about the situations unfolding, you can't escape noticing the resemblance they have to the world around. The contexts may vary, but the way people behave in those situations is very similar to the way Rand's characters behave. And I think that is the reason the book grips the mind of its reader. It is a work of fiction, and yet it is so real.
I don't think I have ever thought about my workplace and the people I work with so much as I did while I was reading the book. The situation there is no different. We have those select few who give it their all to make a project successful, without ever thinking about what they are going to gain. Then there are those who always think about how best can they use the success of the project, just by sticking to the real hard workers. Then again there are a few who don't care about the project, don't want to put even the effort of sticking to the propellers, but yet want to reap the rewards. There are a few leaders who will take the credit of every success, and blame the failure on the team and avoid any kind of responsibility. There are few more categories people will fit into. What's interesting is their thought processes match to at least one character in Atlas Shrugged.
As Rand says in the book, life is a matter of choices. What differentiates man from the other animals is his ability to think, but to exercise this ability is a choice every man has to make. Also, to what extent he exercises it will determine the heights he will achieve. So, on one extreme we will have someone who chooses to think and reason, act on his thoughts and do so without exception never letting his decision be based on anything but reason. He will be perfectly in peace with his mind, probably the kind that is described in the Gita and can be achieved by the way of Karma. On the other extreme we will have someone who chooses not to think at all thereby resigning completely to external forces, always in confusion and acting on the other person's reason, thereby never at peace with his mind. Always living in a state of denial, such a man will eventually bring his own downfall.
All of us lie somewhere between these two extremes. Which way we want to move is again a matter of individual choice!
