so many thoughts

1. Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Best book ever. I have to say, that book has changed my life, and for the better. It was so odd. I put that book down just absolutely mindblown, but as I've been thinking about it, I see how so many parts of that book have mirrored my life. For instance, when I moved out to come to BYU. That was, at least toward the end, definitely me going strike. Initially, it was about me doing what I knew I had to do, but when people started getting stupid about it, it was me going on strike against them. It was me saying, let's see what happens to the looters when I leave. And do you know, I've never felt guilty for that. Maybe I should. Oh well.

There were so many fantastic parts of this book. I put it down and the first thing I thought was that I need to reread it. It is such an inspiration to me.

One day, earlier in the summer when I had begun getting into the novel, I started questioning the things I had always believed. Who has more power, I wondered: the politician, as I had always thought, or the writer? The politician can ban the books, but the writer plants the idea of censorship in the mind of the man who makes the decisions. Great minds do not come from nowhere. Great minds come from books. I decided, I may have to restructure how I live my life. I have started a new work. Maybe someday you will read it.

2. Look, I really don't want to wax philosophical, but I will say that if you are alive, you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, you've got to make noise, because life is the very opposite of death. -Mel Brooks

Yesterday I met the most fantastic new associate, a passionate activist also from the best state of the Union. We were talking on the way from one meeting to the next, and I just had to ask her, do you ever feel as though there is nothing more beautiful than life and the living of it? She said she does.

There was one line of Atlas Shrugged that really got to me, during John Galt's giant monologue on the radio. Or maybe Hank Rearden said it. I don't remember, actually. But the line was something along the lines of, have you never felt the joy that comes from being in love with life itself, and the pride that comes from knowing that you are its worthy lover?

Guys, I think it's safe to say that I am in love with life itself. It makes everything else bearable, to know that I am alive and have the capacity and the ability to achieve my dearest goal. Nothing is more wonderful than knowing every morning that those are mylungs breathing that fresh cool air, that those are my feet gliding across the cement on the way to achieve a purposeful mission. Nothing is more beautiful than knowing that I am the only one who controls my life, and that my life is mine. In the end, I belong to God: and yet, it is my choice to serve Him. I cannot imagine anything more glorious than the concept of moral agency.

3. Last night someone asked me if I ever felt like I did too much. He laughed in probably shock when I replied that I mostly feel like I never do enough.

The fact is, that one goal I have my heart so set on is only to be achieved through hard work. I need to run harder, sleep less. There is no alternative. No, I do not do too much. I barely do enough and at every opportunity you can be sure I will do more.

4. In some of my classes, we're studying the cell right now. I never realized how magnificent this entity is. I had to call my mother in excitement once I had the epiphany: the cell is glorious. Just thinking about it I feel triumph. I don't know why. Cells are just that... awesome. In the sense of inspiring true, uninhibited awe. Wow. I love my mom. She's the only person I know with whom I can discuss current events, and language acquisition, and classic literature, and the Gospel, and mathematics, and biology, and whatever else you can think of, all in one conversation. We had the best conversation the other day about emergent intelligence. A greater testimony to the sanctity of life I can't imagine.

Well, kids, I should go.