I am Dagny Taggart.


I know few of you have heard of Atlas Shrugged, and even fewer have read it, and perhaps even less of you will know what exactly I mean when I declare: I am Dagny Taggart, but I shall declare it none the less.

This is my third time reading the book. I wish I could say it is the fourth time, because I owe myself that time, and I am disappointed in myself that I took so long to purchase the book after the first time I read it.

Pages 219 to 241 are the highest products of accomplishment and of human intelligence. They are Anthems. They are Cries of Triumph. It is a Glorification, not just of the human intelligence, but of the body. It is celebratory, mocking, challenging, and of ownership coexisting. (You may ask: Andie, I don't understand, why are you capitalizing those words? My answer: Read the book and you will understand, in time.)

Some of the pages are in defiance of Hank's innermost struggle to admit adoration and love for Dagny, his tortured monologue telling her that he did not love her, and he was only acting out of the "lowest" form of human animalism. Dagny laughed.
Dagny laughed, and Henry Rearden was startled. Why? Because he hoped she believed him. He hoped she would take it, to let him think it. She gave him that license with a laugh. It would be something he would remember, in his tortured denial. He would pay for what he said, and her laugh said it all. She would laugh because he fought it and wanted it, and then return to his stoic business, just to remember her patronizing song. And know she was right. She gave him to license to question his love for her, because she knew it haunted him too much.

So, I will repeat again: I am Dagny Taggart.
Why am I Dagny Taggart?
Because I will give a challenge, it will be questioned. I will demonstrate, and you will wish you had just watched and waited. You will wish you had been silent, to see for yourself.

Now, I will illustrate in part:
Most of you know I am elitist. Most of you know I don't find many to be my equal, my match. Most of you know I don't accept others as my equal until I have tested them. Some of you have been tested. At least one of you have failed.
I test you for selfish reasons-- I like to compete, to challenge myself and to string along others to see how far they will stretch. If it's a good effort, I accept it, and sometimes stretch us further. If I haven't tested you, I'm not interested. If I have tested you, though, and I did not keep contact, you are not good enough, and I quite frankly laugh and despise you when I see you.
You may say: "Andie, that's a horrible thing to do, to judge someone according to your own standards". And I will laugh at you. We all judge. We all assume. Why?
Because it's right.
Why would I surround myself with those who do not challenge, or better me, or fulfill my needs in social contact? You do it. But you don't admit it, because you want to be 'open minded', and don't want to be judged otherwise. Me? Judge me. Those who want me will socialize accordingly. I don't need to waste my time, and you don't need to waste yours.
But I digress.
Several years ago, in Ben I found a match. An equal to my hounding, my cat and mouse gauntlet, but unfortunately he didn't understand my mind fully at the time, concerning my objectivism. A couple months ago he told me he was finally catching on. I smiled.
Why?
Because when I read pages 219-241 it reminds me that there are places in my life where I have experienced the described. It reminds me that such a thing exists.
It reminds me that I.... am Dagny Taggart.

And that there are such people as Hank Rearden.

I swear, by my life and love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for me.

I will not sign myself off as a part of the masses to be medicated, to believe everything I hear, to accept the mouthpeice of society as my religion.
I swear, by my life.
And by my love of it.