Interpret this

Sushil once posted his take on artistic freedom, and the legitimacy of allowing a director to interpret a playwright's work. Now I'm not your typical arts-savvy person who can roll off a phrase like "escaping the paradigm our social constructs impose on interpersonal interplay" faster than you can toss your rebonded hair, but I have thoughts, you know, like, decent ones even if I do put them in words understandable by the general engineering public. So I got to thinking about this time I had a conversation with Shashwat in Borders a couple of years back. (Speaking of whom, wonder what he's up to these days. If you're reading this, dude, hi!)

Shashwat's an ex-Objectivist. He was telling me how the 'ex' part happened, and here's what he said: "I've always thought that people who read and like Ayn Rand probably suffer or suffered from an inferiority complex."

For those of you unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, I've recommended this essay a few times already on my blog: 'Philosophy: Who Needs It?' It's a good introduction to her philosophy, which is about the primacy of reason and things like that.

What Shashwat took away from her writings was that human beings have incredible worth, especially the ones that don't default on their responsibilities and are productive people. And that's so different from what I get from Rand: that responsibility for oneself is the most moral thing to do, and about the only moral standard... and that independence is the prime necessity when you want to exercise this responsibility.

This is so apt to my own circumstances..

Oh, man, I'm going to have to finish this later. Ta! Leave your thoughts here though.