Glimpses of "Roark" mentality in everyday life

Maybe we are all more similar to Peter Keating than we thought. I know for sure that these past couple of days I was frustrated by my complacency and lack of creativity. I sometimes go with what is “mainstream” and this is completely against what Howard Roark believes. I would like to note that I don’t particularly like Howard Roark and everything that he embodies (I especially despise him for his lack of self-control and violent nature, and would never forgive him for the rape) but I do admire that everything he does is for himself. A couple of days ago I really was surprised when I saw a glimpse of this individualism in my boyfriend. Today, when I see a “Howard Roark” (a person who goes against the current and is super creative) and get glimpses of him in real life (but not the abominable version with twisted morals, rather the individualistic one) I am taken aback because more and more I see how we function like Peter Keating more than anything.

My boyfriend just received a job he greatly wanted that gives him great pay and was offered to him on behalf of his talent in photography and skillset, and he also was able to hang an exhibit in Riley Hall (art and design building) for one of his personal photography projects. To me, those seemed like great accomplishments and I wanted to praise and have my boyfriend be acknowledged for his achievements but he refused.

We were messaging back and forth and he wrote to me: "we don’t have to [celebrate] babe...I don’t want that. I don’t want you to celebrate that. I don’t want to be celebrated...I just don’t see it as an accomplishment. It's just a thing I wanted to do... I just want to do my own thing. I make stuff to impress myself and that's it. I just don’t want other people to praise me for that." 

I had to respect his wishes of course, but as I reread our texts I couldn’t help but think that he sounded so much like Roark. His mentality was that he did everything for himself not for others and to me that definitely embodies the idea of the

individual against the collective.

Here are a couple of quotes from the novel that display this idea:

·      “I don’t make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I’m an utter egotist.” 

·      “A man’s spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego”

·      “...Aren’t they all acting on a selfish motive—to be noticed, liked, admired?”
“—by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest importance—the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought—they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn’t need it.” 

·      “Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They’re second-handers.” 

·      “I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.”

·      “It’s what I couldn’t understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live within others. They live second-hand. Look at Peter Keating….He’s paying the price … In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life? Greatness—in other peoples’ eyes. Fame, admiration, envy — all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions… He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others.”