The world of fakers: (The Fountainhead)

What other’s force on us we believe, or maybe we just decide to do so to ‘fit in’, we follow other’s advice going against what we know is the thing that we should actually be doing, we get influenced rather swayed by the sweet furtive words that some person says about a thing or institution or people. Our lives have not been our own; most of us do what others manage to convince us about, what others want to see us doing, irrespective of the actual decisions that you took on your own initially, weighing pros and cons, just a word from someone whom you think has better opinions than you is enough to change the whole course of your life, or your career choice or anything that you had originally set out to do.

“No man can live for another” says Howard Roark punching severe blow to altruism that is unconventionally still dictated by people who are actually ‘second handers’. Living your life on someone else’s term is what I see most of us practicing. The man who attempts to live for other’s advice and opinion or choice is dependent, as he says it. Nobody can use his brain to think for others, there’s no such thing as collective brain, ultimately neither do we have collective choices. Most people do what they do not because they decided that themselves, but because others told them so (or advised whatever). The world is leading into what I would like to call a puppet show, where 9 out of 10 people exist not as themselves but as constructive visualization of opinions of other mortals. A world where no one belongs to himself, a world focused on seeking validation, a world oriented towards pleasing other people, a world where none are truly themselves, from their decisions to their model of credo, everything is despicably fake.

But the thing is it will eventually get back to them somehow, all these imitations and faking, and ‘following’ the interests that others have about you, putting yourself in the backseat, and letting those free advisers run your goddamn life! When the movie’s over remember that it’s not the fakers / second handers who win,  but it’s the self-guided person with conviction more on himself than the atrocious masses and their opinions, who not just wins himself, but also stands up to what he believes in untouched by the free mental object of available preconceptions  which others have for him.

You see when I was in 10^th grade, I was made to write an article for a competition [by my school’s Facebook page], I did write, got it cross-checked by my teacher, and submitted, my article won, I didn’t. It turned that person whom I submitted my article, asked me write it in the name of school, plagiarized it, submitted it under his name (or his girlfriend's) and got the credit completely. I did nothing about the issue, I was sad then, didn’t raise a dispute however, neither told my teacher, just kept quiet. I can understand that it was for the better, he stole my work, not my brain, kind of the same way Peter Keating uses Roark’s architectural plan and mastery to make a name for himself (in The Fountainhead), though he achieved fame but it made him dependent, and unhappy in his own eyes, not to mention the guilt that would haunt him every single time someone complemented the work that was not his own. The book cogitated my pre-existing beliefs and strengthened them.

When your decisions are no longer your own, you’re no longer yourself, you’ve lost it and drowned yourself in the identity that others create for you. It’s easy to be what others want you to be. Being yourself is an achievement, not everyone can, most are swayed. Most aren’t true to themselves but they’re true to others and just are living their lives confirming the validation from other people to in turn validate their existence.

Just ask yourself: Am I truly me or am I a parasite feeding on the opinions of other people?

“You were not born to be a second hander”, The Fountainhead.

[P.S]

I loved the book; I experienced the sense of rationalization, not validation; just pure rationalization of things that I had not been able to understand before (rather doubtful about), the things that I felt were unjustified or how some people monopolize other’s work for their advantage.