ATLAS SHRUGGED, a gift from my grandfather, a reminder of what shaped me -

when i was 10,
(true story here)
my grandfather handed me this book.

he would do this every now and then, hand me a book.  i learned that there was an expectation attached to the gift, that you would read it, and not discuss it, but absorb it.  learn from it.  that he was handing you a piece of himself that he thought important to your life.

if you haven't read ayn rand, it's a big tome for a ten year old.

i loved it.  

i think her philosophy altered me and gave me such a sense of confidence,
of belief in the creative will,
of the "virtue of selfishness" (her words, though easily mine),
that i re-read it every three years for a long time.

to revisit dagny taggart.  and john galt.  and myself.

if you haven't read it, i don't know if i can recommend it.  it's an intensely personal book, it would be like recommending a memory that gets gilded with age.  or a religion that you practise in privacy.

but on this trip, i took it and read it in the mornings.  late in the night.  on the plane before i slept.

and i reconnected with my grandfather.

and myself.

the book is about change that one chooses.  and how it alters the world, and the self.

it felt like good timing.