imaginekellyn

i carved this pumpkin in support of our next president.

atlas shrugged and the fountainhead changed my life. after reading i became deeply enamored with ayn rand – her philosophy, her writing style, her intellect, her passion. never before had i connected on such a deep level with fictional characters and their struggles…which knocked me slightly off balance, considering i have little in common with a railroad executive or an architect or a russian-born writer living in another time. but i felt their fire and their resolve in my very core, exhorting myself to turn page after page after page to continue living in their world…among those who made me feel proud to be human.

i don’t know exactly what i was expecting when i picked up ayn rand’s for the new intellectual, which sets out to explain her philosophy, objectivism. but after about ten pages or so, i suddenly realized that i simply couldn’t buy into everything rand thought and wrote. my admiring gaze transformed into a critical stare that began to qualify what she was writing as the by-product of a temporally and culturally prejudiced, overly idealistic and blatantly bigoted philosophy that could never be truly realized. this sent my brain into turmoil, as i wondered how i could so firmly support and appreciate her fiction (ergo, her philosophy) and yet be so firmly against some aspects of her worldview (ergo, her philosophy).

wtf?!

i think i find most philosophies basically worthless in a strictly pragmatic sense, which is why i took issue with rand’s objectivism. though i agree with the basic tenets of many philosophies (read: zen buddhism, socialism, objectivism, capitalism, existentialism, etc.), i think they can never be truly realized in the world as we know it today. to reach their fullest potential and ultimate goals, they can only be fully implemented in a vacuum; there can be no preexisting conditions or assumptions in or about the world or its inhabitants. and the problem here lies in the fact that our planet is not a vacuum but an interconnected web of life with a extremely long and complex history, one that cannot and will not be changed to accommodate any given philosophy or system at any given time.

what philosophers thus demand is an absolute permutation of the world to incorporate some system of thought/belief that they deem to be right for every living being on earth.

on a theoretical level, i love immersing myself in questions of the bigger picture. but having arrived at the aforementioned conclusion, i don’t know how to continue this quest for knowledge and fulfillment. i’ve looked for answers in so many places, listened to so many voices, and sought out so many truths…i am beginning to wonder if truth is just as subjective as experience. if that is the case, then perhaps this quest is all for naught. on the other hand, some might say the quest itself is what ultimately provides fulfillment.

twenty-two years and i stand at a point of deep-seated conflict. not quite a crossroads, where i’m standing is more like the middle of a mountainous forest; i could take many trails to many destinations from this point. but plagued by irresolution and disquiet, i see little beyond the precariousness of everything around me. where am i going? where have i been? who dictates my direction? why does it matter? to whom does it matter?

i suppose these are questions i should ask before pronouncing judgment upon their answers.

800 quantitative (how the hell did that happen?!)
650 verbal

considering i spent much more time preparing for the verbal section of the exam, i was a little perturbed when i got my score. but apparently they made it super difficult – a 650 was 93rd percentile! and i can’t argue with a perfect quantitative score…i didn’t even think i’d break 700. i’m so happy i spent the time studying and learning how to take the test – it definitely paid off. good luck everyone!!