kristya

I have just discovered this website, and I am extremely pleased to find people with my same views on life. I learned about Objectivism in high school when I was a junior. Objectivism has changed my life, and I continue to uphold it at my university. I am a first-year student, but with junior status at my university where I am usually surrounded by students a few years older than me. I didn't realize before how many people are willing to use force for 'the common good' or just because it is 'moral.' I am surrounded by mostly arrogant socialists and fewer conservatives. Speaking my mind in the university compared to high school has become very difficult as I've done so before and recieved bad grades for my view of Objectivism. It is even dangerous to speak of philosophy with 'friends' because they feel that the opposition is stupid and will insult you in any way possible. I personally don't care because I know that the rest are wrong, but it increasingly puts me in greater isolation from people. Sometimes I feel that I am crazy because everyone around me seems to think alike. I had a boyfriend in the begining of the quarter who was a Republican so he was close to being an Objectivist. With enough information on the philosophy, I got him to become interested in it, and he started agreeing with it. He became an athiest and started thinking as an Objectivist. Then something changed about him, and he started telling me that I am not pragmatic, that philosophy is just philosophy, and that people have an obligation to the poor. I lost him then, and what I thought was a rational human being immediately vanished. I became cynical after incidents with my 'friends' and arguments over the philosophy of life with other people (left-wing professors). I know that I'm right, and since I'm surrounded by nonobjectivists in my university, I learned to be a spy, learn other peoples' points of view, collect as much information as possible, and then learn how to use it to my advantage later. But sometimes, it doesn't matter how hard you try to convince people of the truth. It just is a waste of energy because they don't care to open their eyes.