A word about talent and some other stuff

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As our new guests sign up for our living room discussions, there is something special I want to talk about. You don't see it too much on Objectivist forums.

Talent.

It's hard to find people of talent in abundance who proclaim themselves to be Objectivists or Randians (or however they define themselves according to that particular nitpick). There are isolated beacons in an unending night, but the darkness is greater. I know that my vision is only that of one who has entered this culture recently, but I can't help but look at the world around me and ask, "Where are the best-sellers, the blockbuster movies, the CD's and videoclips and show tours, the plays, you know, where are the people of talent in this philosophy?"

One of the things I wish to foster on this site is talent. As I stated in our announcements, the scale is small. Frankly I much prefer to interact with a few highly talented people and watch successful works grow than gain a wide audience.

The audience will be for the works we produce. There is something exciting about listening to an idea being sounded out, then watching it become a work or art or nonfiction book or lecture series or even a business career, whatever - so long as it is productive and worth value in the marketplace, then watch it become successful.

For example, there are a couple of possible books in the works already that Roger Bissell started (exchanging a few ideas with me) on Nathaniel Branden's work. He has already contacted Nathaniel about them. Nathaniel replied with THE ONE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION of any new venture of that nature.

He did not ask if we were going to save the world. He did not ask if we wanted to redefine Objectivism or help tweak self-esteem psychology (God forbid!). He did not even ask if we wanted to suck up to him.

He asked what Roger thought the market would be for his book ideas.

Now THAT is the mark of a person of talent.

NB has not spent his life in isolation, complaining about the world and watching his life slip through his fingers as he comes to the conclusion that he is an underachiever. He wrote books, offered professional therapy, did the lecture circuit, and built up and researched his theories from scratch. His work is highly successful.

Talent.

One strong focus on the discussions here will be on how to make the talent in each of us grow - and what to do with it.

There also will be two new additions to this site. There will be an Addiction section, where the skeleton in the closet of many Objectivists can be brought out into the open and finally dealt with and, hopefully, properly disposed.

There also will be a new "heretical" section under Objectivism. I am thinking of calling it "Chewing on Ideas from the Outer Limits." I want to discuss fringe ideas concerning Objectivism here. One of the things I especially have in mind is to present a couple of controversial articles I have written on other sites, then REWRITE the articles after discussion. I will be inviting a few select people of talent to do the same with their own work. It should be fascinating to watch an offbeat idea grow and become polished, then become a finished article.

This rewriting will not be essential, only sporadic, as some articles are already finished and polished. But hopefully new articles and works will crop up from these discussions.

Note that the emphasis in on understanding, not preaching.

What I especially want to encourage with this approach is to blast open some of the Objectivist dogma and bring the life-giving ideas behind it out into the open. I especially like to find simple language explanations for the jargon.

The idea is not to create dissent or other schools of thought. Merely to work ideas from an Objectivist viewpoint and see what happens.

Chew, like Ayn Rand said in the lectures to the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

I am not in a hurry, either.

To all those Rand people of talent and goodwill, and even those who are in doubt about their own but who are in earnest, please feel free to join us. Let's build good things and sell them.

We've got what it takes.

Michael

[Kevin Haggerty]

Hey Michael, the way you frame the discussion puts me in mind of T. S. Eliot's essay The Metaphysical Poests. The gist of the essay is that Milton is the reason that after Shakespeare died there wasn't any great art in the English language for a few centuries or so (hey, look, this is T. S.'s opinion, 'kay?). During the Jacobean period in England, he argues, artists were metaphysical explorers, not heirophants. Art was morally complex, full of wonder and mystery.

Then Milton came along with his new purpose for art: "to justify the ways of God to men." With those words, the universe lost all its mystery, all its wonder and art became a merely didactic enterprise. Art was subjugated to "good taste" and "high moral value" and lost all its vitality. The obvious Oist parallel is the closed system/open system debate. Just think of Alexander Pope as a 17th century Randroid.

Once the sytem is closed, artistic exploration isn't needed anymore. Creating art is hard, it's expensive. It requires all we have, not just our minds with its rigorously reasoned axioms. Art demands that we dig into our deepest selves and show the world what we find there, not just the bits that fit into our philosophical idealism--what we find. Rand was able to write great Oist literature because Objectivism was what she found when she looked deep into herself, it was instinct, obsession and identity with her--so that's what she wrote--not some dry set of axioms handed down by the ARI.

So where are all the people of talent? Out there on the far horizon, amigo. Battling the sea monsters at the edge of the world. Bringing the best of what they got to the fight and never looking back. They're out there where Ayn Rand went. They're not following in her footsteps. They're blazing new trails.

A line from one of my own plays comes to mind, "Poet's just another name for a better man than you." Maybe Michael, you don't see these best-sellers and blockbuster movies, CD's and plays because you haven't written them yet! Seriously, when you look around for the book you want to read and it doesn't exist, it just might be because you need to write it.

[Ciro]

It's hard to find people of talent in abundance who proclaim themselves to be Objectivists or Randians (or however they define themselves according to that particular nitpick). There are isolated beacons in an unending night, but the darkness is greater. I know that my vision is only that of one who has entered this culture recently, but I can't help but look at the world around me and ask, "Where are the best-sellers, the blockbuster movies, the CD's and videoclips and show tours, the plays, you know, where are the people of talent in this philosophy?"

This is what I wanted people to understand on another forum,

but unfortunately they thought, who is he to know!

They thought I was rotten, or believed in God, who knows what.

But with your article here you nailed on the head just what I wanted them to understand.

A tree is considered a good tree by the quantity of fruits it carries.

Thank you for this nice article Michael.

5 atlas points!!!

5 atlas points!!!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kevin,

I have found your remarks to be true throughout my life. One of the purposes of this site is NOT to make imitation Rand works. But it is based on Objectivist ideas. So what I intend to do is nurture each person of talent toward finding his/her own voice with the world of Objectivist ideas (where applicable and possible) and transforming that into the sea monster battles on the horizon.

(Thank you Ciro - and we have a little issue about a cook book to bake.)

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Michael:"One of the things I wish to foster on this site is talent. As I stated in our announcements, the scale is small. Frankly I much prefer to interact with a few highly talented people and watch successful works grow than gain a wide audience."

What a wonderful idea! -- and one that is sorely needed, and will be a joy to the readers of this site. I know of no other Objectivist site that is concerned with fostering and nurturing talent. And I know of few things that could be more appropriate to such a site.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Kevin, I loved your post.

You wrote: "Creating art is hard, it's expensive. It requires all we have, not just our minds with its rigorously reasoned axioms. Art demands that we dig into our deepest selves and show the world what we find there, not just the bits that fit into our philosophical idealism--what we find."

Emerson said it, too. He wrote:"To believe your own thought -- to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius."

If it isn't necessarily genius, it surely is talent. And it's what every writer must do if his work is to be honest. He must have the courage not to imitate or copy, but to treasure his own unique soul.

Kevin, you spoke of "one of your plays." I was sure you were writing. Can any of your work be seen?

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Ciro, you wrote: "but unfortunately they thought, who is he to know!"

You are Ciro to know -- and don't let anyone, ever, tell you that you are less than that. You are a remarkable man.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

What an honor to have you on board!

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kevin,

I second Barbara's wish to see something by you.

Michael

[Ciro]

Barbara, your spirit has always inspired me.

Thank you for your kind words!

Ciao.

Ciro.

[Jody Gomez]

What a wonderful site this is!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Incidental comment, not addressed to the subject of the thread:

I haven't read the Eliot essay Kevin referred to, but judging from the

description, it sounds as if Eliot misinterpreted Milton. That line from

*Paradise Lost* about justifying the ways of God to man was Milton

being rather trepidatious and apologetic at the task he was attempting

(and asking the Muse's help with its enormity). Having been alerted

to the essay, I'll read it one of these days. As you said, Kevin, it's

Eliot speaking, not you -- but now I'm curious to know what Eliot said.

Another line of Milton's which has been misinterpreted -- and this one

widely so -- is from the Sonnet on his blindness, wherein he writes,

"They also serve who only stand and wait." That's been picked up

as an excuse for lack of self-assertion, but what it was in context was

Milton trying to console himself for his forced -- through his becoming

blind -- retirement from his previously active life.

As I said, just a sidelight.

Ellen

[Kevin Haggerty]

Hey Barbara,

Thank you for the kind words and flattering comparison to one of the greats! Finding the universal by exploring the personal speaks powerfully of the benevolent universe.

As to seeing my writing, I'm pretty sure if you went to the Seattle Public Library you would find two of my plays, Bob is Dead and Not a Nice Guy, in published form there (small local press), but otherwise they are absolutely out of print. Other work has appeared in various and sundry arts magazines and performed in various fringe venues. I'm currently working on a novel for the mass market (trying to bust out the local art scene, go national--yay me!), so maybe in a year or two you'll be able to get a copy (oh that's wishful thinking!).

Thanks again,

Kevin

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kevin,

Come on, dude! We gotta play this Hollywood buildup stuff?

Out with something. man!

Nobody's gonna go to Seattle to read your stuff when there's an Internet available.

Dayaamm!

Talent always comes with an ego to stroke...

(stroke, stroke, stroke...)

(Want more?)

8)

Michael

[Kevin Haggerty]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! (To coin a phrase.)

I'm sorry, Michael! I really wasn't fishing for ego strokes! You want me to post a play to the forum? None of my finished plays are on my computer. You kinda flatter me at a difficult moment.

Okay, okay, here. This is a monologue from my new novel. I've been performing it around town at cabarets and fund raisers. The character speaking is Superman and he's chairing a 12 step meeting for ex-Super Persons (SPA), so you might get the in-jokes. ;) And since this is an Oist forum, I feel the need to make it clear that I don't endorse all of Superman's opinions or his choices, but I really, really feel for the guy...

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Saturday night meeting of Super Persons Anonymous, “Heroes and Villains Healing Together”, my name is Clark K. and I’m a recovering super person.

(Hi, Clark.)

They asked me to chair the meeting tonight, but before I get into my story (which I know most of you are probably sick of hearing by now), I wanted to read a passage from the Big Book of Bruce W. This is from the chapter “Taking Off the Mask One Day at a Time.”

Wow. I was so wrapped up in that shit. You know, “truth, justice and the American way,” while the whole time I was lying to everybody I knew. It amazes me now that I never saw the hypocrisy in all that. I remember the first time I threw a bus. There was this alien… thing, I mean, person with tentacles and beams shooting out of his or her eyes, and he or she was obviously in crisis, very emotional, tearing down power lines and destroying property. This person, whose name I never even thought to discover (I think the papers simply called him or her “Monster X”) was easily taking everything I could dish out up to that point and without thinking I lifted a parked bus and hurled it.

It wasn’t until years later, after I’d been out of the lifestyle, coming to these meetings for about a year, when I was looking up old newspaper articles in the library and I found out that the driver of the bus had died that day. His body was found in the bus wreckage, it had been his lunch hour and he had been taking a nap in the back seat.

Musta been a pretty sound sleeper.

The papers blamed his death on the alien person. Of course. The only thing more powerful than the denial of us super heroes is the denial of the media that chronicles our exploits. The papers always make it sound like all I ever did was show up and give my enemies some tough talk, maybe roughed ‘em up a little bit before they surrendered. I wonder sometimes if the papers really loved and believed in me so much, or if they were just scared out of their minds. The paper noted that the bus driver had no surviving relatives, that he was childless and his parents were both dead. You know, it was like, this could have been me. Only now he was dead. Because of me.

Well, I started researching everything at that point. I was obsessed with exposing what Bruce calls the “inner villain,” looking for evidence of all my unacknowledged victims over the years.

I know we’ve all been there.

Anyway, having exhausted all the terrestrial libraries and news gathering agencies, I started moving out of the solar system into the larger galaxy and that’s when I found out the truth about my origin. As you know, Bruce in the Big Book puts a lot of emphasis on the so-called “origin” as the defining moment of our disease. The origin is the central trauma in the life of a super person that forever cuts us off from our ordinary humanity and with it, any hope of a normal existence. Our sense of self is so devastated by this trauma—whether it’s a bite from a radioactive animal, a freak bombardment of cosmic rays, or the double homicide of our parents as we look on helplessly—that we reconceive ourselves as the embodiment of the trauma. We even tend to rename ourselves after this force or creature that stole our lives from us—talk about becoming the disease. I never identified very strongly with that part of the program, though. Granted I’d lost both my parents, but it was, as far as I knew, a natural disaster and granted that natural disaster meant the destruction of my entire planet, but somehow it didn’t seem to add up to a self-destroying origin. I don’t mean to minimize my pain but seriously, plenty of refugees before me had lost their families and their way of life without becoming vengeful megalomaniacs. It just didn’t add up to me. You know, and my adoptive parents were so kind and my adoptive world so beautiful and green, as far as I could see I was one of the lucky ones.

Oh man. This next part of my story is still so hard to get into, even after all these years of sharing my story in these rooms. Turns out I had my origin all right. I found where the rage comes from.

I was down in the basement of some hall of records on I don’t know, Rygel 4, pouring over microfiche when I read an article that referred to my home planet. What was weird was that the article postdated the disaster. I just dismissed it as a typo, but deep down something shifted inside me and I knew. I kept finding references to my home world all over that part of the galaxy, until it was obvious even to me that my home world had survived somehow. The news of my planet’s continued existence never made me happy though. It still doesn’t make me happy.

The next thing I remember was hurtling towards my home planet so fast I got there a week before I set out. The disaster had never even happened—no earthquake, no typhoons, no cataclysm of any kind.

Even though they changed their names and moved, I found them easy enough. They’d moved out of our old house and were living in a crappy little apartment downtown. I’ll never forget seeing my dad’s face when he answered the door. He looked so old. His hair had gone completely white. We just stared at each other. Then he looked down, glancing around the hall as if he’d seen a rat or something. When he looked up again he said in this creepy little voice that I almost couldn’t recognize, “Can I help you?”

Dad, it’s me, it’s Kal.

“We don’t know anyone by that name.”

It’s me, Dad! I’m your son.

Back in the house my mom says, “Who is it at the door, Dear?”

Then my dad shoots back still looking at me, “Never mind, Doreen, I’m handling it. Just stay there.”

Doreen? Dad, what’s going on? I’m your son, what are you doing?

“You have mistaken me with someone else.”

You’re Jar-El, you’re my father and that’s my mother Lara in the apartment. Mother! It’s me, Kal, it’s your son! And with that my father slammed the door. I was absolutely stunned. I could have been through that door and crushed my father’s head between my thumb and forefinger as easy as breathing, I could have incinerated their apartment with a blink of my eyes, I could have torn the whole building from its foundations and tossed it into the sea but I couldn’t move. I just stood staring helplessly at my father’s door until he opened it again. I could hear my mother quietly sobbing in the room behind him as my father looked up at me and said, “If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police.” I couldn’t believe how cold he was being. But all of a sudden I think I saw my father clearly for the first time in my life. Hands shaking, mouth dry, eyes wide, standing on the balls of his feet, he was scared—terrified really, of me. And I realized that that was why they had abandoned me in the first place. They had been afraid of me. They were afraid of my. My power. But they were completely ignorant of their own. This frightened little old man and his weeping wife had trumped every bug-eyed monster and mad scientist that ever tried to take me down.

Oh my god. The truth had been staring me in the face the whole time. For those of you that don’t know, back in my acting out days I suffered from a very peculiar weakness: a single piece of rock from my supposedly extinct planet could rob me of all my powers, leaving me in a semi-catatonic state, helpless. Scientists from seventy different worlds have given me thirty bullshit explanations apiece for why this happened but I knew the truth now. Every time I came into contact with any fragment of my home planet some part of me knew the secret truth it harbored. It cut right through my denial like gamma rays through silk. “We’re still here,” it would say. “Nobody died,” it would say. “Everything is just as it was, except we got rid of you.”

I used to feel real sorry for Bruce, you know, losing his parents like he did, watching his father’s helpless body fall, seeing the face of his dead mother, the gunman cackling as he disappearing into the night. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. But now I think, Bruce, at least you can believe that your parents were kind. At least your parents are truly dead, and not just dead to you.

Yeah, I know. Not a lot of “experience, strength and hope” to offer. But I have this.I wear it everywhere I go now as a reminder to always live in my truth. And I hardly suffer any ill effects from it at all anymore. At least not most days.

Thanks for listening.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kevin,

I'm still laughing. Wonderful. (I was certainly able to identify. Maybe a 12 step routine for Randroids would be good, too...)

Why don't you include this as a separate entry in "Creative Writing"?

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Kevin, your "Super Persons Anonymous" story is clever, funny and satirical, delightful, and well-written. You have a great deal of talent and potential as a writer!

[Kevin Haggerty]

Phil, Michael,

Thank you for your appreciation (Phil, it's so good to see you here!). I love satire. I love the rhythm of caring and questioning that the audience goes thru as they listen to Clark. He can be so sympathetic, then so foolish, then sympathetic again. I wanted to create a surreal situation that nonetheless draws you in like a good biography.

The main character in the novel has a speech about 9/11. He talks about how a mere six months of martial arts training could have given the people on those planes the confidence to deal with box cutters. But people are too complacent, he says, and he blames it on the fact that there are superheroes in the world. "Just imagine," he says, "Just imagine a world where there are no superheroes, where just normal people were the only kind of people in the world, where people would have to take personal responsibility for their survival! A world where people would have to grow the fuck up and quit waiting for someone to come out of the sky and make everything better! Don't you see? The superheroes are nothing but a crutch for the rest of us, keeping us primitive and violent, because no one knows what it's like to stand on his own two feet!" The irony is that my main character is himself a superhero...

I love the idea of taking our escapist fantasies and subjecting them to serious psychological study. The fact that superheroes wear masks and lie to everyone about themselves is huge to me; to have so much power and be completely incapable of simple human intimacy. What drives these larger than life characters, really? What fuel runs their motors? You know?

[JennaW]

I have found your remarks to be true throughout my life. One of the purposes of this site is NOT to make imitation Rand works. But it is based on Objectivist ideas. So what I intend to do is nurture each person of talent toward finding his/her own voice with the world of Objectivist ideas (where applicable and possible) and transforming that into the sea monster battles on the horizon.

That just made me happy. :D/

[tqk]

[Quoting NB]He asked what Roger thought the market would be for his book ideas.

I've been wondering about this one for quite a while now. Early in The Fountainhead, Roarke is sitting in his office, watching the minutes tick away, hoping a client will call to buy his services ... and no-one does. Roarke packs up, turns out the lights, and shuts the door behind him, off to the quarry to earn a living.

Roarke wasn't giving up his plan to be an architecht. He was simply putting it on hold until he could afford to pursue it further. Do you think Roarke asked himself the question you ask above? I think either he already knew the answer, or didn't care what the answer was. He was going to do what he wanted to do regardless of whether there was a market for it or not. He knew _there ought_ ("Things as they could, and should be.") to be a market for his skills, and damned if he wasn't going to find it or die trying!

So, in reality , how long would you hold onto your dream, offered little or no encouragement, in the face of overwhelming odds, etc., etc., yadayada? It's all well and good to say, "Hey, ya gotta pay the rent." On the other hand, I've heard at least one guy reply, "I've lived under a bridge before. I can do it again."

Tough question? :-s

[tqk]

[Quoting NB]He asked what Roger thought the market would be for his book ideas.

I've been wondering about this one for quite a while now.

BTW, none of that should be construed as criticism of either Nathaniel or Stuart, in case that isn't clear. This is just a personal daemon I'm trying to come to grips with. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stephen (tqk), you wrote:

On the other hand, I've heard at least one guy reply, "I've lived under a bridge before. I can do it again."

I wrote about this experience. I didn't live under the bridge, but I literally looked at it one night with nowhere to go. (I ended up swallowing a whole lot of pride and knocking on the door of an ex that night. I almost didn't get in, too.)

It is off-topic, but you can read about it here: Letter to Madalena ... An Homage to the Value of Valuing.

On market considerations, when contemplating The Fountainhead, you have to keep in mind that (1) it is fiction and (2) the purpose of the book was to illustrate the role of ego in life and contrast first rate minds against second-handers.

(btw - I wasn't offended at all. This is a good thing to talk about.)

Howard Roark's attitude has led some people to believe that concern with market is somehow a second-hand idea - as if market competence were a dirty concept. I admit, there's a lot of hypocrisy involved in advertising and market studies, but there's a lot of integrity there too. Expecting the market simply to conform to an idea of merit is unrealistic and breaches the first commandment of building anything: learn the true nature of the materials and environments you employ.

People buy what they want to buy, period. If you want them to buy integrity, you have to sell it on a market where many advertise merit and don't deliver. So it is a good idea to study what else people want and format your products to meet their desires and even add this concept to your packaging. All this can be done with integrity and there is nothing inherently second-hand about it. It is being competent.

Let's see if I remember the steps:

1. Discover a need (through observation or market study - and this includes seeing how far that need is already being met).

2. Design or find a product that satisfies that need.

3. Set up a supply and payment system.

4. Set up an advertising and publicity system.

5. Put in the hours and make money.

Just like anything, this also can done incorrectly and in bad faith. The Fountainhead stressed the advertising and market compliance of second-handers and simply did not deal with it from standpoint of first-rate minds. That was a literary device to highlight the theme and highlight the struggle, not a full account of how reality is.

Michael