We may not be as unique, unusual or individual as we thnk we are.
I have seen many examples online of people saying such
things as, “I could have written that myself” and, “Are you me?” and, “That is
a perfect description of MY mother.” They seem surprised to find that there are
others out there who are just like them or who have had exactly the same
experiences.
I have been reading about the early life of Ayn Rand. Her
generation, nationality and family situation are very different from mine, yet
much of her early life seems like a description of my early life. Many of her
characteristics, views and experiences are very familiar; some of it reminds me
of what I have read about the early lives of some writers of interest.
Some basic elements of her personality
In her biography The Passion of Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden
tells us that Ayn Rand was not very interested in other children and didn’t fit
in with or get on well with them; I was much the same: on the whole, they
seemed alien, boring, incomprehensible and sometimes dangerous.
She was very serious and intense, too much so for the
liking of her fellow schoolgirls. I was too. She felt that she failed them by
not reacting, responding or behaving according to their expectations. Some of
us are wired very differently on the inside from the majority of our
contemporaries and just cannot fit in with them.
Ayn Rand obtained positive attention from the people
around her only because of the qualities of her mind. The only time I got
positive attention was when I repeated the ridiculous political ideas that I
was force-fed and brainwashed with.
Ayn Rand’s intelligence ‘created a pressure to be fed’.
My mind too demanded huge amounts of food and fuel in the form of books and
information. I was always hungry for more.
She felt a driving ambition from an early age; I did too.
She was future-oriented from earliest childhood; I was
too.
She loathed physical activity; I hated some of it too,
although in my case it was not only because organised exercises and games in
school seemed pointless but also because I was weakened by being eaten alive by
energy vampires. Stella Gibbons too hated being forced to play team games at
school; she had no interest in them and didn’t care who won.
