Howard Roark and Charlie Sheen

I finished The Fountainhead.
You know, I did enjoy Atlas Shrugged, but then I realized the folly of my ways subsequently, because after reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine it's pretty clear that "lassez faire capitalism" results in massive socio-economic and political issues.
I wanted to like The Fountainhead. I did root for the resolute nature of Roark and Dominique, but I can't help but concede with Nora Ephron when she states "it is better read when one is young enough to miss the point. Otherwise, one cannot help thinking it is a very silly book". Ow. Snap.
Yes, I think I understand the main crux of Ayn Rand's Objectivism: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".
That's great. And it was great when Roark chose to starve instead of building what Michael and I like to call "pink stucco houses" (ie: sell out or compromise). But he did starve and then he was recognized and appreciated and he was a success.
What if he wasn't a success? Not everyone can be a success. The Walmart greeter is not there by choice, but they have to pay the bills. It's like homeless people: do you give them money or not? I worked downtown for years and my premise was this: are they employable? If they were, I gave them nothing. If they weren't? Like the toothless guy in his 70s playing the harmonica on Granville? I gave them money.
There isn't enough room in the world for us all to be artists, architects, writers, engineers, pioneers of industry. Someone has to do the grunt work. Someone has to fail. And the people doing the grunt work in real life aren't as full of zeal and idealism as Roark's construction team. And human weakness is a part of life and it's an externality that we all have to bear.
This is really long winded, I know. You might want to go grab another glass of wine because I'm not done yet.
Okay. So I thought, "hey Rand thinks man's own happiness is the moral purpose of his life". Well, I know the handful of things in life that make me happy and so we should just engage in those things and take pleasure in them the way Charlie Sheen loves blow and hookers, right? But no: that's apparently sub-human, per Rand: "There is a difference between rational self-interest as pursuit of one's own life and happiness in reality, and whim-worship or "hedonism." A whim-worshiper or "hedonist," according to Rand, is not motivated by a desire to live his own human life, but by a wish to live on a sub-human level. Instead of using "that which promotes my (human) life" as his standard of value, he mistakes "that which I (mindlessly happen to) value" for a standard of value, in contradiction of the fact that, existentially, he is a human and therefore rational organism. The "I value" in whim-worship or hedonism can be replaced with "we value," "he values," "they value," or "God values," and still it would remain dissociated from reality. Rand repudiated the equation of rational selfishness with hedonistic or whim-worshiping "selfishness-without-a-self." She held that the former is good, and the latter evil, and that there is a fundamental difference between them".
Well goddamnit if I'm not evil.
You know what I like about Charlie Sheen (and yes, Tiger Woods)? He does whatever he wants. He has the money and the ability to do anything he wants in a particular day and what he does does not conform with mainstream society. His recent "productive achievement" (Two and a Half Men) was by no means a noble achievement. That show fucking sucked, and he knew it (and admitted as such). But he was making 2 million dollars an episode. He was building giant pink stucco houses.
And why does society hate him? Because he has choices and opportunities that the average person can't even begin to formulate, and we, as a society, are jealous of that. And so when he strays outside of the rules that have been societally imposed upon him, well, we just really want to punish him for that, don't we. He has what we don't have: money; success; power; hot chicks; freedom; accolades; attention; a following; a safety net, and we can't stand that he is not following some subscribed ideal of what it is that we would do if we were in his shoes, because we're all so high minded and altruistic, aren't we?
I admit that I'm what Rand would refer to as a "second hander": I haven't created anything new. I follow the path that has already been laid. Perhaps one day I might erect my own Stoddard Temple - it remains to be seen.
In the interim? I refuse to suffer.