Caveat: Objectivism

"Objectivism: the spongy white bread at the Great Buffet of Human Ideas" – John Scalzi, in his screedtastic bloggings on the topic of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  I would add:  spongy white bread is delicious and comforting, but not good for you, and may contribute to health problems if not to an early death.

Perhaps this is what Scalzi has in mind.  I think I can agree with a large proportion of what he's saying, which is hard for me to find among people who actually enjoy Rand's writing.  His main insight:  Rand writes "nerd revenge porn" – which is why fans of Rand are mostly to be found somewhere on the Aspergers spectrum.  I will not be so proud as to deny I might be along there somewhere, myself.

My main thought on being a nerd:  being a nerd is like being an acoholic or a drug addict – you cannot be cured, but you can be recovering.  I am a recovering nerd.  As long as I accept this, I can make progress.  Rand's writing is a different approach:  it says that being a nerd is holy, and there's nothing to recover from.  In essence, it denies the normality of human collective social experience.  Rand is to being a nerd as William S. Burroughs is to being a herion addict.  Personally, I think both are wonderful writers.  But I don't think they're offering viable life-philosophies.  It's fantasy.

Caveat: 6) 나의 몸을 소중하게 여기지 않고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다

 
“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, not regarding my body as something dear.”
The parallelism continues.  Maybe, at this rate, I’ll figure out what the grammar is trying to do.  Out of [broken link! FIXME] 108 affirmations, I’m now on number six.
 

4. [broken link! FIXME] 나는 어디서 왔는가, 어디로 갈 것인가를 생각하지 않고 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
     “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds  lived, wherever I think I may have come from, wherever I think I may go to.”
5. [broken link! FIXME] 나는 누구인가, 참 나는 어디있는가를 망각한 채 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
     “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting wherever I may be, whoever I may be.”
6. 나의 몸을 소중하게 여기지 않고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this sixth affirmation as:  “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, not regarding my body as something dear.”
The first clause seems to literally say, “and not regarding my body preciously.”  I settled on the above both with a mind to keeping the parallelism with the previous two affirmations, and to try to make sense of it.  I’m not sure that I didn’t take too many liberties with the meaning, though.

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