Ayn Rand, are you real?

"I often think that he's the only one of us who's achieved immortality. I don't mean in the sense of fame and I don't mean that he won't die some day. But he's living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict--and they call it growth. At the end there's nothing left nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him existing forever."

I know she's not correct. Having finished writing a book, she should not have published it if she was following her own beliefs correctly. An egoist has no use for anything once she has appreciated it.

It is impossible to be immortal as Rand describes it. Change is inevitable, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate Rand's ideal of her immortal man. But even more I appreciate that she believes her ideal is possible. It is easy to be confident when you're right, but when you're wrong it should be embarrassing. I appreciate that she believes in herself so fiercely that I can't decide if she's beast, or humiliating herself.

Probably she's both. What difference does it make to her if she's not really correct, when in her mind she is? Why make the effort to be right when you can just believe you're right?

Even though she doesn't succeed, Rand still needs the effort. I can tell you how you're wrong, but I can't tell you how you're happy, or how you're sad, or how you feel emotion. How can you expect me to give the real answers? It's our fault for believing they're there. But don't stop.

"Have you always liked being Howard Roark?"
Roark smiled. The smile was amused, astonished, involuntarily contemptuous.