Thank You, SOLO!
by Kelly Reynolds
This is my first article for SOLO. I have been lurking around, occasionally posting on the parenting forum, but I think it's time for me to emerge and let you all get to know me as I feel that I know you. Before I launch into a series of articles on the things I am most interested in, I wanted to write a big thank you note to you all for how much SOLO means to me.
I became an Objectivist during my sophomore year of college in 1999. I had read Ayn Rand's novels before, but they were only really wonderful stories to me. I reread Atlas Shrugged, and when I finished it (in the college chapel no less), I looked around me, sat in the quiet, and realized that it was either the life of Atlas Shrugged or the life around me and inside of me. The two couldn‚t exist together. Right then and there, I became an atheist and devoted myself to becoming rational, happy, and great. I left the chapel that day feeling twenty-five feet tall, and I walked across the quadrangle taking the huge strides of a giant and smiling like a child.
I had the idea then that the hard part would be working on myself and becoming the person I now wanted to be, and in a way I was right. It has been hard and continues to be hard to live virtuously and to root out and heal the wounds deep in my subconscious. But hard as it has been, it has also been enormously fulfilling. I never knew that the part of being an Objectivist that would be hardest would be the loneliness and isolation. I expected that I would meet Objectivists and that they would be like me. They would have lots of values and hobbies and life experiences that they were bursting to talk about. They would have senses of humor. They would be really interested in spending time on friendships and romance. They would be full, happy, balanced, life-loving people, and I knew that I would never have to long for people to love again. Well, as I am sure you all have guessed, this did not happen!!!
I found a wonderful husband and a few friends who are Objectivists and fun people too. But overall, most Objectivists stink. I was so disappointed when I began to meet the Peikoffs of this world. They aren't fun; they aren't interesting; they aren't open; and they aren't the kind of people I envisioned on that day I became an Objectivist. They do not inspire me or excite me, and they seemed to be everywhere and everyone in Objectivism.
Enter SOLO. My friend Jason Dixon pointed me to this site, and I was hooked instantly. SOLO has such an abundance of joy and fury and values and humor and people I would love to meet. Every night, while I sit and nurse the baby for LONG hours, I read the articles and the forums, and I feel the sense of community and friendliness that I have been longing for these last 6 years. I marvel at how the site is full of people for whom living is a dreadfully serious business and full of fun at the same time. I see people who care about ideas and care about the physical world as well. I think the theme of SOLO should be, "Blasting away at mind-body dichotomies in whatever form and wherever they are found!"
I want to say thank you to all of you SOLO folks for those hours of community you have given me and for the realization that there are many people in the world with whom I can share my life-loving, happy, value-seeking spirit.
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