| | We operate along different dimensions - there is our raw intelligence, there is our major intellectual content (our intellectual principles), there is the degree to which we have integrated our ethical principles (our character), and there is our emotional nature (primarily our self-esteem).
For Objectivists, we received a giant hand up to the high end of intellectual content from Rand - We all stand on her shoulders in terms of intellectual integration of the key principles in so many areas. But what we take from her is a static model and we have to animate those integrations in our mind, real-time. How many of us have the raw intelligence needed to juggle the abstractions and properly fit the context to the specifics as well as Rand did? It is a task that I'm getting better at, but I cringe with embarrassment at how poorly I did this during the first few decades as an Objectivist. Principles have to be applied, that takes thinking and many Objectivists 'know' the principles but struggle a bit on occasion with an application.
Psychoepistemology, self-esteem, character, and psychological traits in general, rule larger than many Objectivists, historians, or others give credit. Accidental and self-made blindness arising out these areas are the greatest factor in the deviations between Objectivists. And it is in these areas that differences in sense of life arise.
In a way, there are many dimensions where we are challenged to rise to a sufficiently mature level. This is a set of tasks whose mastery they don't teach. Yet, without a fair amount of mastery, we are at a level below which we are too much like a child trying to drive a car.
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