“ He was tired. It was as if he had run a race against his own body, and all the exhaustion of years, which he had refused to acknowledge, had caught him at once and flattened him against the desk top. He felt nothing, except the desire not to move. He did not have the strength to feel - not even to suffer. He had burned everything there was to burn within him; he had scattered so many sparks to start so many things-and he wondered whether someone could give him now the spark he needed, now when he felt unable ever to rise again. He asked himself who had started him and kept him going. Then he raised his head. Slowly, with the greatest effort of his life, he made his body rise until he was able to sit upright with only one hand pressed to the desk and a trembling arm to support him. He never asked that question again.
—
Atlas Shrugged, pg. 36 - Ayn Rand
I have been turning this quote over and over in my head for hours, considering its literary beauty and its philosophical meaning.
To what do you credit your personal power and success? Yourself? Family? Friends? God? Someone or Something else?
Is the source of our power a universal similarity and truth, or does it vary based on the individual? Can it be objectively judged either way?
Personally, I do not know to whom or what I should credit for the sucesses achieved in my life. I think my own uncertainty regarding the idea is what made this quote startle me so much…
