I read about Mark Cuban today…He’s this ambitious self-made guy, who’s now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team apart from doing some other interesting things in life. But what really endeared the man to me was the following statement quoted in Slate magazine (the article asked some important people about the books which changed their life – mostly they were authors citing books I hadn’t heard about), “The Fountainhead was incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals, and responsibility for my successes and failures. I loved it. I don’t know how many times I have read it, but it got to a point where I had to stop because I would get too fired up.”

God knows I felt like him when I read the book. It’s a pity that I’ve rarely clearly articulate my goals to myself (even most people I talk to are confused about what they want to do with their lives). But the book is something…I wished I had read it earlier in life – made me feel at home about a lot of things (I read it in my third year of law school…had been put off by its size for a long time)…Howard Roark was the man to be, or rather the man you couldn’t be…The character of Gail Wynand is easier to relate to, and I did…

More recently, I read the Atlas Shrugged…didn’t really like it…lots of people like it more than the Fountainhead…but for me only the Fountainhead worked…I guess since the philosophy behind the books is essentially the same, you’d like the one you read first…

I’ve spoken about the book with lots of friends…very few seem to like it…one of them “found” his Dagny Taggart in one of his classmates, and saw himself as John Galt/Rearden… One of them felt that it’s too much propaganda; don’t know whether to agree or disagree. But I did intuitively agree with author’s views – it seemed that someone totally made sense. Hopefully life will make sense too, soon.