Our Meetings with Remarkable Spiritual Authority's Part 2

(Continued from Part 1, a little auto-biography exercise)

Doug's Episode #2

Hi Friends,

Fast forward another ~10 yrs...

I'm now 19 years old & incarcerated (~1 yr) in the California Youth 'Authority' (sic) for violating the conventional culture's taboo against altering consciousness in unapproved ways...the 'devil weed'. (BTW, this was preceded by previous short term incarcerations for overdoing the 'approved' drug...alcohol).

At this 'fulcrum' of development, I was fortunate to be exposed to the writings of Ayn Rand by my ever vigilant, agnostic mother (luv ya Mom!). Thus begins a total immersion in the 'Rational Stage of Faith'. I would definitely consider Ms. Rand my Spiritual Authority during this period of development (although certainly not 'seen' that way at the time)...unquestioningly loved her writings, ideas & persona. "Long Live John Galt!". But, as a result, I began to use discriminating intelligence to evalutate declarations of all so called 'authorities', including her eventually.

At the time, I considered myself an atheist; a proponant of rational self interest; an advocate of libertarian (moderist 'liberal') economic & political philosophy. I read Aristotle, Ludwig Von Mises, Nathanial Branden, and just about anyone that didn't demand faith without empirical evidence.

To this day, I'm am still extremely grateful & still using this valued perspective daily.

And to be fair, I need to give some credit for a little 'as if' pre-taste of rationality to my pre- and post-adolescent exposure to the Sci-Fi writings of Asimov, Simak & a few others.

But, this is not the end of the story...stay tuned.

Cheers,
Doug

Edited by Doug Wallack on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:05 PM