Who is John Galt?

I had meatballs for lunch today.

Also.

Work today involved a lot of sitting and starring at a solution whilst it sorted itself out through a column of silica gel and drrrriiiiiiippppped ever so slowly into an Erlenmeyer flask (Invented by that guy over there to the right, Emil Erlenmeyer in 1861. Not to be confused with Oscar Mayer, who made a hotdog around then that still looks and tastes exactly the same). Erlenmeyer flllask. Erlenmeyer flaaaaask. I think that might be in my top ten of favourite word combinations. I could say it maybe 72 consecutive times without getting tired of saying it.

Anywho, I would pour the solution was that I was working into the top of the glass column, and as the liquid trickled through the tube, getting itself all pure and what not, I had a lot of time to do nothing. So instead of doing nothing, I read Atlas Shrugged. And I'm only about 213 pages in, so don't nobody go spoiling it for me.

It's wierd. I can't read a whole lot of that book in one sitting - it's just too depressing and frustrating to immerse myself in for too long - but when I'm not reading it, all I do is think about it. Or change the Erlenmeyer flask under the column. I feel like I've reached the climax of the story, but I have about 80% of the book to go. Every character is either a detestable piece of scum dredged from the bowels of the Valley of the Severely Dim, or an intelligent, ambitious person, a prodigy in their field of work, and therefore despised by the aforementioned scums.

I'm still waiting for the part when Atlas finally shrugs and the world goes tumbling off his shoulders and shatters on the museum floor. I'm sure it happens soon.

But. I don't know what to make of this book. Philosophy like this makes one part of my brain scream and another part shoot into thinking overdrive. It's intriguing. It's riveting. But every so often I have to stop and just puzzle over humanity. Could we really end up like that? Is society destined to become a giant contradiction of itself? Can humans as a collective sink to such loathsome levels that they especially hate themselves?

Who is John Galt?

Shut up brain, just shut up.





Side, mostly unrelated, note: If you google john galt erlenmeyer meatballs, this post comes up first. Woohoot.

Update 25/08/09: Not anymore. Fuck.