Michael's Journal, News, Visionaries | No Comments | August 28th, 2007
I was just watching a YouTube video of Sam Keen talking about his interview with Ernest Becker, author of Denial of Death. Towards the end of the video, Keen is noting how Becker did not exhibit the kind of removed intellectualism that one might expect from such a thinker. Keen, who has become visibly moved by this point, remarks in admiration, “He thought with his life.”
Ayn Rand proposed that man needs a philosophy from which to live his life, and that one’s ideas are integral to who a person is. As someone creating ideas, my primary motivation in creating ideas as tools has always been a personal one… who should i be? how should i live my life! The “should” arising not from a context of ultimate right and wrong, but from an Ayn Rand-inspired context: if I am to have a life of profound happiness, joy and exaltation, I must live true to my deepest values and honest convictions–even if the world stands in judgment. So then, how do I go about living such a visionary life?
As visionaries–as people who highly value independent thought, action and the creative expression and contribution of our values and vision in the world–as people who are not compromising to conform to the pressures of society–then don’t we each need some sort of philosophy from which to live our lives? Some sort of idea system or paradigm, which validates our individual visionary paths? In a sense, we each have an idea system that guides us, or that at least justifies our choices. What I aim to bring through the VisionForce ideas and tools is *not* an all-encompassing idea system for “visionaries” to subscribe to, but ideas as tools and models, which visionaries can apply in the formation of their own self-guiding philosophies and paradigms. The visionary, in my view, is not simply one who thinks new or radical thoughts, but one who does so in an effort to bring a new vision into existence (and vice versa). The ideas support the creation of a new reality.
Ultimately, the power of the tools VisionForce offers are to be judged through their effectiveness in the hands of visionaries. The tools we offer through our programs are nothing but that which I use in my own life. My investment in these concepts and tools is total. My life, the life of someone very conscious of his mortality, rests on the efficacy of these ideas. I’d consider it a very high acknowledgment, if at the end of my life, someone said of me, “He thought with his life.”
