getting randy with ayn

liz just finished reading ayn rand's ANTHEM (1938); a striking & damning reaction to the emergence of the nation state. like 1984 but short, precise and uncomplicated. finishes with an overarticulation and obsession with the individual self.

......anthem is written as the diary of equality 7-2521, a young man living in a future in which people have lost all knowledge of individualism, to the point of not even knowing words like "i" or "mine." everyone lives and works in collective groups, with all aspects of daily life dictated by "councils" -- the council of cocations, the council of scholars, etc. his curiosity leads him to forbidden discoveries and eventually to exile.....

"and now we look upon the earth and sky. this spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world that waits."