Food for Thought

"Thinking is not an automatic function, In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or avoid that effort....He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free ti avoid the abyss he refuses to see....Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his conscoiuness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know....Just as a man is free to attmept to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment-so is he free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences."

- Ayn Rand, The virtue of Selfishness