Second Handers

"Yes, and isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievemnt which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of the others.
Look at our so called cultural endeavours. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him- and the people who listen and don't give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers"
"That precisely is the definition of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas or work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: " Is this True?" They ask: " Is this what others think is true?" Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but give the impression of doing.Not creation, but show. what would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the Egotists.
You don't think through another's brain and you don't work through another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgement, you suspend consciousness".
These are some of the lines spoken by Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in the book " The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. This book really did influence me the first time i read it. But everytime i read some of my favourite pages or the whole Book again, It everytime has something more to offer, there is something new to learn from it. Everytime it seems as though I'm reading it for the first time.
All that is fine, but it always makes me question myself,and those questions ar not very pleasing.