B.W.'s Book Report: preview

If you recognize the quotes I've been tossing out of late, you know what I got for Christmas and what I've been reading since a few days after Christmas. I'm just shy of the halfway point.

The last three months or so have sent me through Murray Rothbard's The Betrayal of the American Right, Frank Chodorov's Out of Step, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and now this. It has been educational.

It would not be accurate to say that these books have shaken me to the very core. That phrase implies a rattling of my beliefs, an upsetting of the apple cart. Rather, this gives me the sensation of having been previously upset, being a bit lost, perhaps treading water for a very long time, and finally finding land under my feet, a foundation, a grounding, a confirmation of my beliefs.

These books did not shake me to the core, but they have touched my core. More importantly, I am not drinking Kool-Aid here. I do not blindly embrace every concept these three writers have tossed in my direction, but they have put words to thoughts that hovered in my consciousness waiting for the words.

More than three years ago now, something happened in my business life that did shake me to the very core. In many ways I have been drifting in an extended state of shock ever since. These authors have taken me by the shoulders and steadied me. A year after the initial shock, I started this blog. It has kept me sane. Here and there I caught glimpses of what needed to be done; unleashing The Imaginary Bomb in podcast form was the first of a handful of steps in that direction, but I was still shaking. My friends here — you know who you are — patiently helped prepare me to settle down. Rothbard, Chodorov and Rand have settled me down.

And now what? That's a very good question. I have some ideas. I hope to be ready to share such as I can on Jan. 16.