I was listening to Atlas Shrugged (audio book) yesterday when I had an unexpected and profound response.  Maybe is was the timing, after a long commute, a long work day and the night of the State of the Union.  But an element of the first conversation between Dagney Taggart and the newsstand owner caused me to physically tighten my grip on the wheel.   Fortunately for me, I was off of the highway and sitting at a red light.

Elements of this first conversation (cigarettes as a metaphor) have been quoted.  But I have not found this part restated.

“I don’t like the thing that’s happening to people…I’ve watched them here for twenty years and I’ve seen the change.  They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there.  Now they’re hurrying because they are afraid.  It’s not a purpose that drives them, it’s fear.  They’re not going anywhere, they’re escaping.  And I don’t think they know what it is that they want to escape.  They don’t look at one another… I don’t know what it is that happening to the world.”

Simple truth written over 50 years ago and the State of the Union.