From Transactional Fairness to Virtuous Pride: A Non-Transactional Motivation in One’s Life

Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, such as validation or reciprocation. It operates like a contract, driven by external motives and often tied to a sense of obligation or debt. Non-Transactional Love is given freely without expecting repayment, rooted in genuine care and intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes authentic connection and truth, unbound by calculations or external rewards. The […] Read more »

My Favorite Ayn Rand Quotes

Individualism and Independence Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking—that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as […] Read more »

Pride, Arrogance, and Grammatical Fallacies

Pride, in a virtuous sense, is the rational recognition and celebration of one’s earned achievements and self-worth, grounded in personal integrity and effort. It fosters confidence and resilience, enabling individuals to stand firm in their convictions without veering into arrogance. Socratic humility is the intellectual virtue of recognizing and embracing the limits of one’s knowledge, fostering openness to learning and growth. It counters arrogance by encouraging a continuous quest for […] Read more »

Connecting the Character Traits of Pride, Humility, and Dignity Together

Pride, humility, and dignity emerge as authentic virtues when they arise from an internal locus of identity, shaped by self-awareness and rational integrity. These internalized traits stand in sharp contrast to their externalized distortions—arrogance, pretentiousness, and a superficial mimicry of dignity—which depend on an external locus of control or identity for validation. Ayn Rand, the creator of Objectivism, extolled pride as a moral summit, while rejecting humility as a flaw. […] Read more »

Subjective vs Objective Truth

What many people have come to understand about the concept of truth, might be better called “perception”. While truth level one is our subjective perception (and understanding) of reality, truth level two is the totality of our objective reality that we can open our eyes up to perceive. We each have our own perception, and we are able to improve our subjective sight, so that we can see what’s “truly” […] Read more »