The correct balance between Fernand Braudel and Ayn Rand

[On the Road]

---snip

Laura leaves Phoenix, Arizona on Wednesday and arrives in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Friday. She completes the whole trip in just 54 hours. Whereas the average American family makes the trip in 4 days, she does it in less than 3.-

---snip Fernand_Braudel

Countless hands toiled for decades to build these roads. In the old days, the average family might have hitched their horses to wagons and taken 6 months to get from Virginia to Arizona. Now the average family can make the trip in 4 days. Numerous inventors, and innumerable workers, have changed the world.

Here then, is an example of what we inherit from the longue duree, and what we contribute, in the here and now, with our bodies and our souls. To use old fashioned language, the masses, in their ceaseless toil, reduced the trip by 98%, and individual will power reduced it by 25% of the remainder, or .5% of the total.

For me, this offers a rough rule of thumb, applicable to other fields of human endeavor; the correct balance between Fernand Braudel and Ayn Rand.

http://www.teamlalala.com/blog/category/fernand-braudel/

Couldn't have thought of a better response to that rugged individualist in your life.

[bemildred]

1. Yah.

Insight and will are precious, but we all stand on the shoulders of multitudes, ephemeral drops in the torrent of human history. It takes a big ego and lots of chutzpah to think you did it all yourself.