THE ROARK'S PROGRESS

Howard Roark : Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice.

At the age of twelve I was corrupted by my father when he sat me down to watch King Vidor's 'The Fountainhead' (1949) starring Gary Cooper, Raymond Massey and Patricia O' Neal with no explanation, exposition or introduction other than "you need to watch this right now, trust me."

From the strident titles with the swirling Max Steiner strings that to my mind now resemble the musical equivalent of the cloud-capped skyscrapers protagonist Howard Roark is to design later in the story, I was hooked.

Back then most of my peers were inspired by Maradona, Michael Jackson and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It probably says more about my strangeness as a teenager that I was more personally inspired by the renegade architect/anarchist Howard Roark.

There was just something about the character's defiance of authority figures that appealed to me. I instinctively felt it was a suitably creative position to be at odds with the collective consensus, including my own generation. Back then Roark's influence somehow allowed me to ignore the tyranny of adolescent clichés or at least that's how I saw it in my youthful arrogance, which is not to say I didn't succumb to being attracted to girls, or squabble with friends about all sorts of inconsequential things that could only be settled by who could score the most three pointers with a basketball.

Although watching the film now in 2023, I find there is almost a form of sadism in Roark's ability to withstand humiliation and punishment to prove a point about his own individual autonomy mentally and physically. I wouldn't say I imitated his uncompromising position to the same absolute degree, as my father would always warn me 'never pursue an absolute'. Nevertheless, Roark became like a deeply subversive libertarian Jiminy Cricket living inside my head, one that stayed with me growing up and still does to this day, for better and for worse.

Watching Roark remain forever steadfast to his true purpose, unwavering and in no doubt of his personal worth, is a good reminder for those who've forgotten the value in believing in yourself.

You've probably all heard the phrase "the body is a temple"; well I'm convinced both my father and Roark believed that  the mind is a temple and one that must be protected at all costs. The sentry guards standing at the gates protecting the sanctity of one's mind can be both ego and arrogance which my dad and Roark had in abundance.

Growing up around friends with parents who were socialist, Big Government types, I often thought about how would Roark deal with their relentless propaganda and would become increasingly amazed at how easy it was to find myself similarly at odds with Big Brother authoritarians as it was for Roark to find himself at odds with the bureaucrat control freaks in the city planning department, to say nothing of the media moguls desperately trying to bring him down.

On reflection, perhaps I've over identified with Roark at times but even today I can still feel his stubborn, uncompromising presence residing somewhere deep in my consciousness. Will it prove to be hubristic to have such a contentious character informing my life's raison d'etre? Probably. But while the delusion lasts, it feels good to have Howard on board.

Thanks Dad!