I like that explanation and it makes sense.
Yeah, idk. Roark was a good philosopher (e.g., he came up with the idea of second-handedness) in addition to being an architectural genius.
Now you mention it, I remember that he did. He went on a yacht vacation with Wynand because he needed to relax.
Relevant Fountainhead quote
Wynand had said: “You’re killing yourself, Howard. You’ve been going at a pace nobody can stand for long. … Think you’d have the courage to perform the feat most difficult for you—to rest?”
He was astonished when Roark accepted without argument. Roark laughed:
“I’m not running away from my work, if that’s what surprises you. I know when to stop—and I can’t stop, unless it’s completely. I know I’ve overdone it. I’ve been wasting too much paper lately and doing awful stuff.”
“Do you ever do awful stuff?”
“Probably more of it than any other architect and with less excuse. The only distinction I can claim is that my botches end up in my own wastebasket.”
“I warn you, we’ll be away for months. If you begin to regret it and cry for your drafting table in a week, like all men who’ve never learned to loaf, I won’t take you back. I’m the worst kind of dictator aboard my yacht. You’ll have everything you can imagine, except paper or pencils. I won’t even leave you any freedom of speech. No mention of girders, plastics or reinforced concrete once you step on board. I’ll teach you to eat, sleep and exist like the most worthless millionaire.”
“I’d like to try that.”
Incidentally, this part of the quote:
“Do you ever do awful stuff?”
“Probably more of it than any other architect and with less excuse. The only distinction I can claim is that my botches end up in my own wastebasket.”
Reminded me a little of ET’s discussion of quantity versus quality (e.g., photography/pottery class parable) in How I Write a Lot.
Yeah, true. It’s Austin Heller. I guess I still felt that Roark must be a pretty intense guy who’s super switched on virtually all the time if other people feel that way around him. Binswanger said something similar about Rand herself:
her intensity was palpable… a kind of power radiated out from her, high-tension crackled in the air around her. It was a positive tension… a life-giving tension