Coyote Blog

Your son's essay shows the optimism and idealism of youth, and I hope he can maintain these for a few more years. Going your own way and bucking society are noble efforts, but they are not always rewarded with success. Howard Roark was good and determined, but he also had some breaks - like meeting Dominique.

I hope your son will try something that Roark never did - that is to think outside the box when it comes to pursuing his goals. While reading "TheFountainhead", where Roark was unable to convince customers, fellow architects, critics, and the public in general that his designs were superior to the traditional ones, I never understood why he didn't leave New York and try to work elsewhere. Maybe people in Houston or Los Angeles or Sydney, for that matter, would have loved his modern designs. If his goal was to see buildings of his own creation in the skyline of New York, then another way to achieve this would have been to first become known for improving the skylines elsewhere. That would have made more sense to me than taking a sabbatical in a quarry. And maybe he would have decided that he didn't like New York that much anyway.