dario on Nostr: Now he saw that in postponing this moment for hours, he had not been guilty of ...

Now he saw that in postponing this moment for hours, he had not been guilty of evasion: had not thought of it, because there was nothing to think.

Thought--he told himself quietly is a weapon one uses in order to act. No action was possible.

Thought is the tool by which one makes
a choice. No choice was left to him.

Thought sets one's purpose and the way to reach it. In the matter of his life being torn piece by piece out of him, he was to have no voice, no purpose, no way, no defense.

He thought of this in astonishment. He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory who can ever have that? only the chance to act, which is all one needs.

Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror: being delivered to destruction with one's hands tied behind one's back.

Well, then, go on with your hands tied, he thought. Go on in chains. Go on.
It must not stop you. . .

But another voice was telling him
things he did not want to hear, while he fought back, crying through and against it: There's no point in thinking of that . . . there's no use . . . what for? . . . leave it alone!

He could not choke it off. He sat still, over the drawings of the bridge for the John Galt Line, and heard the things released by a voice that was part-sound, part-sight: They decided it without him.
They did not call for him, they did not ask, they did not let him
speak. . .

They were not bound even by the duty to let him know-to let him know that they had slashed part of his life away and that he had to be ready to walk on as a cripple. . .

Of all those concerned, whoever they were, for whichever reason, for whatever need, he was the one they had not had to consider.

—Atlas Shrugged