Should you strive to be Howard Roark, or to reinvent yourself?

Two things:

1. Ayn Rand seems to consider Howard Roark the ideal man at least partly because he never changes. He's the same exact person all his life. He has no character arc.
2. Reinventing yourself is trendy nowadays, everything from quitting your career to start a new one to becoming a whole new person.

Another two things:

1. According to me, having the exact same character and personality all your life is desirable and admirable if and only if it comes naturally. Obsessing over being static and never evolving into something new is highly neurotic and thus undesirable.
2. According to be, reinventing yourself regularly is desirable and a good idea if and only if it comes naturally. Constantly wondering if you're who you're supposed to be, year after year, and obsessing over the idea that the real you is still somewhere out there, regardless of how well your current identity is working out for you, is highly neurotic and thus undesirable.

Ergo, regardless of what Rand or the current trends say, neuroticism is the thing to avoid, no matter which direction - dynamic or static - it pulls you.

RK out.