Your Mind Is Not for Rent

These lyrics from the epic song “Tom Sawyer” by Rush still hum in my mind with a stubborn electricity decades later.

When I first heard them as a high schooler growing up in Columbus, Ohio, I didn’t yet have the philosophical vocabulary to name what they were pointing to. I just knew they felt true. They spoke to something instinctive, something defiant, something quietly sovereign.

In high school, rock music was the air my friends and I breathed. Journey, Boston, Foreigner, AC/DC, Kansas. All of it loud, rebellious, yet inspiring. But for me, Rush stood apart. Their lyrics didn’t just entertain. They were challenging. They demanded thought. They dared you to take responsibility for your own life.

That challenge, I now realize, sits at the intersection of self-reliance, self-government, and an ancient wisdom that long predates electric guitars.

Rush, Ayn Rand, and the Shock of Individual Will

Rush’s Canadian trio, Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and the late Neil Peart, carved out a lyrical space where individual will mattered. Peart, in particular, became known for introducing the philosophy of Ayn Rand into rock music, an almost unthinkable fusion at the time.

Their 1976 album 2112 was dedicated to Rand and drew inspiration from her novella Anthem, a dystopian tale where creativity itself becomes an act of rebellion. In this book, Rand features a world that, without individual expression, collapses into gray obedience—until one person dares to reclaim sound, choice, and agency.

That theme echoes Taoist wisdom in an unexpected way. Lao Tzu reminds us that when systems become overbearing, life loses its natural flow. Excessive control breeds resistance. Forced order produces disorder. When rulers interfere too much, the people lose their own center.

Freedom, in both traditions, is not granted. It is reclaimed.

A Pizza Slice, Evanston, and an Accidental Lesson

My own encounter with the work of Ayn Rand began not in a classroom or library, but in a pizza restaurant in Evanston, Illinois, sometime in 1985. Mid-slice, I struck up a random conversation with a woman reading Atlas Shrugged. When she asked if I had heard of the author, I lied and said yes, then referred to Ayn Rand as “him.”

Her laughter was merciless. Her correction was unforgettable.

That moment planted a seed. Years later, when I returned to Rand’s work with more maturity and less posturing, I understood why her ideas provoked such visceral reactions. She was not asking to be liked. She was asking people to think.

Free Will, Phantom Fears, and the Discipline of Choice

Rush made Rand’s philosophy sing in “Free Will”:

This lyric dismantles one of the great modern illusions—that opting out of responsibility absolves us of consequence. Taoism agrees. Not choosing is still choosing. Drifting is still movement, just not conscious movement.

The song warns against “phantom fears”: abstract anxieties about power, control, scarcity, and chaos. These fears, when amplified, become justification for surrendering personal agency to institutions, experts, and systems that promise safety in exchange for autonomy.

A Taoist lens would say this is life lived out of balance. When fear replaces trust in one’s own capacity, the Tao is obscured.

Rand, Russia, and the Cost of Centralized Control

Rand’s hostility toward collectivism was not theoretical. Born in Russia, she watched her father’s business seized by the Bolsheviks “for the good of the people.” She lived the reality of a system where individual effort was punished and compliance rewarded.

Her conclusion was uncompromising. Even small intrusions of centralized control carry the seeds of tyranny. Critics bristle at her rejection of altruism, but her deeper claim is often missed. You cannot genuinely care for others if you are coerced, depleted, or stripped of agency yourself.

In Taoist terms, forced virtue is not virtue. Compassion that arises from obligation rather than choice is hollow.

Self-Reliance as a Moral Practice

Rand’s assertion that each person is an end in themselves has been caricatured as cruel. I read it differently now. Self-reliance is not antisocial. It is stabilizing. It creates individuals who can choose generosity rather than perform it under pressure.

Libertarian thought asks uncomfortable but necessary questions. Who decides how your labor is used? Who defines fairness? At what point does protection become domination? Taoism adds its own quiet provocation. What happens when we stop forcing outcomes and instead cultivate inner alignment?

Both traditions converge on a simple insight. Freedom begins internally.

From Synchronicity to Self-Government

Earlier in my life, I leaned too heavily on chance, goodwill, and cosmic coincidence. I mistook drift for destiny. Reading Rand shook me awake. Taoist practice helped me soften without surrendering responsibility.

Self-government is not rebellion for its own sake. It is the disciplined refusal to outsource your conscience, your thinking, or your life trajectory. It is the quiet work of governing yourself so that no one else has to.

That, more than ideology, is the enduring message I hear in those Rush lyrics. No mind for rent. Not to gods. Not to governments. Not even to fear.