His relationship with the Golden One also displays his integrity. He clearly knows that she stands out from all other women. When she asks him if he would look at her in a crowd of other women, he replies that he would look upon her if she were with all the women of the earth. Though it is forbidden for men to think of women at any period other than the Time of Mating, he thinks of her often. Though it is forbidden for men and women to speak to each other, he initiates a conversation with her. Though the Councils are all-powerful, he decides that he will not permit them to ever take the Golden One to the Palace of Mating. When he must flee the city under threat of death, his inability to see her is his one regret. Again, his commitment in action to his values stands out. He will not yield the things he wants out of life, no matter the struggle it takes to attain them.
Finally, his integrity reaches also to his quest for freedom. No doubt his greatest achievement is his realization — in a society that does everything possible to stifle it — that human beings are individuals, and that they require political freedom to live. His re-discovery of individualism, embodied by his identification of the word "I", is not an isolated incident in his life. It is the outcome of a lifelong commitment, in practice, to the principles of independent functioning. He knows he wants to be a scientist, he wonders about the Unspeakable Word, he performs secret experiments and woos the Golden One though both are strictly forbidden. Throughout his life, he is true to his own mind, never a blind follower of the state. He lives like an individual long before he discovers the concept of individualism. Because of his unbreached commitment to his mind, he chooses the path that ultimately leads to his re-discovery of the individual mind. In some unspoken way that he could not articulate, Equality 7-2521 knew from childhood that human beings are individuals who must live by their own minds — and this is the way he always lives. Logically, his independent functioning leads to the re-discovery of independence.
