the unwanted ideal

the past few weeks have culminated in me reading ayn rands 'Atlas shrugged'. her philosphy of objectivism and philosophical capitalism has transcribed into characters in all her books. they are her ideal people. they are what she feels the ideal human should be. truth be told, i agree with her.
these characters are usually, smart, attractive people. they believe, that there is nothing higher than personal gain. there is nothing higher than the self. ones self pleasure and survival exceeds everything. (before i have ayn rand fanatics tracing my IP address, let me say here that i am a huge fan - of her philosophy more than her books, and how they make me think)
but the more i read (I've not completed it yet), the more the characters scare me. not in terms of their propaganda and attitude but in the way they make me question myself and what this 'ideal human' means to me.
and then the question comes in, do i actually want to reach this ideallic state? do i want to be so aloof and indifferent? the only way to be insensitive to, and im not using this word flippantly, change, is to not let people into your life (realistically speaking - im sure there are other higher ways of dong so). to be devoid of personal human contact would be the only way to achieve this form of ideal. the only way to put yourself before anybody else would be if there were no one else in your life, of importance.
the sacrifice for the ideal seems too much. there are people in my life whom i would not let go off.. whom i refuse to let go off. the reason i am who i am today is no doubt because of what iv made of myself, but also because of the people around me. people who took out time to talk to me. people who put me before themselves. people who's ideals, then obiovusly, differed from mine.
so then are people simply born ideal? is ideal something your born into.. something that cannot be attained?
i cannot help feeling weak when i read this book. weakness. this is what seems to bother me more than anything else. anyone who isnt ideal (and that seems to be something you need to be born into - an aristocracy of the intellect if you may) is weak.
the other alternative is that she is wrong. (my interpretation ie.) i think a middle ground is the way to go forward. to be detached, yet attached. to be independently dependant (if that makes any sense). a sort of quasi-state.. a limbo. i wonder however, if thats possible.

PS: everything said here is naturally my interpretation. she could have meant something quite the opposite.