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In his famous book, 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions',  Steven Kunz popularized the term 'paradigm shift'.  He famously pointed out that paradigm shifts don't take place when the old paradigm stops working.  Rather, paradigm shifts take place when a new paradigm arrives that works better than the old one.

People don't abandon a sinking ship because its sinking.  People abandon a sinking ship when a floating ship passes close by.  

The world is watching the old paradigm collapse.  It is disgusting, incredibly violent, and grotesque.  The criminality, the immorality, the depravity involved is not merely sickening, but so disturbing as to make decent people question either the motives or the power of God.  Does God allow this?  Does God choose to tolerate this?  Does God lament this powerlessly, as we do?  

The world looked fucked.  And indeed, from the perspective of the old paradigm, the world was fucked.  

But the world wasn't fucked.  The old paradigm was fucked.  Unbelievably profitable corporations, an immoral ruling class, extraordinary lies from government, religion, and school, a hate-filled criminal cartel that was brainwashing the planet with unbelievably sophisticated psychological manipulation, violence, conflict, zero sum games... this was all part of the old paradigm that had no place in the world.  It was obsolete.

Everything was obsolete.  Bastante had been told a long time ago that religion was for people who were afraid of hell and spirituality was for people who had already been there.  The world had already been through hell and had no further use for religion.  Spirituality was everywhere, regardless of whether it made sense.

Women were mad at men, men were mad at themselves.  Men were mad at other men, and secretly mad at women.  The original conflict was the conflict between the sexes.  It was not healing on its own.  Sex was still backwards.  Men still suspected women were trying to replace them with genetic upgrades of themselves, and felt threatened.  Every time a woman urged a man to cum he subconsciously felt her stealing his life force, condemning him to obsolescence as she brewed up his improvement.  So he came, and resentfully tried to escape with his life, creating a world of unhealthy relationship.  Tantric sex was considered dirty, weird, and taboo.

Government was obsolete.  The tech was available for everyone to vote a few hours a day on everything that mattered, while robots did all the 'work' necessary for civilization to function.  Of course, the deep state was preventing it from happening, and nobody talked about it.  The obvious revolution was not being talked about.  People were actually free to be creative and loving, which would ruin everything the power structure was based on.  

Bastante was super depressed.  He tried not to be.  He worked hard to stay positive.  There was an enormous amount to be grateful for.  He knew the new paradigm was inevitable.  He just didn't know if he would live to see it, or if he would be too old and ruined to care when it arrived.  He had been an optimist once.  Now he just hoped he could die fighting,  Or rather, he hoped he could die without violence, and without selling his soul.  But he didn't have much confidence in anything.  

The medical profession, the legal profession, the banking profession, the teaching profession, all had been compromised.  Hollywood had compromised artists, Wall Street had compromised everyone else.  There was nothing moral that remained.  Churches couldn't love, Governments couldn't serve, partners couldn't be kind or patient or loyal.  The world was loyal to mammon and mammon only.

God was less real.

Bastante remembered that being well adjusted to a sick society was not a sign of health.  He was not well-adjusted to this very sick society.  He was watching it destroy itself, and not wanting to be a part of it, but wanting to be a part of something.  In many ways he was healthy, healthy enough to abandon the sinking ship without a sailing one in sight to swim towards.  he just knew he had to swim.

It was tough.  America was trying to slit the throat of everyone while it still could.  America wrecked Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, tried to wreck Syria, Venezuela, Iran, all to steal their shit.  America tried to wreck Russia, China, and pretty much tried to wreck all of south America.  America was trying to wreck everyone and everything, trying to steal every last bit of wealth from everyone everywhere.  It was so gross.  Millions of innocent people being murdered.  For profit, by rich people who are already megarich.  Meanwhile poor people obeyed the laws or else. It made Bastante furious.  

All too often he felt a need to be better adjusted to this sick society, to fit in, to go with the current.  he couldn't.  he tried.  It didn't make sense to care about his career when the whole world was dying from toxic contamination and resource despoliation.  It just didn't make sense.  He couldn't fit it, and he couldn't find his way alone either.  He just waited, as Jesus said in the Bible, waiting vigilantly, for something good to happen, and the world to be saved...

no one really seemed to care, because no one could do anything about it.  The world just waited, tried to have a good time, and wondered what the fuck would happen next.  Wondered if those fuckers who did 911 would ever go to trial...