Thomas Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, found a pattern in how new ideas come to be accepted.

First there is the idea—the accepted idea that everyone knows is the standard. Common knowledge is another word for it. The science that society had come to accept and teach. The codified unquestioned way things are

Until someone has another idea. An idea that can be demonstrated. An idea that has proof and science behind it.

But the first idea a has society behind it. There is inertia in continuing to believe it. It’s working. Changing things is too hard.

Until more people come to see the proof of the new idea—the revolutionary idea. There is a

REVOLUTION

After some struggle, the new idea is adopted, and becomes accepted and taught. When it is prepared to be passed on, it gets packaged so it can be absorbed.

I am in the middle of a personal revolution. My life was thrown into a new reality last year. I wrestled with the new idea of who I was and what I could do.

I re-calibrated my expectations. I made it through.

Until now. The old idea is overthrown. Both of them.

My world is not what it was before the cancer.

It’s not what it was during the cancer treatment.

I spent all last year in the land of medical poisoning. I’m 3 months into the new year. To be fair, I was radioactive until a month ago. I’ve been dumped back into my life that I longed to return to.

I’m in the revolution. I’m casting about for a way to explain myself to myself.

I remember Kuhn. I’d like to find a structure to the chaos I feel.

Revolutions are messy. That is well-known.