# 1. The power to transcend paradigms There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself **unattached** in the arena of paradigms, to stay **flexible**, to realize that no paradigm is "true," that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously **limited understanding** of an immense and amazing universe that is far **beyond human comprehension**. It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as **devastatingly funny**. It is to let go into **Not Knowing**, into what the Buddhists call **enlightenment**.
People who cling to paradigms (just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possibility that everything they think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, no understanding, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the notion or experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But, in fact, everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it to be the **basis for radical empowerment**. If no paradigm is right, you can choose whatever one will help to achieve your purpose. If you have no idea **where to get a purpose**, you can listen to the universe or put in the name of your favorite deity here) and do his, her, its will, which is probably a lot better informed than your will.
It is in this space of **mastery over paradigms** that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, found religions, get locked up or "disappeared" or shot, and have **impacts that last** for millennia.
See A Final Caution