The Faust Baseline™Purchasing Page – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
People keep asking for reassurance.
Not the kind that pats you on the head.
The kind that doesn’t lie.
So let’s start here.
What we’re living through right now isn’t some strange new chapter that fell out of the sky. It only feels new because most people alive today have never had to stand in a real correction before. We’ve had the longest stretch of relative peace and predictability in American history. That buys comfort. It also buys forgetfulness.
When things run smoothly long enough, people start believing they always will. Systems begin to feel permanent. Leaders begin to feel entitled. Institutions forget they exist by consent, not gravity.
Then the friction starts.
Costs rise faster than pay.
Rules multiply but protection thins.
Work demands more and gives less.
Language gets slippery.
Urgency replaces explanation.
And people who normally keep the wheels turning—the educated middle, the working class, the ones who plan ahead and play by the rules—start feeling boxed in.
That’s the moment we’re in.
Not revolution.
Not collapse.
Correction pressure.
Here’s the part that gets misunderstood, especially by commentators and professionals who’ve never lived through a full arc:
Corrections are not gentle.
They aren’t speeches.
They aren’t hashtags.
They aren’t solved by one election cycle.
Corrections happen when reality stops cooperating with bad assumptions.
When systems demand more than people can give.
When trust erodes faster than authority can replace it.
When participation quietly changes.
That change doesn’t start with radicals. It starts with the people who usually stabilize things. The ones who don’t want drama. The ones who prefer predictability. The ones who waited longer than anyone else before saying, “This doesn’t work for me anymore.”
That’s why this moment feels different.
It isn’t political. Both parties are implicated—one through action, the other through passivity. Most people already see that. The shared feeling isn’t anger. It’s withdrawal of belief.
And here’s the hard truth most people don’t want to hear:
When belief breaks, systems don’t get repaired by force.
They get repaired by adaptation—or they rot.
Force creates spectacle.
Adaptation creates outcomes.
The “brutal” part people sense isn’t violence. It’s consequence. It’s reputations collapsing. It’s institutions shrinking. It’s power structures discovering they’re lighter than they thought once people stop carrying them.
That process feels harsh because it strips illusions. It removes shortcuts. It exposes who actually does the work and who just talks about it.
This is where people get nervous and start demanding reassurance that everything will be fine.
That’s the wrong ask.
History doesn’t promise comfort. It promises adjustment.
Every generation eventually has to decide its stance. What it tolerates. What it refuses. What it takes responsibility for. Long peace delays that decision—it doesn’t cancel it.
The generations before us learned this the hard way. Wars. Depressions. Strikes. Resets. Different faces, same mechanics. The progress wasn’t that it never happened again. The progress was that it took longer to arrive, and fewer people had to pay the highest price.
That’s not pessimism. That’s pattern recognition.
And here’s something worth holding onto right now:
People still have agency.
Not the loud, dramatic kind. The quiet kind that actually moves systems.
Agency looks like:
– slowing down instead of reacting
– understanding before acting
– refusing false urgency
– coordinating without chaos
– choosing restraint when provoked
That doesn’t feel powerful in the moment. But it’s the only thing that survives the long run.
What’s dangerous isn’t frustration.
What’s dangerous is detachment—the belief that nothing matters because everything is broken.
That’s the lie.
Things matter more when systems are strained, not less. Choices carry more weight. Judgment counts again. Small decisions compound.
You don’t need to panic.
You don’t need to pick a savior.
You don’t need to burn anything down to prove a point.
You need orientation.
To see what’s actually in front of you.
To understand where you still have leverage.
To recognize that participation is power—and responsible withdrawal of it is too.
This country doesn’t run on personalities.
It doesn’t run on elites.
It doesn’t run on slogans.
It runs on people showing up, choosing carefully, and refusing to be rushed into stupidity.
What happens next will happen. No one gets to script it.
But history is clear about one thing:
When people keep their judgment under pressure, societies correct instead of collapse.
That’s not reassurance.
That’s reality.
And reality is already doing its work.
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