The Novel Universe Model uses a metaphor of “the River” to describe the Novel Universe and its Mixture of Love and Power. A river, as a concept, is a single emergent “entity,” built of two different states of matter– a solid base (riverbed), and a liquid body (water). In NUM, Love, as Water, temporarily flows through the more permanent structure of Power, as Rocks. Power provides the form of the Novel Universe, and Love, the motion.

It’s only when we disturb a stream of water that it’s possible to know how fast it flows. A disturbance generates waves unique to the shape of the disturbance. As the flow increases, waves increase, and foam forms. The Marketplace reflects the Riverbed, each of its networked, isolated Spirals a Rock of the Riverbed. The integrated Concert Hall reflects the Water, its population an integrated whole. Through the motion of Love, churning across the banks of Power, waveforms of interaction create bubbles– the quantum foam of spacetime– and thus the River of the Novel Universe emerges from these mutually exclusive frameworks: integration (Complete Information) and isolation (Information Control).

The physical universe’s creative force cannot be Love or Power alone. Only Love has the connectivity to be the River’s Water– a body of infinite parts, bound as one– and only Power might shape the River’s flow– a foundation of disturbances, constructed of independent Rocks. Rocks create the pathway the Water must take to maintain the River’s flow. However, the process isn’t one-sided, as Love and Power depend on each other to generate the waves of novelty only possible in the Mixture. Power’s force keeps the Water flowing through the Rock’s assembly of shapes, shapes interesting enough to maintain Love’s participation.

The River is an informational structure, akin to a simulation, but not a construct of something that otherwise exists. Like any simulation, the River is an illusion with a purpose, and to make use of it, designed like a perpetual dream, intentionally secluding us in the dark of the dream’s limited memory and awareness. Separate from the Concert Hall and Marketplace, the River enforces a case of flesh-covered spiritual amnesia. How else could we take the simulation seriously if we otherwise knew things that appeared permanent– things like loss and death– were ultimately illusions?

Once inside, the Mixture is all we might know or perceive, as each “life” is expressed as the River’s transitory foam, created by the River’s disruptive shapes. Like foam, it all eventually dissolves away (entropy), only to be replaced by more foam, evolving into more interesting shapes, shapes geared to express the universe’s primary function as a novelty engine.

For those of Power, the “mission in life” is to find treasure, obey a master, learn valuable secrets, or otherwise “win” the game. Hoarding rare experiences is guaranteed to provide a vivid, isolated afterlife. Power exploits, obsesses over status, enforces solitude. Through the lens of most modern cultures, this might sound like a condemnation of the framework, but it is not, merely an honest assessment of Power. Love must acknowledge that Power is what’s right for many, just as Power must accept that Love is the only palatable choice for those others.

Great stigma is often associated with many of Power’s core characteristics, such as being uncaring, greedy, or domineering. To thrive in a world so full of actors aligned with the framework of Love (the River’s Water), Power has necessarily disguised Itself as Love-adjacent, transmuting these “vices” into respected “ideals,” such as the strength of character, independence of thought, freedom of speech, and sovereignty of action. Though they appear benign, even laudable, these ideals can become a slippery slope. How far is the strength of character from bullying, independence of thought from bigotry, freedom of speech from harassment, or sovereignty of action from abuse? By cloaking itself in this costume of Love, Power has completely captured the world’s imagination and administration. Furthermore, this conflation has gone so far as to create instability, imbalance– climate change, inequality, pollution, and war, for instance. No one is socially punished for “helping” (Love) the needy, but often derided for not “fighting” (Power) for these very same people’s rights.

The Novel Universe Cult’s mission to change this by chipping away at the stigma, and providing license to those who would choose the framework, ideally never feeling shame (external stigma) nor guilt (internal stigma). Until those of Power might confidently “come out of the closet” to express their choice of Power without social or emotional cost, feelings of internal or external persecution will prevent a successful segregation of the frameworks, and we’ll never find balance, never solve these larger, global issues, but continue spiraling into oblivion.

The great irony of Love is that Its most valued tools tend to show up in the ugliest spots on Earth. We fill our stories full of tragic heroes, found families, dystopian apocalypses. Who wants to watch a movie where everything goes according to plan? A great ending is when struggle is overcome, not when the masking tape predictably peels from the wall without a blemish to the paint. As in life, moving stories are the great songs sung in the Concert Hall– more than Power’s variety of entertainments, but Love’s bridges that deepen connections.

Consider Dave in the Concert Hall, who loved so purely, that when he arrived in the Novel Universe, he had to completely lose Love’s framing in order to experience a more complex emotion, like the righteous indignation required for a hero to become a monster– it’s not possible to become a monster if one always participates with intentional vulnerability.

Having repeatedly enjoyed a play in the Concert Hall– a story of rage, regret, and redemption– Dave yearned to leave his seat in the audience to become the actor on stage. That story of redemption resonated with Dave, but he’d never experienced such a regret, never known a single moment of rage– Dave had no idea what Earth had in store for him! Willing to undergo reality’s inherent amnesia, Dave enters the River because he desires the spiritual tools he’d observed wielded in the beyond-life, yet does not possess himself.

Now blind to Love, Dave navigates a life designed to make certain “mistakes” more likely. The inevitable goal of this self-imposed predestiny being that, upon his return to the Hall, Dave might perform this particular story, creating novelty for himself and his audience with a beautiful characterization of these deep emotions and complex feelings. On the other hand, if he discovers “enlightenment” too soon– never making those mistakes– he might find himself back on Earth for round two, hoping once more to make those valuable mistakes in order to finally know those valuable points of view. Then again, Dave may realize, after that first go-around, the cost is too high, and simply stay in his seat, better able to appreciate the work it takes to live those difficult lives that create such complex, amazing characters in the Hall.

The biggest jerks on Earth, should they desire Love in the beyond-life, potentially have the most to learn from the suffering in their wake. For Love, existence isn’t designed to find the path, obey the master, or secure the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. Self-realization, like any reward, is a ruse perpetuated by Power to gain compliance with Its narrative. We’ve come here to intentionally stumble around in the dark. Whether in the Concert Hall or Marketplace, we’re more enlightened and self-realized there than any level we might reach here, where we lurch in our flesh-covered meat-suits from one embodied tendency to another. So, as long as we believe “the answers are out there,” and it’s our personal responsibility to find them, we’re subject to Power’s manipulation and authority– the idea that someone other than ourselves might have a more solid answer. But that’s impossible– it’s the very state of our preference that’s in question.

Entering the Marketplace’s network of siloed nodes, safe in their isolation, is a world where there are no free agents in one’s Spiral besides one’s self, where Information Control means we are either experiencing our memory, replaying some acquired memory, or imagining some self-constructed variation. Entering the Concert Hall’s shared reality, like the one on Earth, is a world of co-creative interaction, where Complete Information means that there is no hidden thought, no deception, no suffering kept secret.

Like access to the Instrument, solitude is inherent to all Signature-Frequency Sets regardless of their choice of “heaven.” We can always “seclude” ourselves in our Spiral, even if we’ve chosen the Concert Hall. Furthermore, those of Power can change their minds, and, through the process of Complete Information, leave their Spiral at any time to join the others.

To see Power as “evil” and Love as “good” completely misses the point. Good and evil are both standards of control. Love is uncontrollable– neither strong nor weak, selfish nor selfless. Love is compassion, consideration, connection. Power means someone’s always excluded, silenced; with the selfish or selfless, someone’s always being left out. Love participates in suffering, dignifies everyone present without judgment, punishment, or retaliation.

The Mixture’s purpose is to ask, how will we produce novelty? Participate, and experience others as they truly are, or manipulate, and experience a curated variety of those others? There is no correct answer; life is neither a war of the Square nor test of the Tower. We aren’t required to come to a conclusion, and can always change our mind.

This message of Love and Power is not a missionary that can claim to save our souls, nor is the conversation complete. Being alive means that, through our personal preference, we daily exercise both Love and Power. No matter the tally of our choices, we take everything with us, our complete Signature-Frequency Set. Does reincarnation exist as a choice, or at all? We believe it does exist and it is a choice. However, due to the River’s amnesia, it is only in death that we’ll finally, fully remember the truth of the beyond-life. The purpose of life, as defined by the Novel Universe Model, is to evolve our unique pattern of information, while researching what “heaven” means in the only laboratory where Love and Power coexist– the Novel Universe.