Suffering: The Unique Novelty of Mixture
As the Buddha famously stated, “Life is suffering;” but the Buddha also famously taught that to quell suffering, one must forgo the desires and attachments of ego. The Novel Universe Model agrees that desire – personal preference – plays the key role in suffering. Unlike the Buddha, the Novel Universe Cult neither seeks to abolish suffering, nor do we venerate a method to achieve its erasure; and we certainly don’t aim to instigate or increase it. NUM, however, acknowledges the value of suffering, that it has a deep, spiritual message, and that message cannot be found elsewhere.
Suffering is the awareness and experience of one’s inability to express preference, either for Love’s cooperation or Power’s control – a passed-over promotion, a shoulder that won’t straighten, a dog starving in a kennel. The degree of one’s suffering is in direct proportion to the priority of preference. At the low end of preference’s scale, we have our wants – ice cream flavors, time spent with special people, a body that better functions; at the high end, we have our needs – air, food, sleep, etc. Being denied a favorite dessert flavor leads to frustration – emotional suffering; being denied oxygen leads to death – existential suffering.
Reality is a co-creation of Love and Power, where we can both experience and lack Their experience. It is the nature of the Novel Universe that the experience of Love is optional, but Power is not – consumption is non-negotiable. Love is incongruent with exerting one’s Power, yet, still, Love persists as one of reality’s two fundamental elements, and for some, equally necessary for survival.
Suffering is neither a test of God, nor flaw in the system, but instead, the rarest of opportunities – a primary reason so many of us are here. Only in the Mixture does this state even exist, neither found in the Concert Hall, Marketplace, nor Spiral – one doesn’t suffer where one prefers to be. So, if there’s no suffering after death, why choose life? NUM holds that life is not imposed upon us as a way to separate the inadequate (sinner) from the entitled (saint), but instead, a voluntary opportunity for unparalleled self-discovery.
To suffer is not the only reason we exist; however, it is a most useful, unique novelty, often applied with little to no warning. While in its panicked clutches, either compassion or control will suddenly appear to be the only way to escape torment, but our selection says less about the effectiveness of our options and more about the depth of our desires. Although we might regret choices made as we suffered, it still leaves us humbled to know what we are capable of, to have gained a fuller story of our preferences’ true complexities. Through suffering, the two frameworks rise in stark relief, allowing the sharpest, personal view of Their value for each of us. In death, we’re enveloped by one framework or the other – only here might we have the rare opportunity to simultaneously tinker unencumbered with our relationship to Love and Power.
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