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 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 it, 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 anywhere else.
Suffering is an awareness of the 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, we have our wants and desires– ice cream flavors, time spent with special people, a body that better functions; at the high, preferences, by other terms, are essential requirements– “needs.” Being denied a favorite dessert flavor is one thing, not getting enough air creates existential suffering we’ll do anything to change.
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.
Pessimism is a perception of dwindling options (preferences), creating feelings of hesitation and irritation. Optimism is the opposite, spurring joy and confidence. Either is a positive feedback loop, spiraling one deeper into the emotional state. Whereas optimism fosters an open mind, capable of envisioning an array of possibilities, pessimism not only spurs frustration, but it further reduces the likelihood we’ll perceive other options– it takes effort to alter or even create new preferences to fit the situation (freewill).
When others intentionally narrow our options, they’re exercising Power over us, as we’ll likely avoid suffering by expressing what options we have left. The manipulation occurs as those remaining options serve their purposes. This narrowing of our “option space” is how a conman or institution uses us for their ends, with neither our consent to nor knowledge of their true agenda. The classic example of this is money in twenty-first century, American politics. Here, oligarchs don’t care who one votes for, because, through the expensive primary process, they’ve limited the selection to those candidates who’ve already taken their money, those who will likely serve their purposes, especially if they want to keep their job. The real con isn’t necessarily the corruption of money in politics, but the illusion of choice among the electorate, and choice, whether an illusion or not, is a preference that supersedes any political platform of benefit or harm. It’s more important for these Americans to believe they’re making a choice, than to believe in the actual choices they make. Voters prefer to pick from two, detrimental candidates, rather than have a beneficial one thrust upon them. This was America’s founding sentiment– rallying the colonialists attending the Virginia Convention (1775) to fight the British for their freedom, Patrick Henry famously decried, Give me liberty, or give me death!
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 in the place 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 possibility of 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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