Greg Goble: The Collected Works

An Argument Between Human Gods

Before the inevitable, yet highly unlikely end to the human gods there were many arguments brought about mainly by the nearly perpetual misery that was healed once every 13 days or so. Within the confines of these arguments there is one that tended to super cede all the rest and was in fact a very probable reason for the improbable way in which the end finally came about. Understanding these heated discussions requires the understanding of the three natural feelings that have existed since time itself finally decided to get itself in gear and begin rolling. These emotions were in fact the true cause of everything that happened ever in history but certain events that are far more important and that are more directly connected to them are the ones that will be focused on at this point. These three feelings erupted from the beginning of time due to the only phenomenon older than time itself; randomness. Randomness is the only thing that was allowed to exist before time because of its unique ability to generate things that on general principal probably should not have come about at all. Among these things is of course time; it is the first in a long line of incredibly bad ideas brought about by the existence of the random phenomenon. Examples of other bad ideas throughout history created this way are cancer (which was originally to be a new flavor of jello, but a random insertion of something indefinably cruddy ruined it), young heart throb bands (originally slated to be the mating rituals of slugs), hurricanes (which began as air trapped for too long in a battle with a message that was finally released after washing on shore and was so aggravated that it burst out to sea and just happen to find other bits of wind by random that for some reason or other had also become aggravated), fungi (which was originally an animal but it moved so slow that it died before it could reach a mate and through a weird coincidence its fur kept growing), and time (the most random of worst ideas in space or even in time). Nevertheless time did in fact become the first thing (after randomness) to exist in the known Universe, it actually began before the known Universe and perhaps even before the unknown Universe but no one can actually say since the unknown Universe has never been discovered. As time was created, and just before the known Universe, the three feelings previously mentioned (though not specifically named) snuck in behind it, those three feelings are the only other things to exist before the known Universe and will be the last things to exist just before the end of time. Ironically enough these feelings are constantly avoided and people, when having any one of them, generally deny their existence. The nature of these feelings is completely twisted, this was a required feature as several other emotions were in line after time also but the unstable and crooked manner of these allowed them to snake their way to the front and sneak out before the Universe (the known one that is). It is, perhaps, important to note at this point that there is a particular nature to the movement of time and anything that came into existence before the known Universe (from here on in the known Universe will simply be referred to as the Universe because there is no information on the unknown Universe which will no longer be referred to). Time and anything else that may have existed before the Universe travels in one continuous line segment which has a definite starting point and continues in one direction without end (that is known). However the uniqueness of the three particular feelings that managed to exist before the Universe causes a bit of a conundrum as relates to this rule. According to the rule they must fellow, they must travel in one direction infinitely, but they are crooked to begin with and very volatile and therefore could not possibly be expected to comply with the laws of the “before Universe” 100%. If one was to look down the infinitely long line of time, one would see a perfectly straight, continuous, and infinitely thin line, but if this same one were to look down the infinite lines of the three emotions, that one would see an infinite amount of knots and almost-curves along lines that are infinitely thin at certain points and infinitely thick at other points and every other size an infinite amount of times each for an infinite amount of distance. It is, incredibly, important to note at this point, of the two separate infinities that exist. There is the infinity which originated with time the “before infinity” (which we cannot say actually exists because no one has actually seen infinity in its entirety), and infinity which began with the Universe “after infinity” (see a few lines ago as to why it doesn’t actually exist either). The difference between before and after infinity can simply be described this way; before infinity travels in a straight line (which we cannot say exists due to the fact that straight lines have never been proven to exist) forever (at least as far as we know) and after infinity travels in a perfect circle (which we cannot say actually exists due to the fact that neither circles nor perfection have ever been proven to exist) constantly reentering and re-separating from itself forever (at least as far as we know). This problem of infinity not existing even though we know it is there is why things seem to not truly exist without proof (coincidentally this is the reason that one must show one’s birth certificate in order to prove they were born); especially in the case of before infinity. In after infinity at least we are able to see the infinite points at which the certain thing ends and begins again. With before infinity we can see that it began but there is no proof that it ends even an infinite distance down the line. The three original feelings are not as infinitely hard to grasp as time due to their infinite knotting and almost-curves and with adjustments which allows people to grasp them as concepts on a not quite infinitely small scale, so the three feelings can be felt but as soon as they are they instantly insist on, not only not being felt, but not seemingly, existing at all. The idea of zero is a perfect (or as near as we have ever gotten to perfect) representation of both before and after infinity. Zero is a number as infinitely close to the beginning as one can get and is therefore as infinitely close to the beginning of a before infinity as one can possibly get before beginning in the direction that it will infinitely continue in. The physical representation of zero is an infinite circle or and after infinity (or as close as we have ever come to representing such an infinitely inconceivable idea). So in the ultimate oxymoron zero, which is as close to a beginning as one could possibly conceive, is a perfect (or infinitely close to perfect) representation of any form of infinity, which is as far from the beginning as one could possibly conceive. The three emotions (still not specifically named) began just after zero but were so stubborn and crooked they decided to make their own zeros which allowed them to be the only things ever to not be ruled by time or space. It is, perhaps, unimportant, though worth while, to mention that everything else is in fact ruled by time and space due to the fact that all other things are not nearly as stubborn as these three emotions and are content to run along the infinite line of time and the infinite circle of the Universe. The interesting notion as pertains to the complexity of time is one worth exploring a little more at this point. The complexity of time begins with its simplicity; it is merely an infinitely thin, infinitely long line traveling in one direction infinitely. The complexity of this concept is what causes the need for watches, calendars, and so on. Without these time would be so inconceivable that every individual thing in existence would have its own separate, and constantly changing view of time; this is of course with exception to the three original feelings. They exist outside these rules because of their own zeros, and the knots and almost-curves, and width discrepancies which allow (as discussed before) for a fleeting grasp of them. Interestingly enough, the almost grasp that people with these feelings have is different than the seemingly complete understanding that people close to these people think that they have because they experience a vague memory of these feelings and then think they have a total grasp of those feelings in a different person though they will then deny that those feelings exist in themselves anymore. The paradox brought about by this is indeed interesting but not worth elaborating on further because it is hard enough to grasp a moment of these feelings without trying to grasp their entire concept, so a small piece will have to do.
It should be noted at this time that the sixth thing to ever exist (after the phenomenon known as random, time, the three original feelings, and the Universe) were in fact the human gods. This is the reason for their omnipotence up until one of them decided to cause their own mortality. That is; the human gods were created before everything but these five things and so these five things were the only things they did not have complete and supreme power over, even though they did seem to have some power over time and the Universe. This is partially because all beings have some power over time due to its infinitely unintelligible qualities which makes it infinitely impossible to understand and equally infinitely possible to control. Their power over the Universe was only an illusion brought about by their ability to control everything within that Universe. They did not, however, have any control over the random phenomenon or the three original feelings (still not named) and conversely these things did in fact have all the control they want over all things including the Universe. The only thing that was not controlled by the three feelings (except randomness) is time itself, which is controlled by the random phenomenon.[1]
The time to reveal the three original feelings and to discuss them in some minor detail has finally arrived. Due to randomness a freak coincidence occurred which allowed the three feelings to come into existence at precisely the same moment, therefore it is impossible to say that any one takes precedence over the others. However, due to the constraints of time, they must put in some order, as it is not expected that randomness will pop up and do us a favor (it rarely ever does). The problem of what should go first when all things are equal has been a plague throughout history i.e.. Costello or Abott, Cher or Sonny, dessert or dinner, and other such complexities, but an order will eventually be arrived at in some capacity. Love, jealousy, and greed; the three original feelings rule all things existing after them. The possibility of examining these three emotions is only made possible by the jagged, nonconforming nature with which they constantly continue their existence.
Love; pronunciation (luv); part of speech - one of the three original feelings; definition - the inexplicable need and want to unite in any and/or all ways with a particular object.
Jealousy; pronunciation (jelusee); part of speech - one of the three original feelings; definition - The inexplicable need and want to retain a particular object to ones self at any and/or all costs including losing that object.
Greed; pronunciation (greed); part of speech - one of the three original feelings; definition - The inexplicable need and want for power in any and/or all forms.
Each of these three feelings are equally complex to discuss considering that they are all nearly impossible to obtain a sustained notion of, yet the possibility of discussion is there and in fact comes up quite often in nearly all conversations, so it is, perhaps, worth taking a fresh look at. But maybe it isn’t worth it since there was considerable discussion before this, but some elaboration is in fact needed to understand the discussion that began the disintegration of the human gods.
In discussing these feelings the importance lies in understanding that one cannot understand these feelings or even begin to grasp them through that one attempting to reflect on that ones own sense of such feelings. In fact so few discussions have ever come out of such thinking that they are usually called historical and literary events of great importance. The reason for such praise is simply because not only are these discussions rare but in nearly ever known case such a discussion has been held on paper because two almost never discuss such things. The practice of psychiatry and psychology rest in this principal. Instead the discussions consist of people feeling these emotions and others observing this and the later coming up to the earlier and telling the earlier that they are experiencing such feelings and how they should react to said feelings because the later remembers having these feelings themselves and the earlier should listen to them (the later). It is, extremely, easier to give an example at this point.
John Doe is throwing a party at his apartment in celebration of his twenty first birthday. He has invited all his friends and has been sure to state that they main course at said party will be alcohol.[2] The promise of alcohol for all ensures for a large turnout and the promise of many intoxicated people ensures that many “three original feeling” discussions will occur. Among the many guests, walks in Mary Joe. Mary Joe is a younger lady who doesn’t get to drink often because of her age, and when afforded the opportunity, drinks a lot. Among the guests is also Larry Soe who is already twenty-one and does not indulge so much in drinking. The party goes well for many hours, all the guests are happy. After these many hours Mary has drunk quite a bit and is far beyond tipsy. She finds herself sitting alone and staring in John’s direction. After a short while of this Larry, Mary’s friend observes that she is not to be found within the given confines of the party and begins a wider search of the apartment. She is not far from the party, still looking toward John. Larry sits next to her and asks that most fatal and most predictable of all questions. He asks Mary “What’s wrong?” In that cheery I don’t really want to know but I have to ask because you are my friend way. Larry is still having a pretty good time at the party, but he does not want to see his friend left out of it, simply because she is moping. Mary tells Larry, “Nothing.”
Larry, who is quite eager to get back says, “All right.” And as a politeness. “If you need to talk I am here.” This is how Larry would prefer to leave the conversation so that perhaps later when the party begins to slow down some he can come back to her and comfort her much easier and better. In the back of Larry’s mind, refusing to let go, is the added idea that perhaps Mary’s combination of alcohol intake and need for a companion might possibly lead to a romantic evening.
Unfortunately Mary’s mind is also on a romantic venture, but one extremely inconsistent with Larry’s. In her drunken state Mary has gotten a small hold of one of the three original feelings.
It is, perhaps, worth venturing into the idea of how simple or complex each of the feelings are. For example the idea of greed is extremely simple because it encompasses one thing; power, and it is not required that anything else be dealt with so that every equation is mostly the same. Jealousy is not as simple because it deals with human interaction (something not nearly as needed in greed) which adds a variable that is nearly as incomprehensible as the three feelings. To obtain some rudimentary yet very ineffable idea of this variable, one would need to obtain the original number of human gods, then obtain the number of humans born between the period when the human gods became human and the last of the original human gods died. Once that one accomplished such an insanely difficult task then that one would still have to find the count of all humans born after the last original human gods died, which would need to be accurate at the precise moment of calculation. Since none of these numbers have ever been accurately obtained one would have extreme difficulty agreeing with several other ones on the proper formula for putting all these numbers together in such a way that any one would be able to compute a precise answer. In love the process is similar but the addition of the number of hearts that have skipped beats and taken over minds would need to be added (even though we know the heart does not actually have anything to do with love, the lore has become so powerful that it has superseded the fact). The interesting conundrum is that the mind of a friend can seemingly do these calculations in record time, though usually ones friend actually gets the calculation very wrong and exports extremely incorrect data. All these things will happen several times at a party similar to the one taking place.
Larry now begins to walk away from Mary and heads back to where the main party is still taking place. Mary looks up as he begins to walk away and feels compelled to release her thoughts rather than feel abandoned. So the sudden impulse to speak finally supersedes all other things and Mary blurts out “Wait.” Of course Larry set himself up for this inevitable conclusion to the initial conversation. There are two major reasons for this. The first is that a person’s major impulse is to communicate. In nearly ninety eight percent of all cases this impulse causes more problematic situations than it does anything else, and in almost all of the rest of the two percent there are too many of the problematic conversations going on to be able to distinguish any of the intelligible ones. The second is the idea of friendship. This idea between two people of the opposite sex can only go so far.[3] Mary’s first and correct impulse is to perform the calculation herself. This is the most appropriate course of action; because even though Mary is attempting the most complicated of all equations she has a greater possibility of solving it if she focuses on the problem instead of receiving the too enthusiastic help of a friend. It is, more than likely, important to reiterate that friends who perform these calculations will always be wrong. This is where the phrase “you don’t know how I feel.” Is born and this phrase is always true. Due to the intensely uncooperative nature of any of the feelings no other one understands how one feels at the moment that they have a slight grasp of one of the feelings. Despite popular opinion this is not because each experience is unique, in fact just the opposite is true. As soon as a grasp, no matter how slight, is obtained the process of attempting the calculation to obtain a set hold on the feeling is always the same. The true reason for one not knowing how another one feels is because even if one has experienced a slight grasp of the same feeling the nature of the three original feelings never allows the memory of the experience, no matter how intense, to be correct. That is why one will never know how another one feels. It is, utterly, unimportant but fairly interesting to note that this rule only holds true 100% for the three original feelings and all other emotions or feelings are different.
Of course now Larry is stuck, he is obligated to sit down and abandon the party in favor of a friend who has decided that they need to sit down and talk out their problem. He makes a deliberately slow turn back toward Mary, hoping against hope that she will understand how truly against his will all of this is. Mary, by now however, has given up performing a solo calculation and has resided herself to allowing a friend to help in the complex, infinitely impossible calculation which before she may have been able to complete. Her mind has already began to move on to other small details of how certain things will be accomplished once the problematic calculation is out of the way (which in her mind it has, of course, already been accomplished). Larry, still hoping for the impossible is slowly making his way back to where Mary is sitting. When he finally arrives, he sits next to her, obviously irritated and with a huff lets his entire body relax and says “So what’s wrong?”
In the next one tenth of a second Mary’s mind makes one more attempt to convince the rest of her that she needs to think this out herself; in this short moment her eyes glaze over from something more than drunkenness and her mind screams for her to stop and not involve a second party. But the rest of her will not respond and the message is forgotten and in its place there is only a sigh as Mary prepares to relate the symptoms to Larry.
Mary tells Larry “I don’t know I just... sometimes I look over at John and I just want him so bad.”
Larry really does not know what to say at this point, so he wisely says nothing, but he believes he knows where this is going.
Mary continues, “He’s just so cute and funny and everything but I am scared to go up to him and tell him.”
Larry tries a very forward approach to begin with believing that just maybe he can end the conversation easily. “Do you just want to have a one-night stand with him?” In the back of Larry’s mind he already knows that it is more that that and he too begins to have the inklings of an original feeling; his feeling is jealousy.
The text of the conversation is fairly unimportant for several minutes and at times several hours. This point in the conversation is where Larry and Mary discuss Mary’s feeling of love for John. Larry gives an example of a time he remembers “how it feels.”. At some point however Mary says something to Larry that gives him one fairly firm grasp of Jealousy. This fairly firm grasp causes anger to swell inside of Larry and the conversation becomes somewhat more heated. Larry’s comments become more sarcastic and eventually the sarcasm is replaced with outright anger. And finally Larry can contain himself no longer and yells “Yeah! Well maybe I wanted to ask you out.” Now instead of the conversation being one calculation it becomes two with friends performing each of them and this of course leads to direct arguing. This arguing brings John, who does not want his party to end badly. As John begins hearing what is going on, a slight grasp of greed is obtained. John wants the power of owning Mary’s heart. Larry’s jealousy is turned on John. All these arguments climax in a huge fight of words and the final result is that all friendship between the three is broken. This result is a natural instinct, which responds to the incorrect calculation of these problems by friends and the unconscious realization that they would have been solved correctly alone by breaking ties with those who performed the incorrect calculations. It is nothing more than a simple seek and destroy response.
It is, ineffably, important to note at this point of the similarities and dissimilarities between the events described above and some of the specific events leading up to the end of the reign of the human gods. Seemingly, the calculations of love and jealousy should have been far easier during the reign of the human gods due to the shortage of so many variables, however randomness (which rarely ever does anyone any favors) decided to rear its ugly head at this point and made even the all powerful all knowing human gods incapable of performing the calculations properly.[4] Of course, the rebelling nature of the three feelings themselves did not help either. The common reaction between both is the desire to turn to another for help. One major difference lies in the idea of greed and what power was to the human gods and what it is to humans. What one must remember is that each individual human god was all-powerful and so money and political power were never an issue. One must then ask ones self, how could greed have existed without these basic elements to be greedy for. What this one must then realize is that there is always something more that some other one does not have that, given the knowledge of that something more, that other one will be greedy for that something more. In the case of the human gods the something more was the most basic want of all; the want to be happy. This is, as mentioned previously, where all the problems started. The entire argument that caused the downfall of the human gods revolved around the moon and took place underneath it.
It is difficult; on the whole, to say what phase the moon was in that night, though it is safe to say that for at least a few it was in the “happy phase”. Two human gods, friends, stood underneath the moonlit sky. One was happy this night, one was unhappy. In this situation jealousy is an obvious assumption, while greed will shortly enter into it. “Happy” is somewhat upset because he wishes to be happier that he is, he speaks with unhappy about the situation. Unhappy tries to tell happy that he understands how happy feels. In the conversation at some unknown point unhappy tells happy that he should feel lucky that the moon is in his “happy” phase tonight. Happy retorts by saying so many unpleasant things have happened to him by others that it hardly seems worth it. Unhappy replies by telling happy, somewhat more that a bit cynically, that he is just greedy and can never be happy enough, no matter how many times happy’s phase of the moon comes. Angered by this happy tells unhappy that he is jealous because of how many days away his “happy” phase is right now. The argument heats up and by its end many more curses have been put on each. In the end they begin to calm, for in a short while neither will be happy. Unhappy says, “You know, maybe it would be better if none of us had these powers of magic.” As this argument concluded and the sun began to rise to two opposite sexes were beginning their battle for control.
And so it was that a self reflecting human god who had been happy the night before stood and said, “Yeah, and from now on no one will be able to live forever or have any magic power.” The greed for the happiness and power of those days keeps the human race struggling forward, forever attempting to recreate those magical powers lost so long ago.
[1] The question arises; why is time so infinitely perfect and infinitely straight and so on if it is controlled by something infinitely random? The answer is simply that the most infinitely random thing that could have happened to time after its existence was to be so infinitely perfect and infallible.

[2] This in no way means that people only over the legal drinking age will arrive. Usually the majority of people at these parties are John’s barely underage buddies.

[3] Please take not; no matter how platonic one may think their relationship is, sex in some form will always get in the way. This is not necessarily always directly; many times a true relationship can interfere just as easily. The simple fact is that sex always gets in the way and the closer the friendship becomes the more likely that this will happen sooner than later.

[4] For all talk of infinity to this point, infinity itself has not been defined. The most important reason for this is simply that there has never been an agreed upon definition for infinity. Some do theorize that infinity is nothing more that randomness itself. This theory would then suggest that infinity is reached all the time and that whenever anything reaches infinity it is randomly changed. This explains the seeming unreachability of infinity.