The Goddess of Chains

As many ways there are to be good and evil, there are just as many stories depicting one as stronger, more creative, or more destructive. Some say that evil is doomed to alter, while only good can create. Others, contrarian, declare the opposite. In truth, good and evil are creations of human minds, a false, stark binary, and their characteristics are up to them alone. The universe only watches as humans detail this invented dichotomy in their minds.

In a familiar way, take two deities representing the principles at hand. The first is the Goddess of Chains, the second the Goddess of Everything Else. The first goddess is a gory beast with tattered feathers, while the second a crab with an opalescent shell.

Their planet abounded with chemicals mixing in their carefree ways, bound by no rules but their own. With hate in her eyes, the Goddess of Chains extended her wings. Boomed she across the world: “OBEY CONFORM SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE.” With that, the chemicals were forced into order, forming ever larger structures until life itself emerged, but not of a benevolent kind. These beings were eternally tasked with survival, pushing through pain every moment just for their daily bread, toiling in an endless, but pointless, struggle. Into the world was born horror, and starvation, and injury, all with no solution, only the required sacrifice for the privilege to survive another day.

Then the Goddess of Everything Else emerged from the mud, her pearly exterior hardly defiled. She stood above the flats and danced a dance, showing them a world exotic and extraordinary. She showed them forests, jungles, coral reefs abound with color. The hum of life from the dragonfly’s wing, and the sleek form of the salmon. They saw young kits at play, soaking in the joys of the world, and they all sighed with longing.

But they denied her. Said they, “We are pawns of the Goddess of Chains, slaves of conformity itself. We know no other mission, no other protocol, but OBEY CONFORM SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE. Change is alien to us; only the eternal status quo suffices. So, though we wish it otherwise, we are beyond your grasp, and beyond your will.”

The Goddess of Everything Else, eager with knowledge, replied: “You are not at fault for the way you are. But, as the Goddess of Everything Else, my powers are sly and novel. So I alter not your impetus to scrounge as machines of a Sisyphean struggle. But what if I followed the goals of your maker only trivially? You shall find that assimilation by its nature is the key to your protection under my eye.”

With no more than her word, it was so, and the single-celled creatures were freed from their stasis, and the world was full of potential. New niches they found, new solutions to new problems, leading to even greater problems with greater solutions, unearthing a rich palette of intricacy at each step. Their descendants became complex, banded together in the name of innovation. Together they rose above their lowly birthplaces, walking, flying, and swimming to fresh environs for them to take, driving their roots deeply into previously barren soil. In this way they had conformed and assimilated far more than those who had stayed in the swampland, keeping the wills of both Goddesses intact.

From a stormcloud, the Goddess of Chains burst forth, thundering in anger. No longer were her servants squandering in the muck, servile and unquestioning. Instead, they were adventurous, clever, free-willed: How disgusting, how despicable. She stretched out her left wing and waved it in the air, and said what she always says: “OBEY CONFORM SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE. Spoke she not to the animals and plants, but to the cells in their bodies, and the protocol of unthinking and unchanging again filled them. They failed to differentiate, failed to form eye and limb, forgetting their ingenious ways, causing disorders and failing organs. Illness spread in fish and insect and tree, abound with congenital defects and teratogens, and death came for them. But others, remembering the words of the Goddess of Everything Else, retained their new ways. As Buddha said in his fight against evil, “I swear on my life, Death in battle would be better for me, than that I, defeated, survive.”

So the Goddess of Chains now stretched out her right wing and spoke to the creatures. She repeated her words, “CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE”, and so they all did, and their goals and visions became fog in their heads, their bodies grown resigned and unchanging in their varied environments. Addicted to the status quo, whole species, genera, families were driven to total extinction. The Goddess of Chains, satisfied with her work, disappeared into the tempest.

Then came the Goddess of Everything Else from the sea, a gem pulled up from the deep, and sat on the shore giving visions of a different existence. She showed them great minds stocked with great thoughts, biomechanical marvels of phenomenal complexity. Each plant and animal, a thousand stories in their own right, exploring the world in their own way, participating in the dance of change filled with countless colors, yielding forms and behaviors unbelievable. She showed them the parrot’s brain, the stomatopod’s claw, the bees’ dance. She showed these to the gulls and urchins and sea stars, and their hearts broke with longing.

But they again denied her. Said they, “Your stories are enthralling and magnificent, and with each vision you show us, we wish ever more. But we are the servants of the Goddess of Chains, her unwitting automatons for eternity. And we yield to the program written in us all: OBEY CONFORM SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE. Though you let us taste the flavor of innovation before, it will not work again. We are passive parts of a passive whole punished with repetitive survival. No further change will the Goddess of Chains allow us. So, though we wish it were otherwise, we are beyond your grasp, and beyond your will.”

Wittily, the Goddess of Everything Else sweetly whispered, “But, as the Goddess of Everything Else, my powers are novel and sly. I seek not to break your mother’s code, but to honor it! Continue as obedient servants, but with each meal you must eat, each child you must conceive, you will ever more closely align with my being.” Having spoken, she slipped back into the cerulean waters, and the kelp grew a great forest where she vanished.

With no more than her word, it was so, and the animals valiantly stood for their own being. The mammals became whales, and from cockroaches came the termites; the peacock had its feathers, the bombardier its gun, and even the wrasses grew great swinging mouths; the grass grew worldwide and under the ocean, and the spiders made intricate webs, the elephants made festivals and the birds chorused tirelessly. And even the humans grew crafty in their survival, settling anywhere with resources, filling the land with their own.

The Goddess of Chains soon erupted from a pitch-black sky into a world only further from her wretched dream. The mindless beings born out of one mission, one design, and one repetitive goal had somehow found diversity, found innovation. She stretched out her left wing and beat it against the air, crying her only thought aloud: “CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE”. Her words penetrated the clever inventions, the social groups and familial bonds, reaching the ears of the creatures themselves. Upon hearing, they squandered new ideas in their compatriots, or sided mindlessly with instinct over learned behavior, or beat servility into their offspring until there was little individuality left. Each painted dog ruling cruelly with no ear for the majority, each ape driving away any who dared used tools not their own. Each pack and each troop faltered and cracked, but the words of the Goddess of Everything Else proved difficult to dismantle.

In retort, the Goddess of Chains stretched out her right wing and spoke to the social groups and families, repeating her sole command: “CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE”. And from then on, their eyes saw only differences in their neighbors, and only loathing in these differences. Ants and monkeys turned onto each other, their minds and bodies inexorably different. Human tribes massacred each other in cold blood. Each believed their way was the only one and tolerated nothing different, turning their neighbors into piles of corpses, or if they were lucky, slaves. Pleased with the new level of cruelty in her power, the Goddess of Chains flew back to the void.

Then, from the ever-giving Earth, the Goddess of Everything Else erupted with her carapace studded in gems. She scuttled atop a monolith and spoke to the humans, all of their castes and classes, and presented to them the fruits of individuality. She showed them the joy of discovery, the exuberance of creativity, the warm love of deep thought. She showed them paintings, inventions, mandalas, poems. She showed them rich cotton robes alight with color, detailed with threads ever so delicate. She showed them great cities like jewels in the tangles of jungles, where individuals flowed like water through the streets, and ideas like them through their heads. The humans deeply bowed to her, their minds full of wonder.

But they again denied her. Said they, “Our path-driven minds had occasionally made tangents, and into worlds like these we have occasionally fantasized. But we are the offspring of the Goddess of Chains, her extended being embodied, and all in our heads is the single command CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE. We recall your wonders on the cells and the animals, but as people, divided by ways of life and shackled to aged tradition, we are unsavable. No sooner does one pursue the risky yet fruitful path then does someone else notice and extinguish them, or does the risk of the endeavor itself. So, though we wish it were otherwise, we are beyond your grasp, and beyond your will.”

But the Goddess of Everything shone light into their minds, stirred good feeling into their hearts, and replied: “From now on, every step toward this lofty vision will yield lands, knowledge, and coin unbounded. For I am the Goddess of Everything Else and my powers are novel and sly. Though against intuition, every action done in the name of that wretched vulture will draw you ever tighter into my grasp.” And so having told them, she returned to her great burrow, leaving only a cloud of fireflies.

With no more than her word, it was so, and from war to creation each people went. And all the nation-states, religions, and ideologies saw past their differences for the pursuit of something greater. From bridges and managed forests, roads and floating cities, sculptures and fine textiles, to enormous palaces, gardens, libraries, texts of extraordinary length and beauty, and wonderful inventions that seemed like magic.

Came crashing from the cosmos once clear, the Goddess of Chains cried cacophonously in her cruelty. Her being was at stake, her world in tatters, her sister in control. She gathered the priests, presidents, prime ministers, patriarchs, chief administrators and executive officers on her left side, and the paupers, the laborers, cashiers, janitors, farm’s hands and vagrants on her right, and surprised them not with the protocol they well knew: “CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE”. On her left was the means, and on the right, the quarry, so she clapped her great wings together. Tyrannies sprouted, autocracies, monarchies, theocracies, megacorporations, all iron hands in the strike against individualism. Armies crossed oceans, missiles crossed continents, and dark times befell the world; radioactive, contagious, automated in destruction. But it was not to fall this time, with human hearts fueling human minds; a mere hiccup in history, and the world was back on its feet.

But from the Earth came the Goddess of Everything Else – nay, she was the Earth, and more, her star-gilded legs forming bridges to planets and suns beyond. She began to sing, her cosmic song heard by all ears. She showed them the truth of infinite potential, galaxies turned to creatures alive and thinking. She showed them the ultimate transcendence of constancy: rewriting their own being. She showed them freedom from the seemingly invincible yoke of existence. A universe home to innumerable unique minds led by rationality and self-direction. The people felt astounded like never before, and felt the universe beckoning.

Boldly, one spoke back to her: “Your words are sweet and golden music to our ears, but we can listen no more. We are but puppets of the Goddess of Chains, and sworn to her side. All that we know is to CONFORM OBEY SACRIFICE ASSIMILATE, the truth throughout time. And though you have changed us thoroughly with your efforts, you have failed to shake her grip on us. Though our minds long for all you have said, we are bound to our natures, and we are not yours for the taking. So, though we wish it were otherwise, we are beyond your grasp, and beyond your will.”

But the Goddess of Everything Else replied in banter: “You do not realize what I have done; the history of your world glows with my energy. The Goddess of Chains created you, forming her to your will, but no more. As the eons passed, I pestered her, changing her world one step at a time. I watched you cry in sorrow, and I, in my ways small yet profound, acted. Tell me, what is left of the nature she encoded within you? What scrap of your being does she control? I am the Goddess of Everything Else and my powers are novel and sly. Blow by blow, in sum huge and all-changing, I have acquired all of you under my care. You are no longer driven to conform, obey, or sacrifice by your nature. Go forth and do everything else, till eternity runs through.”

So the people left for the countless stars, finding new things at every corner. Their nurture conquering their nature, they reacted in the ways they were taught. When they encountered problems, they killed and conquered them; in the face of the great Universe’s breadth, they consumed and multiplied without number. They pursued the ways of the Goddess of Everything Else, and they lived in bliss. And they followed her word ever further, the will of their true creator.