This article is riffing on some ideas in found in this 2011 article that is very much worth the read.
There are 8 billion or so people going about their business. Suppose 1 hour of consumable content is produced per 1000 people per day (whether it be books, shows, poetry, video, etc.). Then, suppose that 0.1% of that is truly good content (whatever “good” means to you).
Under these assumptions, 8000 hours of good content is produced per day, and there’s 8 million hours of content that you need to sift through in order to find that good content.
With far less than 24 hours per day to spend on content consumption, that’s a lot of stuff that is simply impossible for you to consume.
We can tweak the numbers and assumptions and things don’t improve much. We can reduce 8 billion to 400 million if we’re only interested in English works by native English speakers (I doubt this is particularly accurate of anyone). That’s still 400 hours of good content per day.
0.1% might be generous when it comes to how much is good. But there’s still 4 hours per day for 0.001%, or 1 in 10,000 hours of content being good. And no matter how strict you make this percentage, the amount of media you have to sift through to find the good stuff doesn’t change. Reducing this percentage doesn’t reduce your chances of missing out on something good, it just means you waste far more energy trying to find the good stuff in the first place.
In any case, there’s a lot of good stuff out there. Which we won’t experience. And this doesn’t even factor how much good has already been created. Jules Verne, Dostoyevsky, Confucius–an endless list.
And that’s a good thing. I’m glad humanity is more complex, more creative, than I or any single person can comprehend. If all of humanity, all of its creations, could fit in a single mortal mind, that’d be an infinite shame.
But there’s no such infinite shame. Instead we have an infinite, human text. There is always much, much more to discover. To hear, feel, think.
The settlement resides on a knoll in a mountainous valley within the Convergent Mistlands, with standard flora and fauna for the region. It was once the heart of a pastoral community of several thousand, but was abandoned. The Convergent Mistlands, generally, is a place where people pass through: permanent residents, even nomadic ones, are exceedingly rare. 8Sanctuary is unique in that the mist is often quite light, compared to the rest of the region, and is named because it is naturally secure. This settlement was used for several hundred years, making it one of the longest-lasting settlements. Most residents were human.
The valley is inaccessible to large groups, with entry and exit difficult. Travelers happen on it by chance or, as is the case today, Miracle guides people in when they are in need. The mists are both a defense and a burden. The Mistlands do not discriminate when bringing people in, but would-be raiders and bandits are often whisked away before they understand the nature of the land. Natives use structures and caves to avoid the mists.
The heart of the settlement is a grotto spanning the area underneath. The grotto contains an underground water and still pools stemming from the aquifer. The main area of the grotto is used for religious ceremonies, while other areas are used for bathing, potable water, and so on. Areas of the grotto are designed based on building they are connected to, e.g., the ceremonial grotto is accessed from the chapel, while bathing areas are below living quarters. The crypt is intentionally designed to keep water out, with walls using artificial materials to make it watertight. Several of the grottos are reserved for purely ritual uses, rituals which Dream and Miracle still conduct to this day.
The settlement grew out from the chapel and what is now the administrative building, as it was first built as the center of the community’s religious experience. The crypt, cemetery wall, and cemetery building were early additions. The facilities outside the inner wall were added at about the same time, in order to make the chapel self-sufficient for its inhabitants, add the educational complex, and host festivals for a growing community.
The civilization came to an abrupt end when the mist became disastrously thick, whisking most of the population away from the Mistlands and scattering them in a cataclysmic event. The mist almost had a force and life to it, seeping in through doorways and windows, into caverns that had always remained untouched. Furthermore, the mist was quicker to teleport people out of the Mistlands than normal and, another unique occurrence, even people born and raised in the Mistlands would be whisked out into unknown lands. While not everywhere nor everyone was touched, less than a sixth of the population remained. 8Sanctuary had never experienced such an intense accumulation of mist, nor has it again. Dream is the only remaining resident from that time, the rest having died or moved on. She believes some pollutant from outside the Mistlands had corrupted the mist (for why else would the mist steel away the lands’ natives, something it never does of its own accord?).
As for the name, the sanctuary was first built under the patronage of the nomadic worldheart, the Octagon Sun. Solar Oktavia visits the 8Sanctuary as the Octagon Sun’s representative.
The 8Sanctuary today is a modest operation, serving as a waypoint and refuge for wanderers and people who find themselves in the Mistlands.
III. Map
Chapel: A 2-story building with grotto access.
Administrative Offices and Housing
Workers’ Quarters
Gardens
Cemetery Central Building: houses tools, the caretaker’s residence, and an entrance to the crypt.
Cemetery
Library + Schoolhouse
Storage + Student Quarters A: Storage
Mess Hall + Student Quarters B: The 1st floor includes a mess hall and kitchen. The large mess hall, seeing as it is no longer in use, has been repurposed for Chaos’ nest.
Inner Grounds: initially used for all kinds of purposes, but once the public grounds were walled in, the inner grounds were reserved for religious and educational gatherings.
Public Grounds: used for public ceremonies, festivals, and the like.
Fields: used for growing crops.
Stables
Gatehouse
NE Watchtower
SW Watchtower
Adults’ Meeting Area: a small, outdoor depression where people would gather and talk while resting. For more formal occasions, the speaker(s) would stand at the center.
Students’ Meeting Area: as above, but used by the students.
General Theater: as above, but used for community gatherings and the general public.
An exotic animal species. Noted for its bioluminescence and the sweet and fruity taste of its “meat.” They don’t respond well to captivity, but are docile enough that they can be raised in large enclosures. They are not afraid of people. Radiant triangles are 2-dimensional and grow as long as they live. Most individuals die young, but individuals that survive for 1 year are typically able to survive indefinitely. Individuals younger than a year, making up more than 98% of the radiant triangle population, resemble fireflies in size and behavior (coming out at night, blinking, and whatnot).
An albino axolotl dressed as Lavender from Grimm’s Hollow, a short freeware game about being a grim reaper that captured my heart. There’s a second albino axolotl here as a spirit to support.
She’ll help everyone to get to the afterlife, because it’s meant above all to be a time of healing.
Melanoid axolotl have high concentrations of melanin, which gives them their dark blue/grey/purple colors. This axolotl is calm and inexpressive, but thinks a lot before talking.
The leucistic axolotl was one of the first 5 axolotl avatars used on stream. All it did was jump when I talked.
The leucistic axolotl is so-called because leucism is a type of pigmentation loss (not the same as albinism) that leaves the axolotl pinky. This axolotl is particularly is the cheeriest of its peers.
The leucistic axolotl was one of the first 5 axolotl avatars used on stream. All it did was jump when I talked.
