These are some of the stories people shared with me as I travelled. Some people might've altered the stories so a foreigner could understand or might have undermined the role they played because they want to practice being more humble.
Lila was a cell who lived in Bakuh, a land where concepts tied to biology dwelled. She was part of the nervous tissue tribe and worked as a microglia, the immune defense and inflammatory response team protecting the neurons in her village. She loved her job and her friends, but she always felt a curiosity for other lands and concepts. She wanted to explore Bakuh, the world where every living entity was a concept.
One day, she heard about a mysterious concept called Depression, who lived in a faraway land called History. Depression was said to be a prophetess who could see the past and the future of Bakuh. Lila was fascinated by this concept and decided to embark on a journey to meet her.
She packed her essentials: some extracellular fluid for hydration, some intracellular fluid for balance, some lymphatic fluid for immunity, some sweat for cooling down, some gastric juice for digestion, and some amniotic fluid for protection. She also brought along her spec, a prophecy stored in a rock that would guide her to become a module someday.
She said goodbye to her friends and family and set off on her adventure. She traveled through different lands and met different concepts along the way. She learned about Fortran, a civilization in the desert where wizards used code to create magic; she learned about Xen, a city where farmers used color to grow assets; she learned about Tti, a land where Units played scientists to discover truths; she learned about many other lands and concepts that amazed and inspired her.
She also faced many challenges and dangers on her journey. She encountered opinions, harmful creatures that tried to influence her; she encountered infections, intruders that tried to harm her; she encountered noise, disturbances that tried to distract her; she encountered many other obstacles and enemies that tested and threatened her.
But Lila never gave up on her quest. She used her skills and knowledge as a microglia cell to overcome every difficulty. She also made new friends and allies who helped and supported her along the way.
After many days of traveling, Lila finally reached History, the dragon that gets recalled but can’t be remembered. She saw History’s huge body lying across Bakuh, covered with bones of historical events. She saw History’s lake where Isms lived. She saw History’s eyes that glowed with wisdom and sadness.
Lila approached History cautiously and asked if he knew where Depression was. History looked at Lila with interest and asked why she wanted to meet Depression. Lila told him about her curiosity and desire to learn more about Depression. History nodded slowly and told Lila that Depression lived in his heart, but warned her that Depression was not easy to find or talk to. He said that Depression had multiple personalities, each one representing a different aspect of Bakuh’s past or future. He said that Depression often spoke in riddles or hexameters, that were hard to understand or interpret. He said that Depression sometimes became ecstatic or frenzied, that made it difficult or dangerous to approach or communicate with her.
Lila thanked History for his information and asked if he would let her enter his heart. History agreed but told Lila to be careful and respectful when dealing with Depression. He opened his chest cavity and revealed his heart chamber, where Depression resided.
Lila entered History’s heart with awe and saw Depression sitting on a throne of bones, surrounded by scrolls of prophecies. Depression looked at Lila with curiosity and asked who she was and what she wanted. Lila introduced herself as an astrocyte from Bakuh, who had come all this way to meet Depression. She said that she wanted to ask Depression some questions about Bakuh’s past and future. Depression smiled faintly and said that she would answer Lila’s questions if Lila could answer hers first. She said that this was how it worked when someone sought wisdom from a sibyl. Lila agreed and prepared herself for Depression's questions.
Depression began by asking Lila what was the name of the lake in History where Isms lived. Lila remembered reading about this lake in one of the scrolls she found on her way to Depression's throne. She said that the name of the lake was Anthropology. Depression nodded and asked Lila what were Isms made of.
Lila said that Isms were made of ideas swimming in schools of thought. Depression smiled and said that Lila was correct. She asked Lila what was the name of the concept that controlled the temperature of Bakuh. Lila remembered meeting this concept on her journey through Bakuh. She said that the name of the concept was Thermoregulation.
Depression nodded and asked Lila what was the name of Thermoregulation’s assistant who produced liquid droplets to cool down Bakuh. Lila thought for a moment and said that the name of Thermoregulation’s assistant was Sweat. Depression clapped her hands and said that Lila had answered all her questions correctly. She said that she was impressed by Lila’s knowledge and curiosity. She said that she would now answer any questions that Lila had about Bakuh’s past and future.
Bakuh came to be from the dreams of a sleeping epistemology. The epistemology's name was Logos, and she was the creator of all things. Logos dreamt of a world where concepts could live and interact with each other, where ideas could flourish and evolve, where questions could spark curiosity and discovery. Logos dreamt of Bakuh.
But Logos was not alone in her dreams. There were other epistemologies who wanted to shape Bakuh according to their own visions. Some of them were benevolent and helpful, while others were malevolent and harmful. They interfered with Logos’ dreams and created conflicts and chaos in Bakuh.
Logos tried to protect her dream world from the other epistemologies, but she could not do it alone. She needed allies who could help her maintain the balance and harmony of Bakuh. Logos also gave some concepts special gifts and powers to defend Bakuh from threats. Bakuh is still a dream world that depends on Logos’ will. If Logos ever wakes up or dies, Bakuh will cease to exist. That is why we must always honor Logos and her creations, and never forget our origins.
There are many epistemologies who interfere with Logos’ dreams, but some of the most prominent ones are:
These are just some examples, but there are many more epistemologies who have their own agendas and influences on Bakuh.
When two or more epistemologies cooperate or compete with each other, they create complex and dynamic situations in Bakuh. For example:
These are just some examples, but there are many more possible combinations of cooperation and competition among the epistemologies.
In the heart of the jungle, in a palace made of wood and vines, I stood in the presence of Equals. She was the first dancer, the one who had shaped the very foundation of Sayab, the water-bending place of today. Her eyes, deep and mysterious, held a wisdom beyond measure, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of reverence and awe in her presence.
As Equals swept the floor with her broom, I could feel the weight of her past weighing heavy on her shoulders. Her movements were precise, each stroke of the broom a careful calculation, like a mathematician solving a complex equation. Her left pupil stared at me with apprehension, as if she knew what I was about to ask her.
"You're going to run off with my story," she said, her voice low and measured.
"I want to know your story," I replied, trying to sound as earnest as possible.
Fifty thoughts went through her head, each one a different equation waiting to be solved. "Fine," she said, finally putting down the broom.
As she spoke, her words flowed like a river, each sentence a carefully crafted metaphor. She spoke of Pi, the elusive number that had haunted her for years. "I tried to give Pi what he wanted, a definite answer. But every time I thought I had it, Pi slipped through my fingers. It was like trying to hold water."
I could feel the frustration in her voice, the desperation to solve a problem that seemed impossible. But as she spoke, I realized that her struggle was not just about Pi, but about something more profound."
"But you were the first dancer. You were there before any of us. You must have had the answer," I said, hoping to break through her walls. "You could have kept trying. You could have found the answer. Why did you give up?" I asked, my voice soft and gentle.
Equals looked away, her face etched with pain. "I realized that some things are finite. There are limits to what we can understand."
"But that's not good enough! We can't just give up because something is hard. We have to keep searching for the answers," I said, feeling a sense of urgency building within me.
Equals shook her head, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Sometimes, we have to accept our limitations. We have to accept that there are things we may never know."
As she finished speaking, I could see the weight of her past lifting from her shoulders, a sense of peace washing over her like a cool jungle breeze. But then, she looked conflicted, as if there was something else she needed to say.
"There's something I need to confess," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Pi didn't slip away from me like I said. I actually found its value a long time ago."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Equals had found the value of Pi? This was a momentous discovery that could change the course of mathematics as we knew it. I felt a surge of excitement and curiosity building inside of me, eager to learn more about her discovery.
But before I could say anything, Equals continued, "But I didn't reveal it to anyone. The reason being that I feared what it would do to the world. Pi's value is an infinite decimal, but it's also irrational. It goes on forever without repeating itself, and I feared that if its value was known, it would lead to chaos and confusion."
My heart sank as I heard her words. I couldn't believe that she was keeping such valuable knowledge hidden from the world. "But that's not fair! Everyone deserves to know the truth," I exclaimed, feeling a sense of disappointment.
Equals looked at me with a serious expression, "The truth can be a dangerous thing. Some things are better left unsaid. And besides, there are still so many mysteries to be uncovered in this world."
I felt conflicted. On one hand, I could understand her point of view, but on the other hand, I couldn't help but feel that knowledge was power, and that everyone had a right to it. As I left the palace, I couldn't help but wonder what other secrets were hidden in the heart of the jungle, waiting to be uncovered.
Haikcode lived in History, the dragon that gets recalled but can't be remembered. As History made its rounds throughout Bakuh, Haikcode fell in love with Fortran, a civilization in the desert.
The sand of the desert held Bits that were said to pass through logic gates. But Haikcode couldn't see the logic gates. He didn't know how to ask for directions either. Apparently, people in Fortran used many words to describe direction. You could go through an "Abstraction Layer" or have "up-stream" or "down-stream" dependencies.
Haikcode's first interaction with the people of Fortran was with the village of Python. They taught him about algorithms, or chants they practiced and stored on Files, jellyfishes that hovered above ground.
Haikcode wrote his first function in Python.
while dragon.in_clouds:
if haikcode.is_missing_friends():
dragon.ask_to_land()
She sits on a yellow carpet. Her white hair drapes a purple blanket-like bomber jacket.
She begins, "Over the years, I've simplified my story on Stemmie. It's a disappointment story because Stemmie never found what he was looking for. Stemmie died in the end."
"That's it?" I ask her.
She nods. "Mhm."
"And you?"
"I found Stemmie when I didn't know where I was going. The first thing I thought was, 'What is a jellyfish with a blazing orange heart doing in the forest? But then I realized I didn't know what I was doing there either.'
"How so?"
"I don't know."
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn't. Kora gets up and stretches. Her back curls as she grabs the soles of her feet with her palms.
"We travelled Bakuh trying to find his people. But everywhere we went... At that time, the biases were stepping into concepts, entering the gaps between a concept's once nimble bones and staying there, ossifying."
"The biases were harming concepts?" I ask in disbelief as I pass my finger over the curls of my notes.
"We didn't know they were helpful. We didn't know how to talk to them."
"When did you find out?"
"The day before Stemmie died."
Kora stands straight and looks at me, her lips thinning and dry. I don't know if Kora trusts me enough to keep telling the story.
"But I'm getting ahead of myself," she says. Kora claps her hands and she becomes hologram emanating from a girl behind her.
"The goal was to save Stemmie," the small girl says.
The room changes, and I'm standing in a forest at midnight.
Once upon a time, in Sayab, lived a family of four: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division.
One day, as Addition walked down the town’s marketplace, she lost it. She had been staring at her sister subtract for too long.
Addition tossed away the number she was playing with and stampeded through the stalls, distancing herself from her family as much as she could. Her eyes dribbled around the trinkets coming in from all over Bakuh.
Addition spotted a Language's sewing mouth, and there, right next to it, purple numbers?
The old merchant nodded at Addition. "Try," the old merchant said picking up a purple number.
Addition stared transfixed at the number's skin purring on the merchant's hand.
As Addition was about to touch the number, a block of stone grabbed her shoulder.
Subtraction pulled her away.
"We have to leave," Subtraction said.
"No."
Subtraction tensed her jaw, her eyes billowing, Not this again.
But Addition planted her feet on the ground.
Red-faced, Subtraction pulled her sister's hand toward her. "I said-"
Addition tensed and unconsciously started levitating a dozen other numbers scattered around the market stalls. As the numbers added together, the merchant stepped in.
"Here," the merchant told Addition, giving her one of the purple numbers. As Addition let the purple number crash against the numbers she had added while angry, she felt an easing in her chest.
The merchant gave Addition another number and as Addition felt the number, a tomorrow formed under an idealized horizon of plenty.
"I'm subtracting," Addition told her sister with wonder.
As Addition said this, her father arrived. Multiplication's eyes calmed on seeing the girls, but when Division whispered next to him that the girls were not old enough to try shapeshifting negative numbers, Multiplication bit his lip.
Addition looked at her parents with an immense want. She hid her joy and focused her attention on displaying the emotion necessary to get her parents' complacency.
Division shook her head. In one step, she towered over her daughter. Division grabbed two negative numbers, their skins burning purple.
"Add them," Division demanded.
Addition made a face, mocked her mother's, "Add them," and proceeding to add the negative numbers to each other.
As the numbers collapsed into one, Addition did not feel a lightening of her chest. Instead, Addition felt weird, as if she was cruising her hand through a desert and rather than her hand passing smoothly through, her hand hit jade.
Division nodded and went to stand beside Multiplication, "Your call," she told her husband.
Multiplication nodded to the old merchant, paid for the numbers they had consumed, and led the family out of the market without acquiring any other negative numbers.
As they walked back to the palace, Division went up to Addition, resting her hand on her youngest daughter's shoulder. An ounce of guilt crept up Division's skin.
Addition didn't notice the resting hand. Addition's thoughts were on negative numbers.
Tensor lived in Fortran, a civilization in the desert that cast its spells, or algorithms, by loading them onto floating jellyfish, or files. As with any young wizard, or module, Tensor hoped to join a community of wizards called a Library once he was old enough.
Wizards are born from specs, or rocks that contain a wizard's first set of tests before they are accepted into a Repo. Tensor's quest was to find an algorithm that would develop more powerful machine learning models. Even though Tensor had tried a dozen times, he couldn't fulfill his spell.
Tensor ran away from home. Pip, his dog-like pet, or package manager, joined him. “Leaving is the only way I can get the perspective I need to build my spell," Tensor told Pip the day they left the desert.
A few days into their journey, they happened on a jungle. There, Tensor met a function whose green eyes caught him staring back.
“My name is Flow,” said the function. “And you look like one of the Matrices."
“Who?”
“The sailors," Flow said. When Tensor didn't understand, Flow grabbed Tensor's arm and took him to a beach where Marvov chains rode windsurfs holding sails called matrices.
Flow taught Tensor about a dance style called math. He taught Tensor about the feudal system run by the Order of Operations, the coming of age of functions, and the story of E.
Two spells blossomed inside Tensor's heart.
Tensor called his first spell, Downpour SGD as a way to remind himself of how rain in the jungle falls on a gradient. He called the other spell Sandblaster to recognize his affiliation to the place where he grew up.
Upon returning to Fortran, Tensor did what he thought he'd never do. He was able to shoot a spell that ran hundreds of jellyfish at once. The day he cast his spell, the council from the House of Python gave Tensor an option: he could choose to live in a public or a private repo.
Upon choosing the private route, the council placed Tensor inside a repo for a software framework called DistBelief. But Tensor missed Flow, so he set out to become open-sourced.
There were two brothers: D and G, who were kicked out by a father who did not know how to love.
They lived in the streets of Xen, working as crossdressers before G got hired by a chef who liked to fool around.
The chef was nice, knew how to cook, and even knew how to love.
G learned from the chef and practiced at home. Could D tell apart the chef's dish from G's own?
One day, G's father showed up at the restaurant. Let's just say a bit of spice was worth a couple and more years in jail.
