May 8, 2024
#blog
My actual favorite number is eight.
I've had an obsession with this number for a really long time.
I count my steps in eights, and when I was younger I used to make sure any walk I take ends on an eighth step. I still do that sometimes.
When I take a staircase, I count the number of stairs on each flight. Don't worry, I'm not alone on that. I then take the number mod eight. I have been doing this since long before I knew what modular arithmetic even was.
Naturally, this made me develop quite a knack for music. At least the Western ideas of it. Everything in fours, which of course can be expanded to eights. Though to be honest, it feels like a chicken and egg situation. Did I get good at understanding music because of my obsession with eights, or is it the opposite? Who cares? The two are inseparable. If I'm listening to something while walking that isn't an awkward tempo, I will walk on beat to it. Without fail.
There's also something quite satisfying about counting in eights in English. Since seven has two syllables and eight starts with a vowel, seven resolves nicely into eight when you count it.
The first (and to date only) conlang I ever attempted was one that Minecraft characters would speak in theory. The counting system in that language was octal, base eight! This, of course, makes sense for a world where a lot of things are measured in powers of two. Eight is the scale factor between Overworld and Nether travel. A chunk is 16 blocks long and wide, double eight. The maximum item stack is 64, which of course in octal would be written 100 since it's eight squared. Neat!
I don't think base eight would be that good, but it is close to decimal and can be used to compress binary, so it has that going for it. Either way, I often feel at home in a world governed by eights. And that's quite abundant in the music I listen to and, hopefully soon, make.