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an average day

Let's imagine a possible future.

 

Imagine Augury is funded and built, established as a colony and a community.

You apply, pass citizenship requirements, and settle into the city that will be your new home. What can you expect from your new life underwater? What would

 living in Augury look like?

 

Well, depending on your personal lifestyle, it might look something like this:

You wake up to a spectacular ocean view. The windows in your apartment give you a stunning view of the ocean floor through clean (but not sterile) water. The outer surface of the city has coral growing on it, so you are likely greeted every morning by some curious fish or other sea life. Throughout the city, you may see jellyfish drifting past a window or hear distant whalesong. You can see the surface above you, giving you an idea of the weather up there. Of course, down here, the interior atmospheric conditions are completely predictable and stable thanks to Aether.

Since the city systems have so many built-in automations, redundancies, cushions, and safety nets, things run on a pretty leisurely schedule, so you probably wake up when you feel like it. Maybe you wake up early and go for a jog before breakfast. Maybe you're a night owl so you sleep in. Augury functions more around deadlines for tasks than hours in shifts, so "regular hours" are a relative concept. You decide the schedule you will operate on.

Your home is arranged to your liking—including the layout of the rooms. Your apartment is comfortably sized—not small or cramped, but modest enough to use space efficiently. Cabinetry spans floor-to-ceiling to make the most effective use of limited space, some furniture is multipurpose, some furniture folds, and appliances in your kitchen are multi-function. You don't have an excess of wealth or luxury and your apartment is not built for the runaway accumulation of possessions. But the possessions you have are well-made, you have lots of shelf room for books or movies or keepsakes, a comfortable living room with a very nicely-sized screen, and maybe even a balcony overlooking one of the atriums. The walls are thick enough to block out all the sound from your neighbors and you have complete control of the temperature. Your home is cozy and has everything you need.

You rent your apartment, but so does everyone else (including even the highest government officials)—privately owned real estate can quickly get out of hand in a closed system like Augury, especially when every structure is built by the government. But despite the apartment not being your personal property, you have strong rights to the space you live in. You can customize it to your heart's content with furniture, paint, and fixtures, and even make some modifications to the layout with modular prefabricated panels. Repairs are prompt and you never have to worry about unannounced visits from your landlord.

Next, a healthy breakfast. Your kitchen is efficient and fully equipped for you to cook whatever you might like for breakfast. Fruits, vegetables, even poultry and eggs, as well other fresh foods that can be grown locally are available from Demeter at their perpetual farmer's market, which is within walking distance if you forgot to stock your fridge. Other, more exotic ingredients might be available at the main market. Non-perishables can be ordered online and imported.

Or, perhaps, if you don't feel like cooking, you might decide to visit a local restaurant or bakery for breakfast. You sit at a small table off to the side of an atrium, sipping a hot drink and listening to the birds and a babbling brook while you wait for your food. 

After breakfast, it's time to get some work done. Work in Augury more often than not looks like a list of tasks that must be completed that day, and after you complete them, the rest of the day is yours to spend as you choose. If you work in one of the government departments, your daily work will typically take around 4-6 hours. Some days it will be more, but some days it might be even less. You work only when work needs doing.

Perhaps you're good with people, and the department of Mentality employs you to provide therapy or counseling to your fellow citizens—or Aegle as a nurse or doctor. If you're good with machines, maybe you just have some routine maintenance or cleaning of machinery with Bia, Hephaestus, Poseidon, or Aether, which is crucial to keep the city running smoothly. Have a green thumb? Maybe you're planting fruit trees with Demeter. Have a mind for the bigger picture? You may just be in charge of taking a look at Augury at large with Physicality, Mentality, or Spirituality, and coming up with ideas to help the city run better. Or maybe you're performing one of the most important jobs in any community by allocating and recycling garbage with Hephaestus. Of course, if you decide your current job isn't for you, you can switch to a different one—as availability allows. Perhaps you choose the private sector route and offer goods or services in a business. Augury is friendly to small businesses and tries to help local shops and restaurants thrive. From teaching to building, programming to medicine, whatever you do, your work is valued and your community appreciates you—because your work builds a community where people can thrive and be healthy. "Far and away, the best prize life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

After just a few hours of work, it's time for you to do what recharges your battery, what brings you joy, or what makes you feel alive. Most people in Augury are pursuing some kind of personal project in their spare time—what's yours? Is it creating art? You might just find a blank wall or floor or even ceiling somewhere in the city that needs a mural painted on it and be commissioned by the government. Are you a music lover? Share your passion on public pianos placed throughout the city, or from a park bench. Do you prefer to spend your time consuming art made by others? With one of the largest libraries of published and unpublished works in the world, you could spend several lifetimes in the library (open late), arcade, and movie theater—reading, watching, or playing through worlds others have created.

Perhaps you prefer the practical arts—Hephaestus maintains open facilities where citizens can use specialized tools for woodworking, metalworking, and more. If you're a programmer or developer, Minerva and Apollo facilities can help you build entire virtual worlds, and they offer special incentives to game development studios and software developers who call Augury home. Do you love to work in charity? Spirituality can help with that, and connect you with people and causes that need help. Are you the athletic type? Check out our gyms, running tracks, racquetball and tennis courts, martial arts classes, and more—as well as other activities organized by the Parks and Recreation department. They maintain facilities for specific kinds of recreation as well as organize city-wide community events like galas, concerts, festivals, holidays, and more. They're also whom you should talk to if there's an activity you need help facilitating or want to request.

Do you want simply to spend time with friends and family? In Augury, areas like parks and libraries, movie theaters and arcades, gardens and markets, and even simple hallways have comfortable lounge areas for you to simply exist in with no expectation of payment. Gather your picnic, book club, sewing club, or family reunion in public spaces (which are, by and large, open 24/7). The city belongs to its people! A healthy community requires the capacity to comfortably coexist. Just stay safe and keep an eye on those maximum occupancy requirements and noise ordinances or you may be asked to relocate—being part of a community also means being considerate of others' safety and comfort.

Don’t forget your chores! Augury may seem utopic, but it's just a normal community of normal people who still have to take out the trash and do their laundry. Fortunately, with the help of some handy technology, those chores become easier to manage.

Laundry in Augury, for example, is more inconvenient in some ways and less in others. For simplicity in plumbing (and lower risk of flooding), few people have a personal washer and dryer. Public laundromats maintained by Poseidon are available throughout the city, with special smart washer/dryer machines that can notify you via your phone when a load is ready or has moved on to drying. After interfacing with the machine for your load of laundry, you can also remotely change settings and decide when to unlock your machine, so you don't have to babysit a load once you put it in. But don't worry—even if the machine loses network connection or has a glitch, you can still get your laundry out with an override access code. They’ll even dispense your detergent for you!

Garbage also takes a little extra work, but the results are worth the effort, as we need to minimize waste in our limited space. Garbage is collected by Hephaestus, so to make their job easier, you sort your garbage into compost, metal, glass, paper, and plastic. Compost goes to Demeter, and the rest Hephaestus recycles into new materials. Garbage that can’t be recycled or composted is pulverized then mixed into building blocks for new construction.

Work and play are important parts of being a human being, but don't underestimate the importance of rest. As previously mentioned, Augury runs at a pretty laid-back pace. When most of the crucial functions of the city are automated and your livelihood doesn't rely on the pace of the international economy, there's time to stop and smell the roses.

There are some small electric vehicles in Augury—similar to golf carts—but no full-size automobiles and no internal combustion engines. Augury is designed to be a walking city. Stroll around wherever you like, explore, and breathe (and enjoy that the entire city, by law, is handicap accessible). There are a lot of activities available to help you relax, like community gardening, arts classes, yoga groups, or just sitting on a swing or hammock in an atrium park. Bask in real or artificial sunlight and you might be visited by one of the city's friendly cats, who are cared for by the Animal Control department with automated feeders, fountains, and litter boxes (which provide compost for Demeter). And with some of the fastest internet in the world hardwired in fiber optics throughout the city, you don't have to worry about connecting with the rest of the world—especially since there are frequent conventions, expositions, and other events bringing new and interesting people from around the world to visit your city.

It's also much easier to have peace of mind when you know your health is secure. Mental and physical healthcare services are publicly funded and available to every citizen. Additionally, Augury is population controlled, based on the availability of space, resources, and certain personnel, so you always know there will be enough doctors, nurses, and therapists to take care of you.

There are some unique challenges to adjust to, of course. You can't live underwater without giving up some conveniences. There are no "great outdoors" to escape to unless you go up to the surface; no woods or mountains or lakes. The atriums are big, but at the end of the day, still enclosed—and with limited space, some parts of the city can feel cramped. Some people will have trouble feeling comfortable looking at the endless abyss of the ocean outside their windows. Though Augury has some of the fastest internet speeds in the world, it's still physically isolated and any visitors have to travel overseas and go through a decompression period. You can't easily drive to the next town for a restaurant or a concert if you feel like it, and your access to certain products, locations, and people is more limited. Some who are used to American culture may feel stifled by the regulations and limitations placed upon them in regard to personal freedoms or economic policy.

But there's no place quite like the city of Augury. With greater regulation comes a stronger social contract, greater safety, accountability and a sense of deeper social responsibility. The people who live in Augury are dedicated to each other, to working together as a team and a community, and every citizen is a direct member of the legislative body that democratically decides how the city operates. Everyone who comes to live here knows or learns quickly that down here, the priority is health, both as individuals, and as a common people. Having that common goal and mindset makes a world of difference. Plus, how many cities let you look or walk out onto the ocean floor? In the face of the crushing, abyssal pressure of the ocean, we all work together, not just to survive—but to thrive. Countless cities on the surface can't say the same.

Evil is a weed; it grows from neglect and apathy in the forgotten parts of the world. There is still joy to be found in life and in each other. We have to treat our communities like gardens, and intentionally, lovingly tend to them every day.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. 

You are not obligated to finish the work of perfecting the world,
but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.

—Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:21
 

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Food
Work
Hobbies
Chores
Recreation
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