No one on Quadra Island is likely to have known Yurii Kerpatenko. He never lived here and he never visited here. Had he been alive on November 15th, 2022, he probably wouldn’t have noticed that his longer life was adding a mere half a second to the arrival of the 8th billion person to Earth’s human population. Yurii Kerpatenko would not have cared because of other pressing concerns.

These concerns were more than symbolic, and they relate to us on our little island in the wholeness of things because we are able to live in a society of law and order, to go about our daily affairs without fear, to trust that one day will be as normal as another, and to freely express our opinions without state censorship or physical oppression.