There’s an idea of the “broad and narrow gates” that comes to mind, accompanied by a genre of fascinating illustrations. [1]

A modern version [2] appears in the paper "Asymptotic burnout and homeostatic awakening: a possible solution to the Fermi paradox?" [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:13#/media/File:Der_b...

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9065981/figure/RSIF...

[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9065981/