Not Enough Time

Here's the idea.

There's not enough time to do everything you want to do.

I usually think of the idea in terms of the different projects I have. While I'm writing essays for urticator.net, I'm not getting better at playing go, or reading, say, Remembrance of Things Past, or doing any of the other things I might want to do.

That's not the only level the idea can operate at, however. It applies at a lower level, within the individual projects. Take urticator.net, for example. Even if the end I imagine, referential completeness, turns out to be possible, there will always be other changes I'll want to make. I might want to add a genuine word index, or write a better overview; or, knowing the whole content in advance, I might want to rewrite it all in linear form. Who knows?

The idea also applies at a higher level. Time spent on projects is time not spent being social, or raising a family … or sleeping, for that matter. At root, there are only so many hours in a day, and only so many days, and however you spend the hours, there will always be things you might have done, and didn't.

So, that's the idea. I was going to put the rest of my comments right here, but there were too many of them, so I've moved them into subessays instead.

Comments
Approaches
Methods of Choosing
Conclusion