Finite and infinite time

Something interesting I've noticed about my early to bed, early to rise experiment is the way it changes my perception of time. I don't feel like I have more time, necessarily, but the way it's allocated is different. I think of it as a change from infinite to finite time.

Say you want to read War and Peace. Not necessarily by any particular time, it's just something you'd like to do. Well, depending on your age, you probably have decades to do it in. Even if it would take you a couple of months to get through it, what's that compared to a couple of decades? So, like so many things, you decide to do it later. I mean, when some things need your attention in the next week and others need it in the next decade, I know which I'd choose. Finite-time problems over infinite-time problems any day.

When you stay up late, your days obey the laws of infinite time. You have something to do today, but a friend wants to hang out? Well, no problem, you can finish it later. Now there's something interesting to read on the internet? No problem, you can finish it later. Video game distracting you? Finish it later! Later is magical because later is infinite, and you can pack just as many plans into it as you need to justify not doing them now.

Only later's not infinite, not really. It's just indeterminate. If we knew the exact hour it finished we'd be a lot less blasé about what we have planned between now and then. But we don't know - don't want to know. It's easier to think we can just keep on going and the night will stretch on as long as we need. When sleep finally takes us, it's by surprise. We go out fighting, knowing there was still more to do, dumbly realising that it's not going to happen now, and maybe it never could. The infinite was finite after all.

But getting up early doesn't work like that. You know all too well how finite the day is, because you chose when it was going to end. There's no pretending about later, because it's not indeterminite any more; you determined it. And against that unyielding finity you have no choice but to give in. There will still be more to do when the day's over, there's always more to do, but at least you could choose to do the things that were most important. And when sleep comes, you can go peacefully; you did what you could, and now it's time to rest.