One Possibility
Why does solving a problem create more problems?
Mount Vesuvius, 2016
Consider this paradox about discovery: every solved problem increases the amount of unanswered questions. A new discovery, put differently, will uncover many new questions. And this guarantees that questions will always increase at a faster rate than answers. To recognize how the ledger of what’s unknown is forever indebted to the infinitesimal balance of what’s known might thrill, discourage, frustrate, perplex, or startle you—even, perhaps, all at once.
From a different angle, with each passing day, your shelf of unread books grows. Regardless of how much you read today, tomorrow’s stack of unread books will be larger than today’s stack. Just forget it: not only won’t you catch up, you’ll always be further and further behind.
If the book I finished yesterday evening happens to be my last, my shelf of unread books, of books that I’m excited to jump into, will be immense, nearly infinite. But it’s easy to overlook the eternal nature of the previous sentence; it will always be true. If the last book I read comes in a decade or two, there will be an even larger number of unread books on my shelf—what might be deemed a slightly larger infinity.
Change the subject to music or painting or sculpture and nothing has really changed. With each flip of the calendar, there’s an even greater quantity of songs that you haven’t heard. And sprinting through museums won’t help; you’ll be panting, bent over in the lobby, still short of your target.
An old argument comes to my mind, one typically voiced by the pious to the secular about the pointlessness of a finite existence. Now, to me, this timeworn trope fails in a few crucial ways. But what’s most important is that it defines the quality of existence based on its quantity, which seems, at best, a little peculiar.
You could argue that the reverse is closer to true: the more fleeting, elusive, and sharp the experience, the more we focus. There’s a reason why beauty is often matched with fragility. And it’s the same reason why what’s beautiful is often transitory—a spring flower, the evening sunset, a cresting wave. Our appreciation, that sensation of awe, isn’t diminished by our foreknowledge of the inevitable end.
Once something lasts forever, however, you’re free to take your time in getting to it. You can catch up on all those books and see all those paintings later. Have the conversation tomorrow. Schedule that dinner for another day. There’s no rush. Forget any sense of urgency. All will be available tomorrow, again and again, as the show doesn’t have a final curtain.
But we know without any strain how much that’s flawed. What’s left is always much closer to a blink than a stare. Of course the performance will end, but it’ll be before, unfortunately, we believe the show has actually finished. So there will be books left unread, conversations missed, and unopened bottles, regardless of when that curtain drops. Perhaps the certainty of this fact can provide a bit of solace. It might just enable us to gently dismiss the goal of keeping up, as quantity seems a very silly game to play when everything is transitory. Although we want a good film to last longer, we won’t judge its quality based on the runtime. We’re stuck with everyone else in that land of the fleeting, elusive, and sharp, so all that’s left, in this moment, is to focus.