The question that really drives these meditations is simple: why am I not eager, why am I not excited, to get out of bed in the morning? I have been so in the past. I presume I may be so again in the future. The problem lay squarely in the present.

Priorities, like everything individual, come down to feelings. Feelings is probably not a very useful term as it confuses a large complex of mental and social phenomena. What I want is contentment, but contentment with that slightly heady feeling, as when you've just sucked down a cup of coffee. This will require avarice, ambition, a certain measure of depravity, and calculation. But it will always be tempered by curiosity, moderation, respect for others. In my priorities, I will try to reflect that effort at balance.

The most basic unit of time must be the hour, the day, and the week.