There is apparently no consensus on where the term deadline came from (at least as per Wikipedia). Who knew that the American Civil War and printing presses had this random term in common? (The link needs be clicked to get the reference). The world is indeed quite strange.

But in any case, deadlines are the “phenomena” that drive human society towards something. Something? It could be anything, from some trivial stuff like submitting a mere assignment, to some vague things like handing in of adverstisement drafts, to the highly crucial “real-timeness” of devices that reduce collective human suffering by saving lives during car crashes.

Deadlines don’t mean a thing when we’re growing up, in the really early days of our existence. When was the last time a child was brought up being told that if they didn’t do something within 15 minutes, they wouldn’t get their food? That’d be considered cruel parenting, and I’m not sure if there are cultures in which it is socially acceptable to have parents being harsh on small children with regards to being very tight on deadlines.

But somewhere along the way, as we grow up, they become quite a thing and probably end up being the most annoying aspect of our daily lives. We wake up almost every morning going through a list of deadlines we’d have to meet on that day, or those that are approaching in the near future, or even deadlines for renewing existing deadlines. Panik.

Soon we grow older and older and deadlines yield nothing but dead lines of our selves.

Slow down, but how? Needs thinking.