There Are Only Twenty-Four Hours in a Day
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And in this moment of constitutional collapse and epistemic crisis, these simple truths are more profound than they first appear.
When I remind you that there are twenty-four hours in a day, I'm not being lyrical for its own sake. I'm grounding us in the most fundamental constraint of the human condition—our finite attention within an economy of time. You sleep for perhaps six, seven, or eight of those hours. The remaining time constitutes the entirety of your conscious engagement with the world.
This constraint has taken on a different meaning in our age of information overload. We live in a technological civilization exploding with content, commentary, and claims on our attention. We face an epistemic environment where we simply cannot process all available information or verify every claim. This isn't just an inconvenience—it's the central vulnerability that has allowed our current crisis to unfold.
The epistemic fog thickens daily. We see a president openly defying a unanimous Supreme Court ruling while claiming, against all evidence, that the Court ruled in his favor. We witness officials being fired for telling the truth in court filings. We observe reality itself being contested not through reasoned argument but through the raw assertion of power.
Our twenty-four hour constraint forces us to make choices about what deserves our attention. Many Americans, unable to process the implications of these constitutional violations, retreat into comfortable narratives or simply look away. It's easier to focus on daily tasks than to contend with the collapse of democratic norms occurring in real time.
But the twenty-four hour constraint applies equally to those orchestrating this collapse. They understand that your limited attention is their greatest asset. They flood the zone with spectacle, with outrage, with contradiction—creating so much noise that clear perception becomes impossible. When everything is a crisis, nothing is.
This is why I return to these basic truths. Not because they're clever rhetorical devices, but because they represent a kind of epistemic anchor in turbulent waters. The statement “there are twenty-four hours in a day” reminds us that reality exists independent of power's attempts to reshape it. It reminds us that we must be intentional with our attention, directing it toward what matters most when everything demands urgency.
When I speak of coherence, of holding the center, I'm speaking of maintaining this epistemic clarity despite all attempts to cloud it. I'm speaking of recognizing that while our attention is finite, our commitment to truth need not be compromised. In a world of manufactured complexity, sometimes the clearest resistance is stating simple truths with unwavering conviction.
The center must be held—not because it is easy, but because it is ours to hold. And holding it begins with this recognition: there are twenty-four hours in a day, and how we allocate our attention within them may determine whether our republic survives this moment of peril.
There are many of us who agree completely with your assessment and the phrasing of your reminders. Keep up the good work.
As Peter Senge wrote in The Fifth Discipline, focus, timing, and community are key elements in thinking and acting strategically. Your “reminder” phrases spark recognition in my consciousness of the importance of being aware and mindful of these three elements.
Right again, Mike. Our attention, our consciousness can deal with only so much. In a time like this, we have a center to cling to: the Constitution. This is the very center that a President swears to uphold. Keeping that in mind it’s easier to see clearly how this President & his enablers are trying to change realty.
We have to remember too that, for many reasons, too many people aren’t able to think & see beyond the present to grasp what this attempt at realty shift would mean to our society, how it would fundamentally change how we live & what we live with. That means that those of us who do think & see will have to carry the burden of holding the center. It’s risky & I often resent it, just like I often resent people voting for this possibility. It means that we have to basically help save millions from themselves when we might rather leave them to their own devices. But, the circle spreads wide, from our own families, for whom we want what’s best, to everyone if we are to survive as a democracy. So, we have to put resentment aside & stay focused on the center.