Trim:

An unnecessary conversation with a familiar stranger produced a tendency I could not place at first, but that now strikes me simply as the TEMPTATION TOWARDS EXCESS. The man was portly and gregarious, exploiting my Russian heritage to speak to me in fractured Russian about programming. Hours later, I resolved a puzzle that began shortly after I came home: that one of my code loops was repeating excess feedback. I had arbitrarily, and with shaking trepidation, inserted three magic words in a random position: “x = 14;”

Eventually I discovered that my problem could be solved by placing copies of them throughout the various branches. It then occurred to me to remove the original application of these words to the trunk, suspecting that they might be unnecessary.

Upon having done so, and upon having copied and pasted the code into MicroSoft Word, I discovered that my text numbered precisely 4130 words, spanning no more or less than 43 pages. Had I not trimmed the dangling ribbon, I would have had 4133 words. It would have been just as incredible a synchronicity.

But it would not have been nearly as clean.

Dm.A.A.

THE HERMIT:

MASTER PATTERNS.

Sacrificing the Master Pattern makes it no longer master of your Soul, for you have discovered that you can align instead your work with a Greater and More Mysterious pattern. Over some time this emerges. After the third set of three, you allow for one set of one, for it demonstrates numerological fidelity in its synchronicity, even when you have considered multiple aesthetic and practical alternatives.

Dm.A.A.