Clay

A general of the Imperial Army had commissioned the Temple to build a supply requisition system. Mindful of cost, he sent an officer of the 3rd Unsigned Integer Division to report on the Temple’s progress.

The officer noted with satisfaction that most of the developers worked calmly and methodically: they drew up detailed designs, submitted the documents for approval or amendment, and consulted the final drafts as they coded.

Yet one of the nuns did not.

As the officer watched, the nun created a dozen classes in the repository, stared at each for a moment, renamed half of them, stared again, broke some into pieces, stared, added some methods and subtracted others, and so on. She repeated this throughout the day.

The officer could no longer contain his impatience, saying, “Enough! If the Imperial sculptors were as impulsive as you, there would be no jade left in the world!”

The nun replied, “If the Imperial sculptors are foolish enough to carve roof tiles out of jade, the Emperor’s palace must still be half-open to the sky. Myself, I choose to work in clay.”