The Knight is an agent of action, but the Knight of Pentacles' action is not the swift charge of the Knight of Wands. It is slow, repetitive, and unwavering, like an old ox plowing the field. He rides a steady black horse, his gaze fixed on the land that needs to be cultivated. He represents responsibility, diligence, a dedication to perfecting a process, and the day-to-day perseverance to move steadily forward.
As an adult, Xiao-Shi took over his father's workshop. He inherited A-Tu’s groundedness and the old carpenter’s skillful hands, but he had something they didn't—a young person's "dissatisfaction." He found that while the workshop’s products (mainly farm tools and simple furniture) were of excellent quality, their efficiency was very low. It often took several months to complete an order.
Xiao-Shi didn't rush to expand or innovate. Like a patient Knight, he began to "plow" every single process of the workshop inch by inch. He drew a layout of the workshop, reorganized the tools and materials to reduce unnecessary movement, improved the templates for joinery to make assembly more precise and faster, and even designed an order management system so that every step of production could be tracked.
This process was tedious. There were no moments of sudden inspiration, only day-to-day observation, documentation, and optimization. The older masters in the workshop initially had some reservations about his "unnecessary tinkering," feeling that he didn't understand the "feel" of a true artisan. But gradually, when they found they could complete more work with less effort each day and that the defect rate had significantly decreased, they began to look at the young man with new respect.
Xiao-Shi's style was somewhat conservative. He rejected all orders for custom furniture with "strange shapes" because it would disrupt the processes he had carefully established. He wasn't an artist so much as an engineer. His greatest joy was watching raw wood, under his defined process, transform efficiently and steadily into sturdy, durable chairs. His horse might not run fast, but every step it took left a deeper, clearer trajectory on the ground.
【Echo from the Mirror】
In your work or life, is there a process waiting for you to "plow"? Do you have the patience and perseverance of the Knight of Pentacles to perfect the details day after day, making your work more efficient and reliable? Does this sense of responsibility sometimes make you seem too conservative?