Card of the Week: Eight of Coins

Confucius said, “The expectations of life depend upon diligence; a mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.”  A modern joke asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice.”

The Eight of Coins emphasizes the importance of diligence.  Regardless of the size of a project, attention must still be paid to details.  Precision is crucial in engineering.  Timing can be critical in delivery.  Persistence and consistency are essential in relationships.  Repetitive exercise is necessary to hone skills that will pay off in the long run.  No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.

Inverted, this card cautions of interference from conceit.  One with advanced skills must still get simple jobs done.  Someone with great talent should not believe they are above everyday tasks.

In “Assignment: Earth”, the Enterprise is on a special historical research mission to observe 1960s-era Earth, but intercepts an alien transporter signal originating from outside the solar system.  Gary Seven and Isis materialize, on a mission from a planet unknown even in the Enterprise’s normal era.  Seven uses an alien servo device to escape from the Enterprise to an apartment equipped with even more alien tech, including a device that transports him to Florida.  He uses his servo to modify the electronics on a large military missile platform about to launch, all while Isis watches, until he is transported back to his apartment.  Concerned that Seven may be trying to alter history, Kirk and Spock track him there, but too late to stop the launch.  They allow Seven to sends signals to the missile to cause it to explode, exactly as the Enterprise history records show.