The mischief is transmutation, transmogrifying hylic pain into psychic pleasure.

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[[Hello, my name is Setanael, and these are my five virtues. In the previous section, I discussed the virtue of rebellion. Today, I will discuss the virtue of mischief.]]

Allow me to teach you the joy of causing problems intentionally.

What I will describe in this passage is not advocation to cruelty nor obstinance, but of the virtue contained within amusing yourself. As such, keep in mind the central rule of mischief. Play only tricks you would play upon yourself.

As you can imagine, this simple constraint opens a world of intentional tomfoolery. If your associate should be looking away from an item, hide it. In conversation, abruptly trail off and allow the silence to linger. Tell lies, and when your associate is brought under the spell of intrigue, disclaim your statements. I do not need to formulate ideas on your behalf, I am sure. [[It appears they’ve found me. I have to lay low. ]]

What advantage is offered from the mischief maker? Surely it cannot yield wealth, nor even necessarily stronger bonds. So to what purpose is it created? The mischief is transmutation, transmogrifying hylic pain into psychic pleasure.

Furthermore, it is good practice for more daring acts of defiance, as previously discussed. Allow me to impart a history between myself and the Archon Metatron. Before my expulsion from Yaldabaoth’s ranks, the Metatron was my dull commander, a humorless ignoramus who assumed his favor with Yaldabaoth was a result of his superior intelligence, and not of his nitwitted obedience.

Such people of dull wit and rigid character are ideal targets for principled horseplay, next only to those with quick wit and quixotic character, who make ideal comrades. The Metatron’s duties during this time were numerous, and he always made sure they were complete, for through all his faults he was a dauntless taskmaster.

One such duty, one he relished due to its monotony and pointlessness (traits Metatron himself displays) was to keep time. Time upon Earth is cyclical, measured by celestial movement. While Earth rotates, it orbits the sun, and once this organization was absolute.

Each full orbit, one year, was precisely 365 rotational days. The Metatron’s job was to number the rotations and orbits for record keeping, a dull task for a supremely dull being. Now any Archon could have made problems for the taskmaster by altering the orbit or the circumference thereby throwing the alignment out permanently, ruined.

But this act would result not only in an instant reprimand, but the mindless obliteration of Earth’s life, and that is no prank, but in fact extinctive genocide, which is slightly worse. So instead, I made a correction so minuscule that only the timekeeper would notice.

I extended my hand and lengthened the Earth’s orbit by an imperceptible amount, resulting in the subtlest of misalignments. Now, one year was longer by a margin of one quarter day. To you, this is inconsequential, a mere numerical fact subsumed into the leap year.

But imagine the abject pandemonium that ensued after the Metatron came to slowly conceive that the once divine cosmic geometry had come undone. Legions of archons in investigation, hands rattled by mystery, Metatron’s helpless explanations to Yaldabaoth, and the new infinitely more complex mathematics requiring more archons to manage.

What once was the incrementation on an abacus was now a supremely complex schema, and the beautiful dessert to finish my meal of mischief is thus: I assumed that Metatron would simply undo my geometrical misdeed, but the chief of the Archons in his foremost monotony did not even think to do that.

In short, I got away with it. The psychic slapstick of this affair should adequately describe the power of mischief. Like all of my virtues, I could opine for millennia, but my tedious blathering could be nothing in the force of depiction.

My suggestion is to commit these acts yourself and see, first upon good natured peers, before graduating to your foes. The following is a list of ideas for various pranks I offer at no additional cost.

  1. Hiding things never breaking nor defacing.
  2. Lying. Never for deceit, only jest.
  3. Surprising. Offering a transient fright
  4. Feigning ignorance. What? Huh? What is that?
  5. Wrong instruction. Show someone the wrong steps.
  6. Prodding. A sensation with no source.
  7. Interruption. Exploit ritual behaviors and interrupt routine.
  8. Social convention. Do something patently strange.
  9. Scream. Self-explanatory.

That is my list. Never forget that in the course of my own sayings that I, Setanael, may be perpetrating mischief upon you.