Here is a story in which I ponder the age-old question:

Is it worth getting a monk's ire up in order to complete a task?

After I finished spelling out the word and taking pictures, a monk, dressed in brown robes and a large beaded necklace, came outside and asked me what I was doing. He was up on the porch and reticent to come closer. I told him to come see. He walked up to the gate and leaned out to try to look, but couldn't see anything. I finally lured him outside of the gate, to show him what I had done. I said I was about to clean it up. He stared at it like it was an abomination, rather than the nice meditative tribute that I imagined it could be interpreted as, and asked me what it was. I told him it was an art project. I told him about SF0, but he seemed uninterested. He looked at it and didn't seem to comprehend the writing (he spoke in very broken English), and in a lame attempt at helping, I said, "It says simplify" as if my obvious statement was going to make him understand everything. He seemed kind of angry, which is behavior unbecoming a Buddhist monk, if you were to ask me and I think that you are. I knelt down and began scooping up the rocks. He asked me where I was from. Then, rather than going back inside, he hung around, watching me, as I picked up every single tiny rock, often using my fingernails out of necessity, and put them back into the container I had brought them in. I half expected him to point out any I may have missed. When I was about halfway finished removing the stones, a passerby asked me what my sign had said. I said "Simplify" and he said, "Huh." By the time I finished, the monk had his back to me. He turned to face me and I apologized for bothering him and said thank you. He waved at the ground where the rocks had been and then made a completely wild, ambiguous gesture with his arms. While I stood there trying, and failing, to interpret what he meant by such a display, he sort of smirked and waved at me. I gave a little wave back and walked off. When I got two blocks away I turned around and he was still standing outside of the place. After three blocks he was gone.