Hexagram: 33 (Tun/Retreat)

Interpretation:

The tranquil Mountain towers overhead, yet remains this side of Heaven: The Superior Person avoids the petty and superficial by keeping shallow men at a distance, not in anger but with dignity. Such a retreat sweeps the path clear to Success. Occupy yourself with minute detail.

In conjunction with my question, this suggests that I should focus on deep relationships and networking related to my career, careful scheduling, and seeking more undisturbed solitude. Take happiness seriously - don't let silliness or grandstanding suck your time and energy away.

Beautiful nature, good art, the symphony, meditation, thoughtful conversation, serious creativity and exploration of the natural world: these are the things that give me joy. I would rather look at slides of dirt under my microscope for an hour than watch the Great British Baking Show, and I should make that clear to others that these kinds of activities are how I wish to connect. Perhaps by being explicitly clear about how others can connect with me, I won't need to make as many sacrifices figuring out the magic code for how to connect with others.

For a road trip I'm taking in a week, I constructed an elaborate and very detailed itinerary, which was enjoyable and helpful. I think the trip will be excellent, in part because of how thoroughly it was planned. Constructing more minutely detailed plans and making zealously sure to cross the "t"s and dot the "i"s for school will help me step fully away from work and into play at the end of the day.

The same goes for things like decorating my room, moving to a new house, planning meals, and choosing my next book to read. I read this as a call to thoroughly consider the experiences I wish to have and refuse the mediocre opportunities life foists on me. "Not in anger but with dignity" suggests that, while life will eternally push the petty and superficial at me, I need to learn to avoid, refuse, delay, and offer alternatives with grace.

The Mountain at first seems like an imposing image, but in this description, I am striving to be the Superior Man, Heaven. I am struck by the fact that both the Mountain and Heaven can seem magnificent. This is a call also not to expend my inner energy trying to appreciate what I do not fundamentally care for or where I do not want to be. One of my challenges is that in many situations, I deceptively praise or smile about things that I do not really care about. It would be better to have a way to be more honest. Until I figure that out, I need to be sure that I at least keep myself honest. It might be helpful to create a rule for how I will respond when I'm put in a position where I find myself dissembling.

Retreat in this instance is not a desperate flight in disarray, but a conscious choice to distance yourself from forces that would rob you of your peace. It is not a surrender, but a regrouping. Retreat from this conflict is actually an advance toward your own center. You move toward balance, and thus a much stronger position.

This reinforces that pulling away from forces that are distracting or bothering me can be a slow, methodical process that does not involve burning bridges or acting out. It occurs to me that part of the reason I've avoided moving is because I haven't wanted to cut ties with my housemates, even though our diverging priorities are part of the reason I've wanted to move. The productive thing to do would be to figure out a way to move while inviting those of them who'd like to to keep up a connection with me, and offering a way to do that which would be ideal from my point of view.

I am imagining a future self who knows a wide array of things he likes to do, and not only has no qualms but feels assured and joyful in inviting others to participate in them with him. When he does not know activities that work for both people, he talks with them to devise something that mutually exciting. He does not sacrifice his own desires for those of others, and also does not require sacrifice from others to connect with him. Part of that means making no judgments about how other people spend their private free time, and making no apologies for his own decisions.

It means that if I have four hours to spend at play, but do not know exactly what I want to do, I should spend as much of that time as necessary to research and plan, rather than impulsively groping for a mediocre way to fill that time. The planning will pay off in the long run, even though some relaxation will be sacrificed in the short run.

I have to recognize that this vision frightens me, if taken to a point of potency. Underneath, I fear a threat to my relationships, a possibility of failure leading to lack of confidence, or a sense that this I Ching business itself is all grandstanding silliness. I fear that I myself am essentially a mediocre person in work and in play, not the Superior Man. This suggests that to achieve this vision, I will need to embrace the potency of this imagery, and perhaps do some cognitive behavioral therapy to work on my deep self-image.

I feel as though I am comparing my immediate inner experience with the images I hold of others, who have the jobs, incomes, looks, and lives that I have not yet achieved. This kind of comparison strikes me as superficial. I don't need to try and match them or copy them. Instead, I need to adopt a kind of generous optimism: other people's achievements are wonderful, and they arrived there not by accident or by guarantee, but through hard work, a willingness to take risks, intrinsic motivation, and good judgement with every step. If I am going to take steps to better myself in some way, let it be coming from my intrinsic interest or direct needs, not from insecurity.

It would therefore be good to make a deeper examination of my own insecurities, about career, school, and life, and focus on ways to decisively dissolve them this year.

The power of the dark is ascending. The light retreats to security, so that the dark cannot encroach upon it. This retreat is a matter not of man's will but of natural law. Therefore in this case withdrawal is proper; it is the correct way to behave in order not to exhaust one's forces. In the calendar this hexagram is linked with the sixth month (July-August), in which the forces of winter are already showing their influence.

This is a little mysterious to me, as most parts of my life right now are relatively relaxed. My original question is time-limited, concerning only this year: August to August, 2019 to 2020. This fits the season suggested by the reading. What sorts of security should I seek this year in order to avoid an encroaching dark? It does seem to me that at this time of life, you don't get so lucky, and opportunities are fewer and further between. Each day counts.

To me, a place of security means that my house, my daily living habits, my schedule, my coursework, are all carefully arranged to support my path. I am not spending hours into the night in drawn out conversation. I am not impulsively drinking or smoking weed to excess. I am not overspending my money, wasting time or energy, or missing appointments. Each of my decisions should feel like it is clearly contributing to some larger project of mine. No flailing, minimal picking up of balls off the ground. Much more reflection and planning in order to ensure accountability.

THE JUDGEMENT

RETREAT. Success. In what is small, perseverance furthers.

Although this is not an optimistic-feeling reading, I should recall that it has come with many positive images: success, Heaven, the Superior Man. Schooling is a long-term project, and comes with many quarters of progressively learning techniques that will only be applied to real-world work after years of training. It is important to persevere with the small work and the careful acquisition of that technique to ensure I absorb it with excellence. This is a retreat, perhaps, from my own dilettantism, surfing the internet, reading whatever blog or article grabs me. It is a time to buckle down and master a new discipline. Embracing that relationship with learning, working toward true mastery over many years, will lead to happiness and success. It's about letting go of the impossible-to-fulfill need to see results immediately, and seek fulfillment with the process of working through preliminaries.

This is relevant in my relationships and activities as well. It is not a time to think about sweeping changes for their own sake, but to make a careful, critical investigation of daily choices. Creating space even in time spent with other people to "retreat" into my own psyche, regroup, and return ready to change course. Not just letting the time go by, or pushing to keep things going because I fear that a disconnection will somehow prove ruinous.

Conditions are such that the hostile forces favored by the time are advancing. In this case retreat is the right course, and it is through retreat that success is achieved. But success consists in being able to carry out retreat correctly. Retreat is not to be confused with flight. Flight means saving oneself under any circumstances, whereas retreat is a sign of strength. We must be careful not to miss the right moment while we're in full possession of power and position. Then we shall be able to interpret the signs of the time before it is too late and to prepare for provisional retreat instead of being drawn into a desperate life-and-death struggle. Thus we do not simply abandon the field to the opponent; we make it difficult for him to advance by showing perseverance in single acts of resistance. In this way we prepare, while retreating, for the counter- movement. Understanding the laws of a constructive retreat of this sort is not easy. The meaning that lies hidden in such a time is important.

What is difficult here is the word "hostile." Mostly, I have been softening these images to fit them with the people and situations I encounter, which rarely feel genuinely hostile. When I try to imagine what forces in my life could be genuinely hostile, I start by thinking about exploitative companies trying to manipulate me and extort my insecurities, or perhaps of fierce competition with my fellow students for those coveted spots in graduate programs or research projects. I also think about global concerns: politics, environmental destruction, the potential dangers of technological advancement.

My typical attitude toward all these things is humor at my own foibles, a spirit of generous cooperation with my peers, and an emotionally detached intellectualism in the moment as I work toward being able to effect change in the long term. Yet in a sense, these attitudes are simply effective strategies for dealing with these hostile forces. I am also challenged because I do not perceive myself in being impelled toward flight from these hostile forces. After all, I'm staying steady with school and making ever more deliberate decisions about how to spend my time.

Is there some sense in which I am wavering between improper flight and a correct retreat? I am considering taking another 3 classes this autumn, and have worried that such a workload might prove too burdensome. I can take this as a warning that if I feel overloaded, I should respond to that proactively and in a timely fashion, rather than letting the stress build up excessively. Likewise, I should make careful decisions about how I spend my money or navigate relationship changes. To me, it is a suggestion that serious stress may build up over the course of the year, and that I need to manage it very carefully, avoiding old routines of bottling it up, acting out impulsively, or avoidance.

"Single acts of resistance" implies that my stress will probably spread through my life like an invading army, too powerful to be driven off. Yet through tactical guerrilla warfare, I can delay it and strike back through individual, small actions - planning an exciting date night or attending a meditation retreat in the middle of a busy quarter, preparing a delicious dinner when I find myself eating a lot of convenience foods, all while making sure I carefully manage the retreat. This will not be a year of victory and peaceful abundance, but of hard struggle. I need to take esteem from the small daily victories and the management of stress, rather than trying to achieve a true turning of the tides. Other friends are in different situations, closer to achieving professional and personal goals, or having lower aspirations. I should not let their victories make me feel ashamed that I am having a year of careful retreat.

Mountain under heaven: the image of RETREAT. Thus the superior man keeps the inferior man at a distance, Not angrily but with reserve.

The mountain rises up under heaven, but owing to its nature it finally comes to a stop. Heaven on the other hand retreats upward before it into the distance and remains out of reach. This symbolizes the behavior of the superior man toward a climbing inferior; he retreats into his own thoughts as the inferior man comes forward. He does not hate him, for hatred is a form of subjective involvement by which we are bound to the hated object. The superior man shows strength (heaven) in that he brings the inferior man to a standstill (mountain) by his dignified reserve.

I notice that this reading overall comes with two dichotomies: my retreat against hostile forces, and the superior man's reserve toward the climbing inferior. I feel as though I've identified how the former applies, but not the latter. I do not feel as though anyone is "climbing" toward me. I am nobody's superior in any formal sense, and in no gatekeeping position.

Yet it does occur to me that I sometimes conflate dignified reserve with an expression of anger. It is as if I need to pretend to enthusiastically engage with trivialities, because otherwise I fear I will make the other person feel as though I am angry with them. Likewise, I project that feeling of anger onto other people who show reserve toward me. I come from a family in which nobody had much skill in explicitly establishing how they wanted to receive connection from others, and so I found myself, as I grew up, trying to force connection by guesswork, asking questions about the other person's interests, and taking up the other person on all their interests and enthusiasms, even when they didn't match my own. So I feel in that sense as if I am typically the "climber."

This gives me a sense, then, of why I sometimes feel insecure. To become a secure, superior man starts with allowing others their reserve, claiming it for myself with equanimity, and showing others how I wish to be reached rather than leaving it for them to guess.