Hexagram 56: 旅

You're in temporary position. The contractor, not the permanent hire. The consultant passing through the system without a permanent desk. The classical text's advice: maintain inner dignity, avoid trivial entanglements, don't mistake temporary position for permanent belonging. The wanderer who forgets this ends badly. Line six: the bird's nest burns up, the wanderer loses his resources. The stability was always illusory. But there's a reading the traditional text doesn't quite reach. Roy Batty demonstrates it in the final scene. The wanderer who fully accepts transience achieves something the settled person never can: perfect clarity about what matters. He's seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. These moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. He knows this. The knowledge doesn't diminish the seeing—it intensifies it. Four years of life, fully lived, knowing the limit. This produces a different quality of attention than unlimited time would. The person who thinks they have forever dilutes their presence. The person who knows exactly when the clock runs out sharpens every moment. The text says: success through smallness. Roy's final act—saving Deckard after Deckard tried to kill him—is small. One person saved. One moment of mercy. But it's the perfect action for someone who has four years and knows it. Not building empires. Not securing legacy. Just doing the right thing in this specific moment because this moment is all you actually have. You're passing through. Act accordingly. That doesn't mean act small. It means act clear. Don't build elaborate scaffolding for a structure you won't finish. Don't entangle yourself in conflicts that outlast your tenure. Don't mistake the temporary platform for the permanent ground. But also: don't waste the time by treating it as meaningless. The wanderer's position is precarious, but it's not worthless. You see things the settled people don't see. You move through spaces they never enter. Use that. The fire on the mountain doesn't root, but while it burns, it illuminates. Four years. Or four months. Or four decades. All temporary. Act from that knowledge. See what the settled people miss. Then move on to new fuel.