The Decay I Inherited: My Hexagram 18 Practice Log
You asked about Hexagram 18, the one they call Gǔ, or “Corruption.” Man, I lived that hexagram for two straight years. It’s not some fluffy concept. It’s about a mess you didn’t make, but you’re the one who has to clean up—or watch everything turn to dust.
I didn’t start my practice by reading old books or casting coins. I started it with a sledgehammer. My “ancient inheritance” wasn’t some mystical heirloom; it was a rotting, mid-century shingle house my uncle left behind. I decided to fix it up. That was my first mistake.
I ripped out the kitchen thinking it was going to be an easy two-weekend job. I pulled at one plaster panel and the whole damn wall collapsed. Behind it wasn’t structure; it was a decades-old water damage nightmare. Mold like you wouldn’t believe. Termite trails. The beams weren’t just weakened; they were mush. The original foundation work was pure garbage—the kind of cut corners that were legal back in the fifties but are a structural sin now.
This wasn’t just a repair job. This was a deep, existential reckoning with the shoddy work of the past. That’s what Hexagram 18 is, right? It’s the rot that festers because nobody before you bothered to deal with it. You look at the mess, and you think: How did they let it get this bad?
I started learning the I Ching because I was trying to figure out why the hell I was doing this back-breaking work in the first place. I had a good job, a six-figure salary, and a downtown apartment. I should have hired someone and moved on with my life.
I’ll tell you why I was swinging a hammer instead of a golf club. It’s the same messed-up logic that creates the hexagram in the first place. The corruption wasn’t just in the house; it was in me.
Two years before the house, I was running a consulting firm. It was a pressure cooker—high profit, zero soul. I was drinking too much, sleeping three hours a night, and lying to my family about my stress levels. One Tuesday, I had a massive panic attack in the middle of a board meeting. Just seized up, shaking, couldn’t breathe. It was the first time I realized the whole damn foundation of my “successful life” was rotten.
I went home that day and walked out. Just quit. Didn’t give two weeks notice. Didn’t care about the stock options. My friends thought I’d gone crazy. I needed to escape the environment I’d corrupted myself in, but I couldn’t just sit still. I needed to do something that hurt, something that was real.
So, I drove up to that old, crappy house, and when I saw the water stain on the ceiling, I knew—this was my project. This was my personal Gǔ. I had to fix the literal corruption to fix the personal one.
The Six Stages of My Gǔ Practice
I started reading about the hexagram lines while I was covered in insulation dust, trying to match them to the renovation process. It was crude, but it worked.
- Line 1 (Dealing with the Father’s Corruption): I identified the source of the rot—the leaky roof flashing and the terrible old plumbing from the previous generation. This is when you realize the problem is old and deep.
- Line 2 (Dealing with the Mother’s Corruption): This was the messy, sentimental stuff. My aunt’s old furniture, piles of junk I couldn’t throw out but knew I had to. Clearing the emotional clutter that was enabling the decay. I had to be strong, not gentle.
- Line 3 (Slight Danger, Slight Success): I tried to fix the electrical wiring myself. Almost burned the house down. It’s the moment you realize you can’t tackle everything alone, and sometimes, trying to fix a big mess quickly just makes a bigger mess. I had to call a pro.
- Line 4 (Tolerance of Corruption): This was the long, grinding middle part. I sanded floorboards for five weeks straight. It’s the patience required when you know the rot is still there, but you’re slowly covering it up with solid, new work. It’s non-action that isn’t laziness—it’s acceptance of the long process.
- Line 5 (Glory in Reforming the Father’s Corruption): Pouring the new concrete foundation. Finally fixing the structural root of the problem. This was the success part. The house wasn’t just repaired; it was stronger than it had ever been.
- Line 6 (Working on the Corruption but not serving Kings and Princes): I finally finished the job. I sold the house—didn’t move back in. I didn’t profit hugely, and I didn’t use the experience to jump back into the corporate rat race. The point wasn’t status; the point was the work itself.
It was the only meaningful thing I had done in years. The house is a solid, beautiful building now, fixed by my own hands and my own stubbornness. And I’m fine now, working a low-stress trade job, building real things that don’t decay into a mess of lies and burnout. The old life, the one I had corrupted, is still out there, chasing the next big deal, but I finally got away from it. That’s the real meaning of fixing the hexagram—you don’t just patch the leak; you make sure you never need to patch that hole again.
