16. Yù 豫

The finale: freedom darkens, losing its link with reality. The movement still goes on by inertia — there will be excess in the becoming — but what feeds it is no longer a living matter, rather detached constructions: schemes, fantasies, mental structures in the place of practice. No misfortune will come of it, and the reason is not that the position is good but that the situation is exhausted in a natural way and is already flowing into the next. The fading here is a form of completion, not a catastrophe.

The position lies above the main impulse — and that is already excess. The steadfastness the sign valued on the second step is overheld here: deprived of flexibility, it turns into a source of an ailing condition, into unfreedom instead of support. A complete collapse still will not happen — the centrality of the position saves it: what is constant in a person does not die, the core survives. But the condition itself is precisely an ailing one. A strength that cannot let go begins to destroy the one who carries it.

The main line of the sign: freedom finally comes out — and comes out from prepared ground, from stored-up quiet and tested steadfastness. All the forces of the situation group around this impulse; allies and friends gather of themselves, without being summoned. The largest thing is available — that very possession of the great — and doubts are out of place now, not out of bravado: an uncertain centre is the one thing able to upset a movement that has already come together. Whoever has become the axle is obliged to hold their confidence.

The crisis of the passage from quiet to action. Freedom is already so close that it blocks out everything else, including the need for self-limitation: a person stares at the coming liberty as at a shop window and misses the moment. Hence two regrets one after another — for the staring itself and for the delay that grew out of it. The logic of the step is simple: everything around is already moving, and any hold-up means falling behind. The reckoning for it comes not from fate but from the calendar.

The inner support of the whole sign: amid the general excitement, a concentrated stillness. A motionless observer sees movement more exactly than those moving, because the perspective is not distorted by their own running. Truth is grasped instantly here, and there is no need to wait until the end of the day — the decision ripens before the situation takes shape for everyone else, and foresight becomes ordinary sight. The firmness of this step is harder than stone, but it is the firmness of clarity, not of obstinacy. Such steadfastness leads straight to good fortune.

A weak beginning: there is not yet strength of one's own for independent action, and a person merely echoes the freedom of others — picking up someone else's upsurge, building nothing within. The step's verdict is severe: misfortune. The trouble is not the modest place — little is demanded from the lowest position — but the substitution: instead of work on oneself there sounds an echo of other voices, and self-cultivation is replaced by agreeing with leaders. Dependence presented as participation leads to nothing good in this situation.