Small resolved computer problem - example of 1.1.3.4.5 > 4

[Liselle]

This is pretty mundane, but it's a finished example, and afterwards I had some idea of what every line meant, so thought it might be worth sharing.

I wanted to attach a JPEG to an email. The attaching process would proceed until about the two-thirds point, and then it would stop and just sit there until (eventually) an error message would appear saying "Attachment failed. Retry | Help".

Tried it several times with the same result. The JPEG would open just fine in Windows Photo Viewer, so I didn't think the file was corrupted. Nonetheless, I deleted the JPEG and recreated it. Still wouldn't attach to the email.

Question: How can I get this JPEG to attach to my email?!
Answer: 1.3.4.5 > 4​

I had no idea what to make of this. How am I using "Force"? The file was only 192 KB; I was definitely not trying to "force" something huge upon the poor email service. What am I doing that might be "Ignorant"? I've attached many JPEGs to emails in recent weeks. I think I know how, lol.

I sort of got that 1.3 was saying "keep trying" - but I'd done already done that, repeatedly. And I sort of took 1.5 to mean that I'd eventually figure it out?

At least the reading was encouraging. It didn't say the endeavor was doomed to failure. Hex 18 wasn't there, as it might have been if the file (despite appearances) really was corrupted. It also wasn't telling me to just wait a while (hex 5, for example).

Maybe hex 4 meant "Learning"? Clicked on "Help" in the error message, which - completely unhelpfully - told me to make sure my browser is the latest version (it is) or to use another browser entirely rolleyes, or to disable my "proxy" confused.
Tried once more - and - it worked! :claps:

Here's what I think the reading meant. Kind of a "story."

Primary hexagram 1, The Creative - in this case, not telling me to be creative, but simply the act of creating something.

Relating hexagram 4 - a background of "Not Knowing" (what was going on).

1.1 - Something, somewhere in cyberspace, was "asleep."

1.3 - Keep trying (and trying, and trying...)

1.4 - something, somewhere in cyberspace, had to make a "transition" to get to the other side of some sort of electronic "abyss."

1.5 - it will eventually work (quoting Hilary's book, "The dragon [my attachment] is in full flight..." [...] "Now the whole creative force is available...to lend direction to the power available, and to realize it on the ground in real, human ways."

 

[hilary]

Nice!

I thought I'd stop reading part way through and try to guess the solution. 1 changing to 4, pouring great creative force into hexagram 4, what would that look like...? Surely just trying again and again?

 

[Liselle]

1 changing to 4, pouring great creative force into hexagram 4, what would that look like...? Surely just trying again and again?

Hilary, thank you for commenting! Maybe this isn't the cut-and-dried example I thought it was...

Looking at it as you say, great creative force might not be a good thing, or productive. When you don't know what's going on, obsessive hammering might not help. But the lines that went along with 1 > 4 in this case seemed explanatory (1 and 4) and encouraging (5).

Or so I thought. Clearly I had the patience of a gnat with this. Common sense should have told me to just give it some time...it's the Internet...there are glitches. So I can see how 1.5 might be saying Use your head! Or as you put it in your book, "...it's all the more important to see great people, whether with inner or outer vision...". Inner vision. Right.

Lines 3 and 4 just say, "No mistake." They don't actually promise success from hex 1 activity. The attachment eventually attached, but it was because the electronic "dancing" got into step on its own, not because of anything I did. The busy-ness in line 3 wasn't necessary, but also not really a "mistake," per se...I felt I was doing something instead of just stewing (for whatever that's worth, lol), and I caught it sooner rather than later after it fixed itself. I hung over my own abyss (having an unfinished email) for the minimum amount of time. (I'll probably take that one, although learning to relax about such things would also be nice .)

And line 1 - literally says not to act. "Until the dragon wakes in spring [by itself; it can't be 'forced'] and flies out over the fields bringing rain, there can be no useful action" (your book).

 

[sooo]

Hi Lisa,

I don't want to assume your computer knowledge is, um, lacking (4), but there are any number of reasons why your machine wouldn't complete the process. I don't know what email system you're using, what space is left on your hard drive, what your connectivity to the net looks like, CPU, cache, or how old and worn your machine is - believe me, they do get old and tired and start to malfunction (ask how I know this ) IE, if you're using a Wi Fi connection, even if the Wi Fi is connected it could still malfunction, that alone could stall out with too much total work put to it. Also, if your RAM is inadequate. as in running other programs, including those in the background, that could eat up your available "power" or space. I don't know what kind of maintenance programs you regularly run on it, such as disk cleanup or defrag. Any or all of those things can use up your computer's resources, be they large or small. Granted, it doesn't take much to send such a small attachment, but I've seen machines so cramped, it's amazing they worked at all.

So my guess is that it was a possible lack of knowledge on your part that caused the computer's power or resources to bog down, but I'm only surmising this interpretation. Perhaps you can fill in the blanks on some of those matters.

 

[Liselle]

Sooo,

All very good points! And if it had been three months ago, even moreso. I had to replace my laptop then for just those reasons - it had run out of every imaginable sort of space, particularly storage.

The hard drive on this new laptop is less than half full, after transferring the entire contents of the old hard drive. It has more RAM, a better CPU, etc. I bought it used, so none of those things are orders of magnitude better, but still, more room for doing the same things. I haven't installed a bunch of new programs; I'm not trying to run greedier software, etc. (Well, it has Windows 7 instead of XP, but not other than that.)

The other good news is that I bought it from a used computer store, so it got a nice overhaul. Cleaned, checked out, everything freshly installed, and so forth.

Having said that, it is still a several-years-old model, and it's still a computer, so I'll keep an eye out. But it's been running perfectly since November. MUCH better than the old one had been running.

Am curious how you got this interpretation. You changed your signature, but don't you use an unconventional method? Would you mind walking me through it a bit? Or is it just that "lack of knowledge" (hex 4), might keep me from recognizing my system's lack of "power" (hex 1)?

(I suspect I know how you know. The same way a lot of us learn things about our computers uch:.)

 

[Liselle]

(But in the end, Sooo, I really think the problem was just an odd, one-time communications glitch with Gmail PLUS my ridiculous outburst of impatience . Today I attached more screenshots with no problem at all.)

 

[sooo]

Or is it just that "lack of knowledge" (hex 4), might keep me from recognizing my system's lack of "power" (hex 1)?

Essentially, yup.

I think my IC method is pretty conventional, at least as far as I know.

My signature is my ultimate take on h54, in a somewhat Buddhist way.

And yup, I'm not a computer expert for sure, just what I have learned through experience.

Anyway, glad it was just a glitch and not a serious computer problem.

 

[Liselle]

I think my IC method is pretty conventional, at least as far as I know.

Oh dear heavens, do you know what I did? I confused you and Pocossin. He is the one who links to his method in his signature.

Vast apologies to both of you.

:bag:

 

[sooo]

Aw, it's ok.

 

[hilary]

Hilary, thank you for commenting! Maybe this isn't the cut-and-dried example I thought it was...

No, I was pretty much agreeing with you, or at least that's what I was trying to do. You had, after all, been trying repeatedly, and you tried again, and it worked. I'd expect the lines to show the pros and cons of 'putting lots of energy into not knowing (but asking)'; I agree it sounds as though patience is a good place to start.

Personally, I like the 'reboot everything and see' approach, followed swiftly by the 'call for husband' method.

 

[Liselle]

It's so easy to second-guess readings, lol. Thank you, Hilary.

 

[JoeCampbell]

Wonder how to interpret this if....

I consulted this reading as it matched one of my own but where I used the Alfred Huang "4 chaning lines, read only the upper of the non-changing lines" - which in this case has the overweaning dragon experiencing regret!
What a very different feel to the one you actually experienced by repeated trying....
This causes me some confusion - it seems that by reading the lines the result is a "positive" one - but by following advice like the Huang method, the result is "negative" - at least that's how it pans out in my case.
Either way, thank you for your story - it's a good one

regards

 

[Liselle]

Hi JoeCampbell,

Thank you for posting that. Simplification rules for interpreting multiple moving lines are controversial, and I only use them in a couple of situations (when five lines are moving, I read the non-moving line, and when all six lines are moving I read the relating hexagram), and I'm not completely sure I should do even that. But it's interesting to see how different methods compare when the outcome is known.

If I had used Huang's rule for this example, and looked at only 1.6, I might have thought at first that it was telling me I was trying to do too much. That wouldn't have made much sense, since there was no logical reason why I shouldn't be able to easily attach a 192 KB file to an email.

An angle that makes more sense is seeing 1.6 as meaning there's no point in trying to force it, which was perfectly true. There was nothing I could do to fix it or force the attachment through; I had to just wait until whatever was wrong on the internet fixed itself.

From that angle, line 6 is a perfectly correct reading. Less information (one line vs. four), but a clear and direct point.

In this case, I was happy to have the information from all four lines (chiefly because I understood them, unlike many many other readings which I don't understand, haha).

So, what could this tell us about the simplification rules? It might be interesting to look at other multiple moving line readings where the outcome is known.

As good fortune would have it , Hilary wrote an in-depth article about interpreting multiple moving lines, in which she worked through a reading on the subject using several methods:

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/consult/mml.php

In one section, she listed three sets of rules for limiting the number of moving lines - Huang's, and two others:

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/consult/mml.php#limit

As JoeCampbell said, Huang's rule for four moving lines tells us to read the "upper of the two unmoving lines" - line 1.6, in my computer example.

Chu Hsi's rule says, "go over to the second hexagram and take the lowermost of the two lines that have not changed from the first hexagram." In this case, if I'm doing it right, that would be 4.2:

‘Embracing the ignoramus, good fortune.
Receiving the woman, good fortune.
The child governs the home.’

That also seems to be good advice - embrace not knowing what the problem is (since it's out of my control anyway), be receptive rather than forceful, let the rambunctious child (the internet) have its way for a bit.

(I'm skipping the third method, the Nanjing rules, since they are apparently complicated and I'm getting tired.)

Since both 1.6 and 4.2 seem to be relevant advice from two different methods, how do they differ? 4.2 seems to be less direct than 1.6, more psychological maybe (?), maybe (fittingly?) more how to relate to the situation? I felt a bit yelled-at with 1.6, whereas 4.2 is more sunny. I don't know. This is only one example. But maybe I'll keep the rules handy, and try them out with other readings.

 

[Liselle]

JoeCampbell, would you be willing to tell us more about your reading (background, question), and maybe we can try to figure it out? If it's something you could share publicly?