{"id":1920,"date":"2010-01-19T18:15:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T02:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2010-01-19T18:17:58","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T02:17:58","slug":"revision-work-on-what-has-been-spoiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/19\/revision-work-on-what-has-been-spoiled\/","title":{"rendered":"Revision: “Work on What Has Been Spoiled”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s raining like a mofo here in California this week. I love the winter rains, I like how every little spot of the landscape gets watered. It reminds me of the hylozoic Zen koan:<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cDoes a stone have a soul?\u201d\u009d
\nA: \u201cThe universal rain moistens all creatures.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absurd how the news-media always try and put a disaster-and-crisis-and-watch-your-television slant on some a healthful and revivifying natural process that is in no sense a harsh surprise. But why even worry about them? The rain is right here, right outside, right now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was busy revising Jim and the Flims <\/em>over the last couple of months, and now I\u2019m ready for the final scramble to the peak.<\/p>\n

Revising a book, I\u2019m always anxious that it will be somehow unfixable. But it is always fixable, if I keep an open mind. When revising a book, I often I think of the I Ching <\/em>hexagram number #18, a figure of six lines, some solid some broken, which looks like this.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This hexagram is Ku \/ Work on What Has Been Spoiled [Decay] <\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s composed of two three-line patterns called trigrams . The upper trigram is K\u00c3\u00aan \/ Keeping Still, Mountain<\/em>, and the lower trigram is Sun \/ The Gentle, Wind<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I like that phrase, \u201cWork on What Has Been Spoiled.\u201d\u009d \u201cSpoiled\u201d\u009d might suggest the notion of someone interfering with your work, but you don\u2019t have to take it that way. Things can spoil by sitting around and beginning to rot. Or a spontaneous gesture might be spoiled by a slip or a loss of attention during the execution. The point is that you can fix it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll paste in some of the analysis of this hexagram from an online copy <\/a>of the classic Richard Wilhelm translation of the I Ching<\/em>, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes (Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, 1950).<\/p>\n

The Chinese character ku <\/em>represents a bowl in whose contents worms are breeding. This means decay. It is come about because the gentle indifference in the lower trigram has come together with the rigid inertia of the upper, and the result is stagnation. Since this implies guilt, the conditions embody a demand for removal of the cause. Hence the meaning of the hexagram is not simply “what has been spoiled” but “work on what has been spoiled”. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

WORK ON WHAT HAS BEEN SPOILED
\n\tHas supreme success.
\n\tIt furthers one to cross the great water.
\n\tBefore the starting point, three days.
\n\tAfter the starting point, three days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work. … Work toward improving conditions promises well, because it accords the possibilities of the time. … We must not recoil from work and danger\u2014symbolized by crossing of the great water\u2014but must take hold energetically. Success depends, however, on proper deliberation. … Decisiveness and energy must take the place of inertia and indifference that have led to decay, in order that the ending may be followed by a new beginning. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Write on, aided by the secret machineries of the night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s raining like a mofo here in California this week. I love the winter rains, I like how every little spot of the landscape gets watered. It reminds me of the hylozoic Zen koan: Q: \u201cDoes a stone have a soul?\u201d\u009d A: \u201cThe universal rain moistens all creatures. It\u2019s absurd how the news-media always try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}