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55 The Lie

hexagram-55-lie‘TRUTH FLUTTERS ON the mountain in the winds of change: all that matters is the pole,
and the flag where it’s tight at the pole.’

To secure the one remaining slice of pie you say there’s a grub in it; then
the inconvenient irony wriggles its little white finger, rejoicing in your
double bind. All this is child’s play. Ruthless anti-social climbers, tracking
deceptions one by one in chains of ever more improbable logic, look back
nostalgically to days of innocent thieving in the orchard of values.

1st – The Cretan Lie
In the mountains there’s a tax on affluence – in the labyrinth of dirt tracks
strewn with rocks, an uninsurable massacre of alimentary undersides by –
frankly – a fat-arse jellyfish. Presented with the bill, he remembers those
knocks and lurches. Sacrifice to the Minotaur silences the call to combat.

2nd – The Lie of Abbreviated Truth
Some send a doppelgänger to the valley church while talking to God on
the mountain. Others rely on mental reservation: ‘I have never studied
abroad and that’s the truth,’ they say, adding inwardly: ‘… for the purpose
of self-preservation.’ Their fight against the barbarous heart lives on.

3rd – The Lie of the Third Reason
Only dullards aver that character is mountainous – it can drift like a delta
in the course of one long rambling sentence. ‘Besides’ is a prelude to the
coda of confession, the lie exhibited, disarming the sword of fate – like a
plagiarism foiled by involuntary clues dropped for all the world to see.

4th – The Punitive Lie
Then there’s the lie within the carrier lie, the double poison: ‘I told the
solicitor your maths isn’t up to their homework.’ In the punitive marriage
truth is withheld like cash, light or food – even a quick-start breakfast.
Defend your precious freedoms; sharpen your knife on the mountain.

5th – The Lie against Science
Drug mules who lose the stash end up at the mountain’s foot – he’d
read this but failed to see the connection. The particle scientist’s crime
was believing in a body the equal of his brain: a lingerie model, Russian.
Nobel laureates cite him still in their papers – the genius of tenure!

6th – The Lie Discovered
The estate is a maze with ears behind every hedge, and the watchful
peacock’s scream penetrates as far as the Carlton Club. Don’t assume
your dalliance with the mountain girl was fire-walled by box and beech:
there was a commoner within earshot, fussily re-roofing the duck house.

All six – The Lie Concealed
A mountain of a man in a corduroy suit, wobbling, sweating, eyes darting
every which way, even so he outwits the polygraph. A philosopher’s
innocence, inhabited like armour, flatlines, dead to emotional pressures –
a tour de force of an acting style a million miles from the method.


Introduction to Six-Way Mirror | The Index of Hexagrams and Cantos

 

 

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