Stick No. 38
陶淵明辭官歸隱
Asking about The whole situation · one of the deck's middle-positive grade signs
The short answer
The figure behind this stick is Tao Yuanming setting down the official seal and sailing home to a small cottage, a south window, and a stroll through the hills.
Reviewed 2026-06-08
Full readingQuitting his busy office, leisurely sailed the poet home, Through not spacious, his little cottage pleased him well.
Often he relished poetry and wine by the south window; For the beauty of the mountains he'd go for a lazy stroll.
Tao Yuanming was a 4th-century Chinese poet who walked away from a promising government career to live as a simple farmer. Picture this: a man in his thirties, frustrated with the corruption and politics of court life, literally throws down his official seal and goes home to plant beans. He became dirt poor but wrote some of China's most beloved poetry about finding joy in simple things — drinking wine, watching clouds, talking to his chickens.
His essay "Going Home" is still taught in schools today. For centuries, Chinese people have seen him as the ultimate example of choosing authenticity over status. When you're burned out from chasing success, Tao Yuanming reminds you there's another way to live.
The figure behind this stick is Tao Yuanming setting down the official seal and sailing home to a small cottage, a south window, and a stroll through the hills. The verse does not call this a defeat. It calls it leisure, pleasure, a thatched roof that pleases him well. When this stick comes up for a general life question, it is reflecting back something you already suspect: the version of your life that looks impressive from the outside has started to feel narrow from the inside, and a quieter shape is pulling at you.
Notice that the grade is Moderately Good, not Great Auspicious. The stick is not promising that walking away will solve everything, and it is not pushing you to burn anything down this week. It is showing you that there is honour in scaling back, in choosing the smaller cottage over the bigger title, in measuring your days by poetry and wine at the south window rather than by the next rung. Tao Yuanming was poor after he left. He was also, by every account that survived, more himself.
The mirror question this stick holds up is simple. What in your current life is climbing for the sake of climbing, and what would still matter to you if no one were watching the score?
Sit with the verse for a few minutes before doing anything. Write down the parts of your week that genuinely please you and the parts you are only enduring for status or momentum; be honest about which list is longer. Pick one obligation this month that you can quietly release, even a small one, and see how the space feels.
Protect a south-window hour somewhere in your week for something unproductive you actually love. The stick is not asking you to quit your life, only to stop confusing busyness with worth.
