Hexagram 32.4 — Duration (Fourth Line)

Original Text & Translation

「田无禽。」 — Hunting in a field where there is no game.

The image is stark and immediate: a hunter who returns to the same empty field day after day, perfecting technique but catching nothing. The problem is not skill, dedication, or method — it is location. The field itself is barren. No amount of perseverance will conjure prey where none exists. The text does not offer consolation; it offers clarity. You are expending energy in a domain that cannot reciprocate.

Core Meaning

The fourth line occupies the lower position of the upper trigram — a place of transition between inner resolve and outer engagement. In Duration, this position asks whether your sustained effort is aligned with actual opportunity. Line four reveals the danger of confusing motion with progress, of mistaking routine for productivity.

This line often appears when you have invested heavily — emotionally, financially, temporally — in a direction that once seemed promising but has since proven unresponsive. The sunk cost fallacy whispers "just a little longer." The fourth line counters: "No. The field is empty. Move." It is not failure to redirect; it is wisdom. The virtue of Duration is constancy in purpose, not in location. When the ground cannot support your goal, loyalty to the goal demands you find new ground.

Symbolism & Imagery

Thunder over wind forms Duration — movement that repeats, patterns that endure. But the fourth line introduces a paradox: what happens when enduring patterns meet barren conditions? The hunter's ritual is flawless, the rhythm unbroken, yet the yield is zero. This is the image of beautiful systems running in a vacuum, of well-maintained machinery producing nothing because the input stream has dried up.

The symbolism also touches on identity. We become attached to our roles — "I am the one who does X" — and the role itself becomes the reward, independent of outcome. The hunter hunts because that is what hunters do, even when the forest is silent. The fourth line asks: are you serving your purpose, or are you serving your self-image? True duration adapts its expression to remain faithful to its essence.

Action Guidance

Career & Business

• Audit your pipelines: which efforts are generating leads, traction, or learning? Which are consuming resources with no signal of return? Be ruthlessly empirical.
• Distinguish loyalty from inertia: staying in a role, market, or partnership out of habit or guilt is not integrity. Integrity means aligning action with purpose, even when that requires change.
• Run a "stop doing" review: list activities you've repeated for months. For each, ask: what evidence exists that this will ever yield results? If the answer is "hope" or "I've already invested so much," that is your signal.
• Redirect, don't abandon: the skills, discipline, and networks you've built are transferable. The question is not whether to quit effort, but where to re-aim it.
• Test new fields small: before fully pivoting, run small experiments in adjacent domains. Look for early signs of responsiveness — interest, feedback, traction.

Love & Relationships

• Recognize emotional unavailability: if you have been consistent, open, and invested, but the other person remains distant, vague, or non-reciprocal, the field may be empty. Constancy cannot create what is not there.
• Examine your "why": are you staying because the relationship nourishes you, or because leaving feels like admitting defeat? Duration in love means sustained mutual growth, not one-sided endurance.
• Communicate clearly, then decide: name what you need. If the response is deflection, delay, or silence, you have your answer. Do not hunt where there is no game.
• Honor what was: redirecting energy does not erase the value of what you built. It simply acknowledges that the season has changed.

Health & Inner Work

• Evaluate your protocols: if a training program, diet, or therapeutic approach has shown zero progress after months of faithful adherence, it may not be the right fit for your biology or psychology. Consistency is necessary but not sufficient.
• Seek second opinions: consult practitioners with different frameworks. Sometimes the "empty field" is a misdiagnosis or a method mismatched to your context.
• Distinguish discipline from rigidity: inner work requires both structure and responsiveness. If your practice has become rote, joyless, and unproductive, it may need evolution, not just repetition.
• Redirect toward vitality: notice what activities, environments, or relationships actually restore you. Move your sustained attention there.

Finance & Strategy

• Cut losing positions: if an investment thesis has been invalidated by data, exit. "Holding for the long term" is wise only when fundamentals remain intact.
• Review allocation: are you pouring capital into sectors, assets, or strategies that have structurally shifted? Rebalance toward opportunity, not nostalgia.
• Avoid averaging down blindly: adding to a position just because it has fallen is hunting in an empty field unless new information justifies renewed conviction.
• Harvest lessons, not losses: every empty field teaches you to read terrain better. Document what you learned, then move to fertile ground.

Timing, Signals, and Readiness

How do you know when to stop hunting the empty field? Look for these convergent signals: (1) sustained effort over a meaningful period (months, not days) has produced no measurable progress; (2) external conditions have shifted in ways that structurally undermine your approach; (3) you feel depletion rather than invigoration, even when executing well; and (4) alternative paths show early signs of responsiveness that your current path never did.

The fourth line does not demand instant abandonment. It asks for honest reckoning. If three to six months of disciplined action in a new direction yields nothing — no traction, no learning, no relationships, no data — that is your cue. Do not wait for certainty; wait for signal. When the field is empty, the signal is silence.

When This Line Moves

A moving fourth line in Duration typically signals that your period of misdirected constancy is ending, and a new phase of strategic reorientation is beginning. The transformation hexagram (determined by your casting method) will show the character of the new field — what becomes possible when you redirect your disciplined energy toward responsive ground.

Practical takeaway: do not interpret this line as a call to abandon persistence itself. The lesson is discerning persistence. Your capacity for sustained effort is a strength; the fourth line simply asks you to deploy it where it can compound. Moving from an empty field to a fertile one is not inconstancy — it is strategic constancy, loyalty to outcome rather than to inertia.

Concise Summary

Hexagram 32.4 is the oracle's intervention against noble futility. It honors your discipline while exposing the barrenness of your current field. "Hunting where there is no game" is not a moral failure; it is a strategic error. The line calls you to reassess, to distinguish loyalty from stubbornness, and to redirect your enduring effort toward ground that can actually yield. Duration is a virtue when it serves growth. When it serves only habit, it becomes a cage. Move to where the game is.