Role Model / Hermit

The 6/2 profile (Role Model / Hermit) is one of the twelve profiles of Human Design, a modern esoteric system originated in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu and presented here as a contemporary framework rather than ancient wisdom. A profile is formed from two of the six lines, a scheme the system borrows from the six lines of an I Ching hexagram and reads psychologically: the profile pairs a conscious line with an unconscious one to give an archetypal role. The 6/2 profile joins the roles named Role Model / Hermit. The line names and their meanings are Human Design's own twentieth-century reading, not a claim inherited from the Chinese classic whose six-line figures suggested the structure; they are described here as the system presents them, not as verified fact.

Human Design describes the sixth line, Role Model, as living a distinctive three part life, active through roughly the first thirty years, withdrawn into a more detached, observational phase often called being on the roof through about fifty, and only afterward settling into the line's objective, lived wisdom; the second line, Hermit, is described as carrying a natural talent that is largely hidden from the person themselves and needs solitude, called out only by others. The 6/2 profile combines the two: within the system's own account, the sixth line's own observational, roof bound phase and the second line's need for retreat are held to reinforce one another, making this one of the profiles the system describes as needing the most private time before any public role model authority is recognised.

This profile pairs the sixth and second line positions of a hexagram, and both carry settled readings in classical Yijing commentary that are quite unlike the role names Human Design gives them.

What the commentaries say

The sixth line is the top of the figure, above the ruling position, and is commonly read as excess, as withdrawal, or as a situation that has passed its proper conclusion. The second line is the centre of the lower trigram, and centrality is the strongest favourable marker in the tradition, so it is generally read as well placed.

Both are readings of positions in a described situation. Nothing in the commentarial tradition uses them to sort people into kinds.

The modern layer

Human Design gives each of the six lines a role name and reads a profile as a personality made of two of them. Those names and that reading are Ra Uru Hu's, published in 1987, and are not translations of the material above.

The pairing rule

Human Design uses twelve of the thirty ordered pairs of distinct lines: the six separated by three positions, which coincide with the Yijing's correspondences between lines one and four, two and five, three and six, and the six separated by two, which have no counterpart there. This pair belongs to the second set.