Living in Season 12 of Our Lives

My digital art @nathanjglass on Instagram

"Existing beyond your narrative" is a concept I've come back to often. What is it? Well, imagine a TV series that you loved. Season one was exhilarating. Everything was fresh. In season two some new characters came in and changed the dynamics. The familiarity you had, allowed the writers to dance with your expectations. In season three things reached a climax. Character arcs came to their devastating or satisfying ends. Your investment in these characters and the broader world they existed in had paid off.

Then, season four. Now that's where it started to get... tricky. Things no longer felt the same. It was the same characters you loved in the same world yet... something was off. It became an uncanny valley viewing experience. So what went wrong? In my view, it's that the characters no longer had a reason to be there.

In the modern age, there's an incentive for a TV series to keep going. If a network or streaming platform has a hit on their hands they milk it. To them, it's more profitable to have eight seasons of a show even if the last few seasons are pointless. Dwindling numbers of viewers are still viewers after all.

There is a more sinister way in which this concept manifests though — in real life.

Nodus Tollens

n. The realisation that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

Many people experience this. It's a dark place to be; marooned on a decaying planet of potential. One of the most obvious examples is staying in a particular job too long. Another is not leaving a relationship that you know is dead on its feet. During these times we "exist beyond the narrative" of the relationship or job or our place within them. Outstaying your welcome is one thing, but outstaying your purpose is another thing entirely.

Like so many things in life, it's about timing. Knowing when to leave or move on is an art form — often overlooked, rarely mastered.

---

Want free access to all my paid articles?

Refer 3 friends to sign up to my blog to get one month access to all my paid posts. Sign up 5, you’ll get 3 months. Sign up 15 and you’ll get half a year’s worth of full access. By doing so, you help the blog and you get more articles.