The Fellowship of The Unbelonging
*(I was going to share a different post but this is the one I landed on following an unexpected, life giving conversation. Next time we’ll acknowledge and face the capitalist logic we live in. Because we need to get around to that someday.)
You are not Alone in the Restlessness
One of the delightful byproducts of starting this substack is the behind the scenes conversations it has given me privy to. Henkrik Karlsson over at Escaping Flatland calls a blog post ‘a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox.’ I love this. I knew it to be true before I started writing here because on a different platform, at a different time, blogging catalysed for me connections and conversations with a wonderfully diverse catalogue of people from around the world. People I cannot imagine I would have met in any other way wandered into my corner of the Internet and just like that we made a connection. Some of those strangers went on to become firm friends. I even took on and successfully executed substantial brick and mortar projects with a few of them. It was the best of times. An enriching, expansive experience.
And I’m beginning to experience it again. On park benches, across coffee tables, on the telephone, in direct messages, via email, I’m hearing about the textured lives that you are weaving with care and a quiet determination. It warms my heart how many of us in our forties, fifties and sixties are quietly carving out unconventional paths, refusing to pack up our toolboxes and ride into the sunset just yet. Determined instead to engage with all of our faculties in this business of living. Of being alive. We’re in vastly different places, but we are propelled by the same spirit and same sense of purpose and desire to continue to contribute meaningfully.
Some of us are stepping off the bus because we’re not sure we want to go where it’s going any more. We used to want to, we might yet want to again in the future, but right now, we’re off the bus and studying the map. Others of us who have been off the bus, who stepped away in the service of other commitments, are now ready to get back on and go on a new adventure. Still others remain steady in place, vision renewed and heart awakened. All of us have a strong sense that where we choose to go next is important. That shuffling mindlessly forward with the crowd will not do. We are not a monolith, obviously. We’re asking the same questions, but our answers and our paths will vary. Still. We all sense that we are in the process of fully coming into our own. We’re confidently poised for next.
I love these conversations and how full of possibility and hope and grounded in wisdom they are.
And mostly I’m writing this post today to let you know that you are not alone. We can’t rush our timelines: our stories unfold in time and space, each in their way and at their pace. But we can take comfort in the knowledge that we are not alone in embarking on such a journey: others are on the pilgrimage too.
The Restlessness Has a Name
Adam Grant describes the well-lived life as having a strong sense of meaning, mastery and mattering to others. Which is to say flourishing is finding purpose and value in what you do; experiencing competence in areas that matter to you and; feeling that you make a positive contribution to those around you. He contrasts flourishing to languishing which he equates to “living life in a fog.” This anti-flourishing, the state that positive psychologist Corey Keys describes as “a sense of emptiness, stagnation and ennui,” is by all indications a uniquely human affliction. Other life forms do not pine as human beings do.
I write this in order to make a claim that I have made before: there’s no point in punishing ourselves over our pining. Until heaven comes there is a reason to pine. The point, I think, is to learn to live with the pining. To recognise it, make peace with it, but not to let it lead you by the collar. To give it its proper place and set healthy boundaries around it. To reach for what could be, make progress towards it, celebrate the progress, perhaps stumble, lick our wounds, gather ourselves and keep pushing forward, keep reaching for what could be.
The Restlessness is Human
We live in a broken, disordered world.
But unique to us as human beings is that we are imago Dei: we bear the image of God Himself. We possess intrinsic worth, we are significant, we were created with intention and we are endowed with dignity. We are imperfect, corrupted by sin, fallen and broken, but none of these conditions have the capacity to destroy the image of God in us because our status as imago Dei is based solely on God’s act of creating us. To borrow from CS Lewis, once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia. By virtue of being imago Dei, we eternally mirror God, by his own declaration, however flawed we are or how far short we fall. This is who we are—moral, intellectual and relational creatures imbued with worth by virtue, simply, of existing, and embedded with an instinct to reach to something beyond ourselves.
Because of this we all have extraordinary potential. To admit this potential to ourselves is both exciting and unnerving. What is our individual possibility, what is the possibility of others around us and what is our possibility in community with others? What is the distance between us and our possibility and how do we bridge it?
These are questions that continue to churn inside of me. What a gift to know that I carry them alongside others. What a blessing to go on this journey with you. Thank you for the privilege of your stories.