weekly fixations | edition 03

voices, midlife, theories, ostriches, rebrands.

Author

mallory contois
May 20, 2024

Five things to fixate on this week — alone, with friends, or with strangers.

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1. This tweet

It’s normal to have multiple identities, to hold conflicting viewpoints, and to sometimes struggle to make decisions as a result.

Those multitudes represent all you’ve learned, experienced and internalized up until now. Hear them all out as you move through the world, but be deliberate about how much weight you give each voice.

If I were to gather my mental and emotional ‘stakeholders’ in a room, they’d include the creative, the operator, the risk-averse one, the wants-to-be-liked one, the always-curious one, the exhausted one, and the fighter. Some are louder than others depending on the day, but they’re all critical pieces of the whole.

If you were to assign your identities or ‘selves’ each a title or name, what would that boardroom look and feel like?

Is there a self you wish you’d listen to more? Less?

2. The midlife unraveling

A perspective on what’s traditionally labeled our ‘mid-life crisis’, positing that rather than a crisis, it’s a forced unraveling of all our coping mechanisms and constructs we’ve created to survive up until that point.

The Midlife Unraveling

Many scholars have proposed that the struggle at midlife is about the fear that comes with our first true glimpse of mortality. Again, wishful thinking.

Midlife is not about the fear of death. Midlife is death. Tearing down the walls that we spent our entire life building is death. Like it or not, at some point during midlife, you’re going down, and after that there are only two choices: staying down or enduring rebirth.

brenebrown.com/articles/2018/05/24/the-midlife-unraveling

What happens in our ‘mid-lives’ that forces re-evaluation, change, and occasionally atypical behavior?

How can we harness what we’ve learned and experienced to become even more enriched versions of ourselves?

Is the answer embracing uncertainty and doubt? Or is it in becoming confident in a new direction entirely?

3. The fourth turning

The concept of the Fourth Turning refers to a generational theory developed by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It’s part of a broader theory that proposes that society moves in cycles, called "turnings," that last about 20-25 years each and represent a new era with a new mood and new conforming behaviors.

In their theory, there are four turnings in each cycle:

  1. The First Turning is a ‘High’ — an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism.

  2. The Second Turning is an ‘Awakening’ — a passionate era of spiritual exploration and rejection of civic obligations.

  3. The Third Turning is an ‘Unraveling’ — a downtrodden era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions.

  4. The Fourth Turning is a ‘Crisis’ — a decisive era of secular upheaval, when society focuses on reestablishing order.

The Fourth Turning, according to the theory, is a period of major crisis and upheaval that occurs approximately every 80-100 years. It is a pivotal historical era when the fabric of society is torn apart, and civic authority and cultural institutions are challenged and ultimately reconstructed.

Some examples of Fourth Turnings in American history, as proposed by Strauss and Howe, include the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression/World War II. It’s been suggested that the United States entered a new Fourth Turning around 2008, marked by events like the Great Recession and the ongoing political and social polarization.

How predictable is the future? How patterned is the past?

Are we finding patterns where they don’t exist in order to make sense of things, or is everything part of a larger pattern?

If we could definitively ‘prove’ this theory, how might that change our behavior as individuals or as collectives?

4. How unexpectedly fast an ostrich can run

(click to find out at 3:16 but the whole video is worth a watch)

A great set of facts to have in your back pocket.

5. Kate Hudson’s rebrand

I LOVE a later-in-life career change - especially one that happens very much in public.

How brave you have to be to say - I want you to get to know a new version of me. I know you loved the old me, but I’m asking you to give a different me a chance too.

While celebrities are not like us, I do believe this sort of public pivot is terrifying no matter who you are. Kudos to Kate.

How would our society look different if it was normal to change career paths every decade or so?

What would your second and third careers be?

How would you feel differently about your career now if you knew you could/would switch once or twice in the future?

See you next week!

If this was useful or interesting, please forward it to a couple folks who enjoy stretching their brains, exploring the vague, or starting weird conversations at parties. 🙏

❤️ Mallory