{"id":43562,"date":"2023-11-15T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T05:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=241017"},"modified":"2023-11-14T19:49:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T15:49:23","slug":"in-praise-of-seasonality-looking-at-life-as-a-series-of-seasons","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/in-praise-of-seasonality-looking-at-life-as-a-series-of-seasons\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise Of Seasonality: Looking At Life As A Series Of Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words<\/strong> Divya Venkataraman<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, I\u2019ve been followed around by an ambient sense that I\u2019m running late. I\u2019m the White Rabbit in Wonderland, always checking my fat, proverbial watch. It\u2019s not about being actually late for an appointment (even though I usually am \u2013 seven minutes at the bare minimum, an infinite ceiling on the maximum). No, this feeling is bound to something else. It\u2019s a stirring more achy and less rooted in cause; more primal and more jarring.<\/p>\n

Like every other idea in the course of human history, the notion of time is a mirror \u2013 any conception of it will reflect the viewer more sharply than it will the idea itself, which will hulk, blurry in the background. Before the predominance of Judeo-Christian linear time \u2013 which conceived of the birth of Jesus and his death as a canonical event, never to be repeated again \u2013 other religions took a cyclical view of history, both cosmic and human. It was the dominant mode of thought among the Hindus, Greeks and the Aztecs. But afterwards, linearity prevailed. We are slaves to it, this idea that time will go on and go forward, and never fall back on itself.<\/p>\n

That, though, affects not just how we are \u2013 but who we are. Our identities are linked to the expectation of progress, to the constant pursuit of forward motion and dynamism, on and on and on. Only forward, never back. Is this why many of us feel a little like we\u2019re behind on something we can\u2019t quite get a hold of?<\/p>\n

The modern conception of life as a series of stages really only began at the start of the 20th century. Compartmentalised phases were christened and codified, moving from the binary of adulthood and childhood to allow for shades in between, encompassing adolescence, midlife, retirement, and old age. In 1976, Gail Sheehy\u2019s Passages<\/em> entrenched these ideas, tying certain milestones \u2013 like moving out from one\u2019s childhood home, marriage and having one\u2019s own children \u2013 to certain years. Passing through them, collecting accomplishments, was like receiving a little approving tick from the universe. You\u2019re doing it right.<\/em><\/p>\n

But the world is a different place than it was then, and traditional goalposts of \u2018success\u2019 have shifted. Marriage often happens later, if at all. In 1980, the average American man was married at 25 and the woman at 22. In 2023, the average age for a groom is 30, while brides are 28. Child-bearing has also transformed, with more options available to people who want to get pregnant later in life. All the while, for many younger adults in Western cities, the prospect of home ownership feels optimistic at best, and a cruelly dangling carrot at the worst.<\/p>\n

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Art: Kimberlee Kessler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twentieth-century psychologist Michael Mahoney explains the idea of the \u2018myth of arrival\u2019 in his book Constructive Psychotherapy.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEmbedded in the myth of arrival\u2026 is the message that\u2026 there will come a day when our struggles and suffering will be finished,\u201d he writes. \u201cDepression, anxiety, anger, and all manner of \u2018ill being\u2019 will finally end. We will wake up one morning and clearly recognise that we have \u2018arrived\u2019: We will have gotten ourselves and our lives \u2018together\u2019 in a way that can never be undone. We will be healthy and happy. We\u2019ll be in the job, the home, and the relationship that we have always wanted, financially comfortable and fundamentally at peace with ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahoney\u2019s point is, of course, that human beings are always in a state of becoming, and that the idea of \u2018arrival\u2019 is an illusion. Are we not always arriving, always striving? He draws on Samuel Beckett\u2019s existential masterwork, Waiting For Godot<\/em>, to make his point. Vladimir and Estragon run through their life\u2019s trials and problems, all the while waiting for something \u2013 \u2018Godot\u2019 \u2013 that never comes. There is no end point.<\/p>\n

Jenny Odell, the author of How To Do Nothing<\/em>, proposes an alternate way to approach our lives. Odell advocates for a slow and deliberate exercising of self from the machine of progress and productivity \u2013 by diverting attention, most crucially, from the obligations of technology, consumerism, and even \u2018self-care\u2019. Her antidote for the modern world is presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I see or hear an unusual bird, time stops, and later I wonder where I was, just as wandering some unexpected secret passageway can feel like dropping out of linear time,\u201d she writes. \u201cEven if brief or momentary, these places and moments are retreats, and like longer retreats, they affect the way we see everyday life when we do come back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at life as a series of seasons empowers us to embrace the temporality of each phase, and it offers solace,\u201d agrees Sydney-based counsellor and private practice founder Geetu Vanjani. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas seeing life as a linear progression can instil fear within \u2013 if I don\u2019t do this now<\/em>, have I missed my chance?\u201d<\/p>\n

In her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times<\/em>, author Katherine May also considers the prospect of time, and the cruciality of rest and presence. She recounts a period of hardship \u2013 an illness in the family \u2013 after which she drew away from the pressure of constant productivity and instead chose to embark on her own \u2018fallow season\u2019. She takes inspiration from nature\u2019s ability to cope with the hard times, its undying faith in renewal after loss. Nature, after all, cannot sustain constant growth. It would buckle under it. May\u2019s point also underscores also why we can\u2019t meaningfully talk about sustainability in industries around the world \u2013 fashion, transport \u2013 without talking about slowing down, pulling back, and doing less. Growth, in the forms that we\u2019re used to it, is at odds with life.<\/p>\n

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Art: Kimberlee Kessler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Odell says: \u201cIn the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous. Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and the regenerative. Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanjani believes that while this generation has grown up in tumult, in the shadow of compounding economic and ecological crisis, the obsession with progress is a part of the broader human condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the generations that have preceded us, and the ones to come will continue to feel the pressures of this phenomenon,\u201d she says. She also points to the fact, though, that the ability to compare and share our own successes and \u2018milestones\u2019 \u2013 every Instagram post is a sun-drenched holiday carousel or a self-deprecating announcement of a career achievement; Facebook has turned from a social platform into essentially a births, deaths and marriages register \u2013 has made us experience time differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach generation has forged their way out of these constraints \u2013 whether that has been quietly within their own homes or more publicly,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Taking a more cyclical approach to time, though, not only allows for rest and reflection on the grey areas of life. It also allows room for tumbles and regrowth, for hurdles, side-steps and interludes to dance in the rain. It does not require that life will only continue to be better, and better, and never stop getting better. This is, after all, a co-opting of the logic of capitalism and of constant growth, which inevitably falters when applying it to our actual selves (which are so much more than profit-making machines).<\/p>\n

We relish in the seasons, and we let them continue on, knowing that to feel the sun on our faces means a whole lot more once we\u2019ve known what it\u2019s like to bunker down with mead in the cold. We watch the moon turn from a sliver to a toothy smile to a globe, and we let it, knowing that tomorrow\u2019s night will be brighter until it becomes darker once more. Should we not give ourselves the freedom to wax and wane, too?<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m running right on time, after all. Maybe you are, too. Maybe we can be content in accepting that there\u2019s no such thing.<\/p>\n

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