On the Search for a So-Called Purpose

Note: Some descriptions of Search Party follow and could be considered broad spoilers.

I adore television, and I spend a lot of my time watching it. Like…a lot. But as much as I love tv, and as much as I consider myself adept at critical reading and textual analysis, I am not at all versed in reading tv as text. I wish that I were, but this is not a skill that’s in my particular toolbox.

Every now and again, I read a critique that flabbergasts me with how absolutely it has gotten to the heart of a show, how it has articulated something so obvious, so central, so crucial that I cannot believe I didn’t realize it before. Paul McAdory’s exegesis of Search Party is one such example. I read this piece months ago, and it has lived rent-free in my head ever since.

Search Party is one of my favorite shows in recent memory, and might go down as one of my favorite shows of all time. The writing is immaculate, the performances are virtuosic, the characters are unforgettable (Name a more iconic duo than Portia Davenport and Elliott Goss. I’ll wait.). Alia Shawcat is hypnotic to watch as she shapeshifts into the wildly disparate personalities of Dory Sief. If you had told me at the outset that a show that begins as a Nancy Drew-inspired whodunnit would successfully end as an unhinged zombie apocalypse show, and that I would say, “Yes, absolutely, sold,” I would have been…skeptical.

And yet.

The show not only sticks the landing, but remains cohesive and focused throughout all of its twists and turns. And for most of my viewing, I recognized this, but hadn’t really latched onto why. I initially watched the show almost as if it were an anthology series. Like American Horror Story, resetting each season with a new story and genre. But to view Search Party like this is to sell it short. Because, as McAdory insightfully points out, the central thesis of the show is that American millennials are constantly, oftentimes pathologically, searching for their narrative purpose at all costs.

First of all…okay, duh, Carolyn. I should have picked up on this.

Secondly…oof. Read me for filth, why don’t you?

I voluntarily left my job over a month ago now, and as I’ve been reflecting on okay what next and applying to jobs, I have had to confront the question of narrative purpose, or the way I construct my identity, yet again. And I keep thinking about Search Party as I do. Though my life has thankfully not paralleled the absurd highs and bonkers lows of Dory’s, her dogged, often manic commitment to finding her purpose is unsettlingly familiar. And as she artfully molds herself into each new, wildly different identity — from amateur sleuth to true crime villain to mentally fragile hostage to smug cult leader — the ease with which she slips into each skin and pivots seamlessly from one to the next is enviable. Dory’s delusions of grandeur aside, I’d kill for some of her self-assurance right about now.

Image Description: Dory Sief, a biracial cis woman with short, dark curly hair, addresses an audience. She is draped in loose-fitting, flowing garments. Her friends, two white men and one white woman, stand behind her.

Growing up, I was — like so many of us — sold on the notion that I am what I do. And when I was young, I accepted this as a gift. For a fat, nerdy, bullied kid, this idea felt like protective armor. Maybe I wasn’t pretty, or skinny, or popular, but I could do, and do better, than most of my peers, and through this, be transformed into something special. (Former so-called gifted kids, roll call!) I scrabbled unthinkingly toward neurotic overachievement and academic performance and their siren song promise of becoming extraordinary. AP classes. 4.0 GPA. Valedictorian. College scholarships. The whole nine. It was all that I had. It was all that I was.

When I entered college, I refined my scattershot academic fecundity into a laser-focused pursuit of a particular vocation, a soul-affirming calling. Oh, how assured, how self-righteous, how special I felt in such a pursuit. I knew exactly who I was and what I was meant to do. And even though adjusting my life’s roadmap over the years and pivoting from one calling to another — in my case, from a performing classical pianist, to a music historian, to a nonprofit arts administrator — was indeed difficult and fraught with no small amount of existential Sturm und Drang, I, like Dory, always had a North Star to guide me: purpose.

Find my purpose, and I’d find belonging. Find my purpose, and I’d find contentment. Find my purpose, and I’d find myself. With each personal reckoning and professional dark night of the soul, I plunged into the abyss with the desperate hope that this time, this move would fulfill the prophecy of my special life as a special person doing special work.

Because if I wasn’t doing special work, if I hadn’t found the calling that had been promised to me…then who even was I?

Now, on the cusp of yet another identity paradigm shift, at the ripe old age of nearly 40 and not knowing what lies ahead, I am slightly embarrassed that I am only now considering that this whole profession-as-purpose proposition might be bullshit. When I made the decision to leave academia, I worked hard to make my peace with never becoming Professor Carrier, with never putting to use the degree I’d worked over ten years to get. At least I thought I made my peace with this, but as I stare down the barrel of “What do I do now?” I am once again finding myself entangled in the discomfort of facing a life that doesn’t follow the script I wrote when I was 18, revised at 26, scrapped at 37. Am I in fact destined, after all this, for a life of mediocrity, of ordinariness? Of being a person who never, in fact, finds her purpose?

These feelings are ugly and terrifying, and force me to confront the parts of myself I’d prefer to tuck away from the world. They are also scarily freeing, even if I don’t fully trust them yet. How is it that after a lifetime of questioning critically, I never once questioned my own suppositions about my life? For starters, why have I so narrowly constructed an idea of purpose that is rooted in my worth to capitalism? What if my next job was just…a job? What if I am not special and that’s…okay?

Image Description: A pregnant cis white woman is in labor. She is holding her white male partner’s hand while she cries and says, “I’m not special.”

Lest you think I have answers to any of these questions, I do not. At all. But I have been thinking — a lot — about what this lifelong longing for purpose vis-à-vis profession has gotten me. What this very American individualism, this Main Character Syndrome, has afforded me. Sure, I’ve accomplished a lot of which I’m proud. I finished that damn PhD despite its best attempts to kill me. I gave my whole spirit to the teaching and mentoring hundreds of college students, one of the most enriching and rewarding parts of my life. But I also live with the vise-like grip of imposter syndrome permanently wrapped around my throat. I’ve learned to devalue my non-professional pursuits, like my now-amateur piano-playing. I spurn, like most of my generation, the idea that I deserve rest. (Work-life balance, who is she?) And I unthinkingly accept that my life is what happens from 9 to 5, and not in all of the moments outside this prescriptive window.

Perhaps such a purpose is actually poison.

This is a very weird place to be in as a jobseeker, particularly as someone who willingly left her job in pursuit of something better, as someone who wants to do good and satisfying work, as someone who wants to reach beyond her arbitrarily imposed professional aspirations. (Yes, I made a vision board. No, I do not want to talk about it.) Reckoning with all this feels a bit like I was sold a bill of goods — I was taught that I was indeed special and worthy of being a voice of authority. Despite slowly coming to realize the futility of chasing purpose in this arena, I still crave being viewed as an expert, being viewed as special. I still want to be the person others seek for advice, ideas, mentorship.

I’ve come to no great conclusions about all this, and know that I’ll continue to grapple with these ideas and my insecurities about them well into the future. Reprogramming a lifetime’s worth of dogma will take time. And perhaps I will find a soft place to land somewhere in the middle, where professional satisfaction lives symbiotically with purpose, and not in place of it. I don’t know yet what that looks like, but I’m keeping my eyes peeled and my heart open as I continue to search.