Announcing "The Quarterlifer"
A newsletter on the culture, psychology, and politics of adulthood between adolescence and midlife
If you're here for this first installment of my new Substack newsletter, you likely already know that I published a book last year on the stage of life I call “Quarterlife,” and that I explored in that book the often tortured call to find both stability and meaning in those years.
This newsletter is an extension and expansion on those themes, as well as an opportunity to continue to define what this stage of life is beyond the very limited view that it too often receives when associated with mental health or illness—that of whiteness, privilege, and college life. While the pressures of elite American colleges are of genuine concern to me—and an indication that the only path we’ve laid out for modern Quarterlifers to “succeed” may not be working—it does a disservice to all of us to associate an entire stage of life with a single demographic.
The field of psychology (and society at large) have historically portrayed this first part of adulthood as aligned with the very linear goal of acquiring security and stability. This is a mistake, and sometimes a fatal one. Crises in this time of life are too often viewed as evidence of failures, as maladaptations to life itself. As a result, too many seek to blindly medicate and worry away the inability of Quarterlifers to “keep it together” or “launch” appropriately. Struggles which may be the result of trauma, poor nutrition or inadequate sleep, a crisis of identity, abusive relationships, or legitimate feelings about painful events in the world, are addressed not as a caring culture might attend to scared and suffering young citizens, but as a corporation might address factory workers who have stalled progress on an assembly line.
If we go just a little bit further back into history, we can see that most human mythology is based not on securing stability in Quarterlife, but on adventure and the pursuit of one’s own existence.
Our contemporary take on Quarterlife is much more aligned with heteronormative gender roles, post-industrial wealth, and capitalism than with the reality of the human experience. Humans have always sought meaning and self-realization, a concept that goes by many names and, while frequently viewed as woo-woo spiritualism, is a core goal of human life. We want the freedom to be externally who we are internally. We feel friction and pain when our inner and outer lives don’t align and ease when they do.
In this newsletter, “The Quarterlifer”—which I plan to publish monthly to all subscribers—I’ll write about the global and timeless experience of Quarterlife, exploring the psychological, political, and cultural issues afflicting and reflecting this time of life, all the while seeking to promote a more vibrant conversation around Quarterlife and Quarterlifers.
In the coming issues, I’ll highlight some works of culture about Quarterlife that have spoken to me recently, as well as stories in the news.
And if you Subscribe, there’s more to come. I’m thinking about fielding your questions in additional monthly “Dear Satya” Q&As, along with occasional live gatherings online. (I’m open to your suggestions and desires!)
Coming Up Soon
I’m teaching a workshop this Sunday! Join me live for an opportunity to personally explore the exercise featured in my interview with NPR. We have a beautiful group already registered and I’m excited to work together.
Much more to come on my teaching schedule.
I’m also now available again for one-on-one consultations.
In the News
Iranian Quarterlifers continue to be beaten, sexually assaulted, arrested, disappeared, and executed. The men are far more likely to be executed publically which is a weird way to further erase women from the protests and expression of power.
Black Quarterlifers in America continue to be killed by police. Keenan Anderson was killed on January 3rd. Tyre Nichols was killed on January 7th.
The Supreme Court may very well overturn affirmative action for colleges, rolling back decades of progress.
The lives of Quarterlife women in America and many parts of the world are threatened daily as access to abortions and reproductive healthcare is undermined and pregnant people are criminalized.
Books
I just read The Easy Life by Margarite Duras, about a twenty-five-year-old French woman whose family lives on a farm and is barely getting by. Originally published in the 1940s, it follows “Francine” through questions of men, marriage, care for her parents, grief over a huge loss, and the purpose of life. (i.e. The existential despair of the “Quarterlife Crisis” is not a new phenomenon.)
It’s been years since I read the extraordinary novel The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker, but I think about it all the time. This book follows two Quarterlife animators between Kentucky and Brooklyn as they navigate friendship, romance, survival, and career, and it blew me away from start to finish.
Movies
"The Swimmers" came out at the end of last year on Netflix. This is the story of two Quarterlife sisters fleeing the war in Syria to pursue their dreams of swimming professionally. I loved this movie for a lot of reasons, but the emphasis on the experience of Quarterlife refugees—arguably the majority of refugees, if we counted this age group as a demographic—is astounding. Quarterlifers crave nothing more than the freedom to live their lives. When they can’t because of war, famine, gender violence, or climate change, they leave in search of life elsewhere. I want more movies like this.
What resources are you wishing existed for this time of life? What books and movies have your attention? Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!
I'm so excited for your newsletter! As someone nearing the end of my quarterlife and as a teacher of students in their quaterlife, I have a lot to learn from you!