Sarci-Sense: The Age of Permanent Explanation

There was a time when people made choices and moved on. They took a job. They stayed in a job. They married someone. They didn’t. They moved cities. Or they didn’t. Life happened with fewer footnotes. Today, every decision arrives with an explanation, preferably delivered in advance, so nobody misunderstands the kind of person you are trying to be.

Somewhere along the way, living stopped being enough. We began narrating.

Middle age has perfected this art. You don’t just work where you work. You explain why. You don’t just leave a job. You clarify that it was a “conscious choice.” You don’t just take a break. You announce that it is for “balance.” You don’t just travel. You justify the travel, the timing, and the intention behind it. Even rest must come with a backstory.

Nobody asks you these questions directly, and yet you answer them anyway.

We live in an age where confidence does not look like silence. It looks like articulation. The more unsure we are, the more fluent we become. Every choice must sound thoughtful, deliberate, and aligned. There is no room anymore for randomness, impulse, or quiet uncertainty. Those things sound irresponsible after forty.

So we explain.

We explain to relatives who may not be listening. To colleagues who did not ask. To friends who already made peace with our choices long ago. And most of all, we explain to ourselves. Because somewhere inside, we are not fully convinced.

Social media did not create this habit, but it industrialised it. A photograph is no longer just a photograph. It comes with context. A caption. A philosophy. A reason. We don’t just share moments. We justify them. We preempt judgement with words like “grateful,” “learning,” “needed this,” or “intentional.” The language is soothing, carefully chosen, and faintly defensive.

Nobody says, “I wanted to.” That sounds childish now.

Middle age adds its own pressures to this performance. By this stage of life, you are expected to have coherence. Your choices should add up. Your story should make sense. Drift is forgiven in youth. In middle age, drift looks like failure of character. So when things don’t add up internally, we make them add up externally.

We call stagnation “stability.” We call fear “responsibility.” We call avoidance “timing.” And then we explain it all so well that nobody interrupts.

Relationships carry this burden heavily. Couples don’t just live together. They explain the nature of their partnership. Why they are busy. Why they don’t travel as much. Why they do. Why they don’t socialise often. Why they do. Every deviation from expectation requires commentary. The relationship becomes a press conference.

Even unhappiness must be managed carefully. You cannot simply say you are dissatisfied. You must frame it as growth. As reflection. As a phase. Raw feelings sound inconvenient. Explained feelings sound acceptable.

Workplaces reward this skill generously. The person who can narrate their choices confidently appears more capable than the one who quietly does the work. A clear explanation often matters more than a clear intention. Meetings are filled with people justifying decisions that were made months ago, mostly to convince themselves they were the right ones.

The strange thing is that nobody really believes these explanations. We recognise the choreography. We know the words are chosen to travel well. And yet we continue the ritual because it keeps life orderly. Explanation has become the adult substitute for certainty.

Culturally, we were raised to do this well. We come from families where choices were rarely private. Everything required a reason. Why this job. Why that city. Why now. Why not yet. Over time, we internalised the gaze. Even when nobody is watching, we explain.

Men often experience this as the need to justify relevance. They explain why they are still ambitious or why they are no longer ambitious. Why they are focused on work or why they are stepping back. Any pause needs a rationale, because stillness looks suspicious.

Women experience it as the need to justify balance. They explain why they work. Why they don’t. Why they prioritise family. Why they don’t. Every choice is weighed against invisible expectations, and explanation becomes a survival skill.

The cost of all this is subtle but heavy. When you constantly explain your life, you stop listening to it. You become more interested in coherence than truth. You adjust your feelings to match your narrative instead of adjusting your narrative to match your feelings.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the ability to say a simple sentence. “I don’t know yet.” It sounds weak now. Incomplete. Unsettling. Middle age does not like unfinished answers. It prefers closure, even if the closure is artificial.

The irony is that the most content people rarely explain themselves. They make fewer speeches. They do not curate meaning in public. They allow their lives to be a little untidy. Their choices do not always align. They are comfortable with the fact that not everything needs a reason that travels well.

We explain because uncertainty frightens us. We explain because we want our lives to look intentional, even when they are still evolving. We explain because we are afraid that without a narrative, our choices might look ordinary, inconsistent, or unremarkable.

But life was never meant to be defensible. It was meant to be lived.

There is a quiet freedom in not explaining everything. In letting some choices remain unpolished. In allowing others to misunderstand you. In admitting, occasionally, that you are still figuring things out.

Here is the uncomfortable truth we avoid. We explain our lives not because others demand it, but because we are afraid of what remains when we stop talking. Silence leaves us alone with choices we are no longer fully convinced about. So we keep narrating, polishing, justifying, hoping coherence will substitute for conviction.

A life that constantly needs explanation is often a life lived at a distance from itself. We become spokespersons for our own existence instead of participants in it. Middle age turns dangerous at the exact moment when we start believing our explanations more than our feelings.

The bravest thing an adult can do now is also the most socially awkward. To stop clarifying. To stop pre-empting judgement. To allow a choice to exist without being defensible. Because a life that needs to be constantly explained is not being lived freely. It requires more honesty. And sometimes, honesty sounds like silence.

The most radical sentence in adult life may simply be this.
“I chose this. I’m still learning why.”
And then, no explanation at all.