Three ways love is like Apple TV's Severance
Alert: No Spoilers! (Not really…)
If you’re not yet a fan of the Apple TV show Severance, it’s time you started watching!
The concept is simple: Lumon is the big bad corporate behemoth. Some people who work there have volunteered to become “severed.” This means they’ve chosen to have a chip embedded in their brain. When they’re at work, they’re known as Innies and they don’t remember the outside world. And on the flip side, their Outies have no idea what they do from 9 to 5.
Spooky, right? But not so farfetched.
The show is an exaggeration of any corporate or factory worker anywhere, who’s expected to leave their home life behind when they punch in.
Don’t we all lead double lives in one way or another? And as much as we seek integration—another key concept of the show and a goal of our modern existence—it’s so easy to compartmentalize parts of ourselves as we mindlessly go about our business. And our relationships.
Thus the complication begins!
Ooh! Maybe that’s why love—especially long-distance love—can feel like we’ve been severed!
We voluntarily offer our brains to a grand experiment. Whether we’re unsatisfied (like Dylan G who can’t hold a job) or lonely (like the apparently widowed Mark S), when we look for love, we’re seeking something we don’t believe we have. When we think we’ve found it, we willingly turn ourselves over to the unknown. If it doesn’t ultimately break us, love just might be the salve that soothes. At least for two or three seasons. Hopefully more!
Our Innies and Outies are versions the same people. What if crossing the Continental Divide to visit my Mountain Mensch is like entering the elevator at Lumon. Though my Innie rarely eats in restaurants or reads the news, my Outie cravings and curiosities will inevitably return. Like Irving B, I’ll long for the art I make at home. Like Helly R, we all might be hiding a darker side. What happens when our Outie nature permeates the love nest? One day my Mountain Mensch (or yours?) may wake up and say, Who ARE you?
When the Severance barrier is broken, confusion sets in. After the Innies triggered the complex Overtime Contingency Procedure to learn about their Outie selves, all hell broke loose for everyone. The Innies were forced to choose who and how to love, and consequently, the institution’s primacy was threatened. I get that. Sometimes I wonder whether trying to live a full life in two places is sustainable. But when we’re in our sixties and there’s no nefarious institution in charge, our Innies and our Outies can both be happy. Both can live!
Like the show, love is full of cliff hangers and mysteries. But we don’t have to wait for the writers and producers to feed us the story line.
We’re in charge of our own Choreography and Merriment. And we can have waffles whenever we want!
