Sarci-Sense: The Calm That Hides Everything

By middle age, you are no longer expected to be happy. You are expected to be sorted. Nobody asks what excites you, frightens you, or keeps you awake at night. They ask whether things are “set.” The question sounds polite, even caring, but it carries a clear instruction: don’t complicate things. Don’t unravel. Don’t admit that you are still negotiating with your own life. Looking sorted is no longer a state. It is a duty.

Indian middle age has turned “being sorted” into a moral achievement. It is no longer enough to manage life. You must look like you are managing it well. Your job should be stable or at least defensible. Your family should appear functional from a safe distance. Your opinions should sound measured. Your emotions should be regulated. Not absent, just tidy. Stress is acceptable. Uncertainty is not.

This is not how it used to be. Earlier, middle age allowed mess. People admitted they were unsure. They worried aloud. They complained without apology. Life was openly negotiated. Today, confusion feels like incompetence. Doubt sounds like weakness. Saying “I don’t know what I’m doing” at forty-five no longer reads as honesty. It reads as irresponsibility.

So we perform being sorted.

The performance shows up first in language. We say “It’s all manageable,” even when it is not. We say “Work is hectic, but good,” even when it drains us. We say “Family is fine,” which now means absolutely nothing. These phrases are not meant to inform. They are meant to close the conversation quickly. They reassure the listener and spare the speaker the embarrassment of complexity.

Couples perform this most convincingly. They have mastered the art of appearing aligned. They speak in plural sentences. “We are busy these days.” “We are focusing on health.” “We are planning a short break.” It sounds coordinated. It sounds mature. It hides a great deal. The performance is not of happiness, but of control. Nothing is visibly wrong. Nothing is visibly alive either.

We were raised to believe that adulthood means containment. Don’t burden others. Don’t make scenes. Don’t invite gossip. Don’t reveal instability. “Handle it” was never advice. Over time, handling life became more important than understanding it. Being sorted became the proof that you were doing your duty.

This expectation is particularly unforgiving to middle-aged men. They are expected to be steady, rational, and unfazed. Emotional uncertainty makes them look indulgent. Admitting confusion makes them look unreliable. So they manage. They manage schedules, finances, logistics, and quietly, themselves. Exhaustion becomes responsibility. Silence becomes strength. It works socially. It corrodes privately.

Middle-aged women are allowed more emotional expression, but only within narrow limits. They can say they are tired. They can say they are overwhelmed. They cannot say they are lost. They are expected to carry complexity gracefully. Too much anger is labelled bitterness. Too much dissatisfaction is labelled ingratitude. So truths are softened. Frustrations are diluted. Resilience is displayed instead of asking for space.

Social media has made this performance compulsory. We no longer just live our lives. We audit them. Are we coping well enough? Do we look composed enough? Does our life appear stable from the outside? The sorted adult does not post chaos. They post recovery. They do not share confusion. They share lessons. Every disruption must come with a conclusion. Every struggle must end in growth. 

The irony is that nobody actually believes anyone else is as sorted as they appear. We know the smiles are rehearsed. We know the confidence is curated. We know the calm is expensive to maintain. And yet, we keep performing it anyway. Because the alternative feels worse. To admit you are unsure at this stage of life feels like arriving late to a party where everyone else pretends to know the rules. 

Workplaces reward this performance generously. The employee who looks composed is promoted faster than the one who asks difficult questions. The leader who sounds confident is trusted more than the one who admits doubt. Being sorted becomes a professional asset. Uncertainty becomes a liability. Over time, people learn to speak certainty even when they feel none.

Indian middle age also carries a unique social pressure to appear settled for the sake of others. Parents want reassurance. Children want stability. Relatives want narratives that travel well. Nobody asks how you feel. They ask whether things are “set.” The question itself reveals the value system. Life is judged not by meaning, but by arrangement.

The cost of all this is subtle but cumulative. When everyone performs being sorted, nobody asks real questions. Conversations become updates. Friendships become summaries. You exchange information instead of experience. You know what people are doing, not how they are doing. Emotional life is reduced to status reporting.

The most damaging part of this performance is what it does internally. When you repeatedly present a version of yourself that has things under control, you begin to resent your own uncertainty. You rush your confusion. You deny yourself the one thing adulthood quietly needs. Time to not know. Time to sit with questions that don’t resolve quickly.

There is something deeply human about not being sorted. About wondering whether the choices you made were the right ones. About questioning the shape your life has taken. About admitting that comfort does not automatically translate into meaning. Middle age was never meant to be a finish line. It was meant to be a long middle chapter, full of revisions.

The tragedy is not that people are confused. The tragedy is that they feel they are no longer allowed to be.

Perhaps the most radical act for a middle-aged person today is not reinvention, but honesty. To say, without drama, “I don’t have this fully figured out.” To resist the pressure to package life neatly. To allow conversations to remain open-ended. To stop performing calm when what you need is clarity.

Being sorted is a useful skill. But when it becomes an identity, it suffocates the very life it claims to organise. Not everything needs to be under control. Some things need to be felt. Some questions need to remain unanswered for a while.