The We We Are: Vocational Decisions in Severance’s Season 2 | Church Life Journal

I inform a narrative typically to my youngsters that now appears extra fable than actuality, however it’s becoming for this essay. About fifteen years in the past, contemporary out of school, I labored in telecommunications. The workplace the place I labored now feels eerily harking back to Severance’s Lumon: an infinite, brightly lit cubicle farm. The fluorescent lights glared so intensely that I ultimately landed in a physician’s workplace for migraines, a situation that continues to plague me however was significantly relentless in these years, worsened by the cruel, undimmable glow of these workplace bulbs.

But probably the most fable-like aspect of this story is just not that I clocked out and in on a boxy beige machine, or that my breaks had been strictly timed—ten minutes, twice a day, or I risked a warning! No, the true strangeness, and even perhaps the surprise of the job, was this: my work e-mail was accessible solely at work. Sure, learn that once more for emphasis, pause, and picture this: work e-mail is accessible solely at work. Once I went residence, there was no method to verify it. No lingering notifications, no after-hours expectations. The cumbersome desktop assigned to me was tethered to my cubicle, and may I ever depart the job (which I ultimately did), it might be as if I had by no means been there in any respect. My digital footprint can be erased, my presence fully changed even; one other employee can be educated to take the empty chair and carry out the routine day by day duties I had.

Once I lastly give up that job to pursue my doctorate in literature, I by no means as soon as thought concerning the unanswered emails or the pc I left behind in that sea of cubicles. I merely gathered my few belongings—together with the romantic Edgar Allan Poe poem I had taped to the facet of my desktop—and walked out. I’ve not considered these machines, or that e-mail account—possible erased inside hours—till writing this text. Like my time there, the reminiscence had vanished. As Poe would say, all of it—even the house it as soon as occupied in my thoughts—was nevermore.

Work, Struggling, and the Seek for Which means

Now, in fact, we reside in several instances. Apple TV’s Severance premiered on February 18, 2022, in a world nonetheless reeling from the results of the pandemic. It was not till Might 5, 2023, that the WHO formally declared an finish to COVID-19 as a worldwide well being emergency. I carry this up as a result of in 2021, amid the upheaval of the pandemic, over forty-seven million Individuals give up their jobs—an unprecedented mass exodus from the workforce that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now refers to because the Nice Resignation. Throughout 2020 and 2021, there have been over 350,000 Coronavirus deaths reported in the US. When interested by dying continually, we naturally start to evaluate how we’re spending our time, together with these valuable daytime the place possible a lot of the readers of this journal spend a lot of their waking time and far of their psychological power—at work. However, aside from emotional or bodily obligations exterior of the office, staff started to query the why of their jobs, and discovering no solutions, left their workplaces en masse.[1]

In her opus on life and writing, erstwhile Catholic convert Annie Dillard as soon as eloquently relayed, “How we spend our days is, in fact, how we spend our lives”—a press release so simplistically true that we me might assent to realizing it, but typically—when considering its actuality—we would discover ourselves fearful fairly than cheerful concerning its veracity.[2] Is spending a complete day filling out spreadsheets or journey paperwork how we imagined spending our lives? Is such an exercise how we ought to be doing so? Jobs are, in any case, contracts between staff and employers: simply as employers get to determine whom to rent, we, too, have a say in whom we work for and the way we spend our time, significantly exterior of the office. Maybe that is why, within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and as we now mark its five-year anniversary in March 2025, a TV present querying the underpinnings of the worth of labor in our lives has risen to change into Apple TV’s hottest present to this point, with Season 2’s debut clocking in at 589 million minutes considered in the US alone throughout its first week.

The severing imaginary in Lumon, generated by Dan Erikson and Ben Stiller,[3] purposefully troubles Dillard’s seemingly rudimentary thought of how we spend our days equaling how we spend our lives. The present introduces the idea of “innies” and “outies”—bifurcated people who willingly select to separate their consciousness, working tirelessly in the course of the day after which, upon leaving Lumon, forgetting completely about that model of themselves The result’s a fractured existence: outies spend their evenings with household and mates (if they’ve them), having fun with “downtime,” no matter which will appear like for every character; innies labor. The reminiscences of those two teams by no means stumble upon one another, or crash in opposition to one another as mine usually do. But not all outies appear to “take pleasure in downtime”; fairly, it quickly involves mild, they appear to be utilizing Lumon to separate themselves from struggling ultimately. They don’t thoughts forgetting half the day as a result of their residence life is just not what they’d select or need it to be. Thus, they select to flee it, to spend half the day within the supposed fog of being innies, away from the reminiscences they’ve as outies.

For Catholic viewers, this premise possible units off alarm bells from the beginning. In any case, our religion teaches us to not flee from struggling however to endure it, following the instance of Christ on the cross (it feels becoming, then, that Season 2 is dropping throughout Lent, after we are referred to as to mirror on Jesus’s sacrifice main as much as his resurrection). Seen by Catholic eyes, the present’s foreshadowing of reintegration likewise feels inevitable. Science might try and sever what God creates, however human nature resists division—as we see unfolding, step-by-step, in Severance’s narrative arc. The will to reintegrate, or to change into complete once more, as Catholics may time period it, is an element and parcel of what it means to be human. Certainly, the Catholic Church teaches that human beings aren’t meant to exist in isolation or fragmentation from one another, however fairly in communion. It follows, then, that any extended try and sever physique from soul, labor from objective, or self from neighborhood is inherently harmful to the individual. A Catholic understanding of the world holds that each human being possesses inherent dignity, created within the picture of God, and as such, we’re predisposed to hunt wholeness. Whether or not religious, relational, or psychological, the fractured items of ourselves will, inevitably, pressure towards reunion.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church places it this fashion: “The human individual must reside in society. Society is just not for him an extraneous addition however a requirement of his nature. Via the trade with others, mutual service, and dialogue together with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his vocation” (CCC §1879). In different phrases, personhood is just not one thing that may be divided into separate selves or contained inside synthetic boundaries; as a substitute, it prospers in relationship, within the full integration of labor, relaxation, and play. The characters might have chosen this separation as a approach to deal with no matter ails them, however in doing so, they’ve sacrificed one thing important—the fullness of their humanity. Struggling is a part of what it means to be human, an important half. We ought not frequently try to flee it however work day by day to be taught from it. Certainly, it’s struggling that teaches us the way to love.

When Work Turns into Our Faith

In Season 1, we see the innies’ fascination with their outies’ lives as a quiet however persistent seek for vocation—a longing to grasp why they’re sacrificing their time and selves for another person. As you possible already know, the phrase vocation comes from the Latin vocatio, which means “a name” or “summons.” The innies need to consider their outies are calling them to labor for some increased good (that’s, for love). For Catholics, a name towards vocation means serving God; it’s the lifelong work of discerning how one’s life may mirror the love of self-gift to 1’s neighbor (an “outie” on this fictional context, maybe) and, by that, communion with Christ. However within the severed world of Lumon, vocation is distorted. Christ is absent, wholly unstated of below Lumon’s fluorescent lights. The summons for the Severed staff turns into twisted: the innies are taught they will heed solely the decision of Kier Eagan, the corporate’s unique founder and quasi-religious figurehead. Their devotion is redirected—not towards divine love however towards company fealty. But, beneath the floor, viewers sense the workers’ hope for one thing extra, one thing transcendent, whilst their days are crammed with Kier’s vacuous, vaguely ominous dictates.[4]

How usually do we discover ourselves doing one thing comparable? How usually all through the day do our ideas drift to our work—whether or not with delight or dread—fairly than to God? Dillard reminds us that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, which naturally raises the query: to whom, and to what, can we give the majority of our consideration? On April 21, 2024, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Pope Francis famous, “Listening to that divine name, which is much from being an imposed responsibility—even within the title of a spiritual very best—is the surest approach for us to fulfil our deepest want for happiness.” For Lumon’s staff, that want is stunted by the truth that the characters are fractured, their innie lives decreased to labor within the service of an outie self. They know no increased calling past the corporate handbook. We do. But every day, the query lingers: whom, and what, can we select?

It’s not stunning, then, that some staff at Lumon, like Irving Bailiff,[5] memorize the corporate handbook line by line, nearly as if it had been scripture. Office tradition turns into its personal creed—inflexible, rule-bound, and filling the house the place increased objective should reside. I—and I believe just a few readers of this journal—have likewise sat in on a committee assembly (or two or 200 thousand) the place handbooks are handled with non secular reverence, each coverage dissected and enforced as if it accommodates the important thing to human flourishing—though, actually, it accommodates the important thing to company compliance and capitalist prosperity. How usually have I wished to carry up St. Paul in such conferences, who reminds us that “the letter kills, however the Spirit offers life” (2 Cor 3:6)? What Lumon—and so many trendy workplaces—affords is the letter with out the spirit: inflexible codes and rituals, programs designed to handle conduct however unable to nurture the entire individual. That is what the Nice Resignation should have laid naked for company America, particularly provided that 57% of those that left cited disrespect from bosses and coworkers alike as a contributing issue for his or her leaving.[6]

It’s no coincidence that Lumon’s Wellness counselor, Ms. Casey (who, close to the tip of Season 1, we be taught is “outie” Mark’s spouse, Gemma), affords empty affirmations throughout worker periods. Her position echoes religious route, however drained of depth—decreased to a sterile mix of company therapy-speak and human sources jargon. In a single such session, she tells innie Irving: “Your outie is a buddy to youngsters and to the aged and the insane,” as if these bland, disembodied info—delivered in an equally disembodied tone—is perhaps sufficient to justify his labor, convincing him it holds some deeper which means he can cling to. However what relationship is being established right here? There isn’t any communion between Ms. Casey and Irving, no real encounter. Who, in any case, can be unkind to youngsters, the aged, or the mentally ailing? What sort of atrocious individual would this be precisely? And extra to the purpose, how does looking at a pc display screen, endlessly “refining” information as per the Lumon job description Irving fulfills, meaningfully serve these teams? Lumon suggests—with out ever explicitly explaining how—that Irving’s labor one way or the other advantages these marginalized teams, vaguely positioning his monotonous work as important to society at massive. In actuality, such work is a substitution for genuine service, a company mirage masking the absence of actual human connection and charitable motion towards the poor and weak.

Later, when Ms. Casey tells one other worker, Helly, who’s below her look after melancholy, “Upon request, I can even carry out a hug,” we discover that the gesture is equally performative. What must be an act of real consolation and human connection is decreased to a practical transaction, a hole efficiency of care. In Catholic phrases, it’s presence with out communion, an empty ritual stripped of relational grace. The outward motion stays, however the inside actuality, that’s, the encounter and its attendant reciprocity, is absent. Severance reveals a stark reality about up to date office tradition. Certainly, it’s common now to listen to that our coworkers are “like household,” a slogan meant to foster “belonging.”[7] However belonging, in a Catholic context, is one thing deeper: belonging means being a part of a neighborhood of believers, united in religion and love, drawn collectively by the sacraments—particularly Baptism and Eucharist. These are shared practices grounded in a divine relationship. It’s communion, not transactions, and style freely given by God, not productiveness or efficiency, that binds believers.

The Catholic custom has lengthy acknowledged the hazard of turning work into an idol—of permitting labor, fairly than God, to change into the organizing precept of 1’s life. Scripture warns in opposition to this temptation repeatedly, reminding us that toil for its personal sake results in restlessness, to not success. Ecclesiastes affords one pointed reflection: “What do mortals get from all of the toil and pressure with which they toil below the solar? For all their days are stuffed with ache, and their work is a vexation; even at evening their minds don’t relaxation.” Qoheleth, the instructor and author of the textual content, reminds us, “This is also self-importance” (Eccl 2:22-23). In trendy contexts, the place office tradition usually calls for whole devotion, this passage feels nearly uncannily related. Nowhere is that this “vexation” extra seen than in Season 2 of Severance, the place the implications of avoiding struggling and worshiping work play out in stark aid.

In any case, for Mark Scout, the present’s protagonist, outie “downtime” entails consuming closely and grieving the lack of his spouse, Gemma. For the aforementioned Irving, probably the most dedicated to Lumon’s company doctrine, it appears like portray haunting photos of a darkish hall he doesn’t perceive and studying army manuals whose relevance isn’t clarified. And for Helly, the daughter of Lumon’s present CEO, James Eagan and thereby descendent of Kier Eagan, it means implementing and adhering to the very system her innie despises; as a personality in each worlds, she appears at all times on edge, at all times greedy. Helly works day and evening, innie and outie selves consumed with labor in several methods. (When does she sleep? I usually quip when watching her character.)

After which there may be Dylan, whose innie thrives on Lumon’s arbitrary office rewards—erasers, finger traps, waffle events, all of that are tied to quarterly progress. In contrast to the others on his workforce, Dylan’s innie is motivated to carry out nicely, satisfied that his efforts contribute to his outie’s success, whom he imagines residing a wildly adventurous, purposeful life (“I wish to suppose my outie lives on, like, a riverboat,” he jibes early within the collection). However for Dylan’s outie, severance is just not about ambition; it’s about escape. He drifts aimlessly, flitting from one distraction to the subsequent, unwilling or unable to decide to something lasting. In a single episode, his spouse Gretchen worries aloud about him impulsively shopping for a automobile they can’t afford. In one other, he sits blankly in entrance of the tv, half-listening as she heads out for her evening shift, whereas their youngsters climb round him unnoticed. Content material to let his innie shoulder the burdens of labor, he by no means pauses to query what it means to give up half his existence to a job he can not keep in mind. As an alternative, he waits—maybe for objective, maybe for one thing to present his life route—with out realizing that severance itself has already foreclosed the opportunity of wholeness. In the meantime, his innie clings to the assumption that his labor is in service of his outie’s greatness, a perception that sharpens when he learns, by Lumon’s “Time beyond regulation Contingency Protocol,” that his outie has a son—a relationship his innie has heretofore been denied even the information of, however which feeds the phantasm (maybe!) that his sacrifices are noble, that his work is significant, that all of it provides as much as one thing actual, or, extra to the purpose, one thing complete, the place one facet of self is contributing to the betterment of the opposite.

Dylan: The Everyman Searching for Wholeness

Considerably, and also you could possibly inform from my waxing poetically above, Dylan’s story is the place I see probably the most genuine everyman character—the one in whom I see myself probably the most and the one whose wins and losses appear extra in keeping with the center American workforce. Whereas the saving of the world appears to relaxation on the good-looking Mark Scout—and his ethereally stunning maybe-or-maybe-not-but-ultimately-not lifeless spouse’s shoulders (whereas, thoughts you, he sleeps with each the classically stunning innie and outie variations of Helly), Dylan is, actually, the one most like the remainder of us, in my thoughts. Viewers may are likely to think about themselves extra as Mark Scout (Severance viewers development older than 30 and male), however I believe that, in the event that they searched their souls truthfully, they could discover a bit extra of Dylan there, as I do.

It’s no accident, then, that Dylan’s story affords one of many clearest glimpses of what a reintegrated self may appear like—not by medicine, surgical procedure, or secrecy, however by relationship. If Mark embodies what Gen Z may dub “principal character power,” then Dylan represents the remainder of us—the supporting characters, those who maintain up the energies of “Yous You Are,” to borrow a phrase from Ricken Hale, Lumon’s unintentional self-help guru. Innie Dylan, confined inside Lumon’s partitions, is very centered on excelling at his job; he responds to rewards, sure, however extra vital, he turns into significantly attuned to connection. He’s the one innie who believes, wholeheartedly, that his work issues as a result of it helps somebody on the surface. He imagines his outie needing him, inventing causes to justify the sacrifices, nearly like a toddler looking for the approval of an absent dad or mum. That sense of loyalty solely intensifies upon studying about, after which continually pondering of, his son, an unintentional Lumon mishap in season one. Upon studying about him, Dylan longs to help him and entices the opposite Lumon staff to need to study their households and reside in relationship with somebody within the exterior world. For the primary time upon studying about his son’s existence, Dylan is just not pushed by perks or efficiency however by curiosity and care, believing his imaginative and prescient of affection is now at the very least considerably reified: he desires to bridge the hole, to work towards one thing bigger than himself. We see this come to an apex in one of many present’s strongest scenes from Season 1, Episode 9, aptly titled “The We We Are.” Dylan dangers every thing for his coworkers to expertise what he has, bodily holding open the severance management switches so his whole innie workforce can know one thing of their social bonds exterior of the partitions, even when the expertise lasts for only some cherished seconds.

Tellingly, when his outie spouse Gretchen lastly meets his innie, it isn’t the indifferent jokester Dylan his coworkers know that she gravitates towards; as a substitute, it’s the one who has been paying cautious, undivided consideration to a romantic model of the aim of his work all alongside, gathering each crumb of details about the surface world he longs to like and provides his labor and life for. Whereas we be taught little about Gretchen’s outie life past her job in campus safety, what we do know is critical. She is the one mom within the collection elevating a number of youngsters at numerous life phases. The visible particulars of her character underscore her maternal symbology: she is nearly at all times wearing Marian blue, a hue lengthy related to Our Blessed Mom—the maternal protectress who watches and intercedes for others. (With one notable exception—when she lies to outie Dylan about visiting his innie, she seems as a substitute in purple, the colour of penance, of Lent.) Even Gretchen’s work in campus safety hints at greater than bodily safety; it factors to information, to a type of maternal vigilance akin to the Virgin Mary’s—a deep consciousness attuned to noticing what others overlook. Round her neck, Dylan’s spouse sometimes wears a single pearl, too, a standard image of the dominion of Heaven. Maybe we would even interpret this because the pearl of nice worth hidden within the discipline (Matt 13:46), suggesting that beneath the ordinariness of Gretchen’s life lies one thing valuable and everlasting—one thing Dylan, and we as viewers, instinctively acknowledge as engaging in her greater than in another character. It’s no surprise, then, that she sees Dylan not as fragmented, however already complete—already able to encounter, already belonging to her household. She notices the way in which he sacrifices for her and does nothing to tell apart between her husband on the surface and the husband she meets in Lumon’s Visitation Suite. “I’m at all times pleased with you, Dylan,” she tells him merely after they meet: “I really like you.”

Right here, it’s useful to herald Catholic thinker Józef Tischner, who reminds us that the office is “an middleman world between man and nature—a world tailored to fulfill each the steady and altering wants of man.”[8] It’s meant to be an area of reciprocity and cooperation—a spot the place significant labor attracts us into relationship with others, fostering development each inside the office and past. It shouldn’t isolate us, because it does Dylan from his household. Work, Tischner argues, ought to join us to others and supply a way of rootedness by shared objective and encounter. However when the aim is hidden—after we are minimize off from the folks we’re finally working for, whether or not coworkers, neighborhood, or household, as Dylan is from Gretchen (or as we frequently are from our personal households and communities when work consumes us)—it takes on a harmful high quality.

What is especially useful inside Tischner’s philosophy is his insistence that an important components of life are certain in encounter, and that true encounter is revealed within the human face. “Issues have appearances,” he writes; “folks have faces. Faces are traces of Transcendence.”[9] On this, Tischner resonates with Pope Francis, who likewise reminds us that the human face is just not solely a mirrored image of transcendence, however a summons to like: “This face, which appears at us with love, invitations us to maneuver past ourselves and to hunt the great of others” (Evangelii Gaudium §39). When Dylan is with Gretchen within the Visitation Suite, there’s a religious cost between their interactions. She sees in him the husband motivated to sacrifice for her and their household; in the meantime, at residence, she finds a husband who drifts and can’t discover his objective. Each are Dylan, and he or she loves them each for being variations of her husband—but she acknowledges that, within the Lumon universe, they’ve been unnaturally divided.

When within the Visitation Suite[10] innie Dylan and Gretchen witness that invitation to maneuver past themselves, to transcend the division between innie and outie Dylan. Gretchen even exhibits him pictures of their youngsters, permitting him to glimpse their faces. In one of many present’s most poignant gestures, innie Dylan proposes to her with a paper ring. She turns him down, realizing instinctively that the very fragmentation severance encourages is unsustainable.

Importantly, in that second, Dylan is just not merely asking for her affection—he’s asking to combine his life, to make his sacrifice complete. Gretchen turns him down as a result of, whereas they will not be Catholic, she senses what the Church teaches: love with out full presence, love with out complete personhood, can’t be sustained. The sacrament wouldn’t be real; it might be as flimsy because the paper ring Dylan offers her.[11] Her rejection, nevertheless painful, catalyzes Dylan’s awakening. He resigns. With out the hope of communion, with out the promise that his labor is for love, Dylan feels he has no purpose to proceed.

Within the season finale, we uncover that outie Dylan doesn’t need his innie to resign. He writes him a letter, acknowledging (and pointedly admonishing) the sentiments innie Dylan developed for Gretchen. She, he notes, is “good,” so he will get it, too, he says. Outie Dylan admits that he’s jealous of his innie’s bravery and confidence—qualities he needs he may embody. Realizing his innie exists evokes outie Dylan to change into a greater man, significantly for his spouse, whom he now appears to understand extra. Even so, he finally leaves the choice to his innie about whether or not to remain at Lumon or to stroll away. Whereas we don’t see an express reply, what we do see is innie Dylan persevering with to behave out of affection as he at all times has—for Gretchen and for his co-workers. His willingness to step in, to indicate up, to maintain preventing alongside Helly and Mark within the season finale suggests a selection not of resignation however of recommitment. Since we already knew he was motivated by love and loyalty, it’s no shock his path leans towards altruism.

Certainly, his actions to assist Helly and Mark after they want him within the closing “battle scene” of Season 2—and to remain at Lumon, we are able to presume at the very least in some capability—mirror a personality fashioned by self-sacrificial love. As Pope St. John Paul II usually reminds us, “Man can not absolutely discover himself besides by a honest present of himself” (Gaudium et Spes §24). In contrast to Mark, who stays painfully caught between two fractured identities—waving at one spouse whereas operating towards one other romantic associate within the closing moments of Season 2—Dylan appears to be progressively transferring towards wholeness. His story outright resists the present’s broader sample of fragmentation. His journey, greater than another character’s, gestures towards the Catholic imaginative and prescient of the entire human individual as a result of each variations of Dylan refuse to compartmentalize struggling or affection. As an alternative, they try to reside with integrity, in communion with others—even with one another—for the widespread good (i.e. Gretchen, their youngsters, their co-workers, their shared world even, I’d argue). In doing so, they uncover hope—not by escape or division, however by the honest and freely provided present of self for the betterment of the widespread good.

Resigning from Fragmentation: What We Select Subsequent

The deeper problem Severance leaves us with is just not the way to keep away from struggling, however the way to reside with it rightly ordered—the way to expertise grief with out letting it divide us, the way to be complete human beings wherever we’re, whether or not at work or at residence. The temptation to sever, to compartmentalize, is, at its root, a temptation to dodge grief, to flee the burden of being absolutely current to life in all its problem. However Christ doesn’t sever himself from human struggling; he enters it wholly, making it the very web site of affection.

Actor Adam Scott, who performs Mark, captures this stress in an interview: “It’s tough being in leisure as a result of it’s type of at all times with you,” he displays. “You’re at all times being reminded of who you might be and what you do. And it’s not like you may simply take the briefcase with work in it and put it down and stroll away.” But that feeling—the sense that work, fear, and avalanching expectations are at all times with us—is hardly distinctive to Hollywood. In reality, we’re all performing ultimately at work; the roles and the stage might shift relying on our occupations, however as Tischner reminds us, the important thing query is just not whether or not life requires efficiency; it’s whether or not our encounters inside that efficiency are genuine. The terra firma of the stage may change, however our personhood doesn’t. In our technological, capitalist age, this has change into the mannequin of life for a lot of—a tradition the place the boundaries between work and self have all however disappeared. The hazard is just not in labor itself, however in permitting that labor to eclipse relationship, to sever us from the faces of others and the Transcendence they reveal.

In the long run, Dylan’s resignation is not only a plot level; it’s the Nice Resignation, distilled. Confronted with a life carved into items—a vocation stripped of presence and relationship—he does what tens of millions have completed lately: he walks away, simply as I did from my job in telecommunications all these years in the past (although with far much less drama, I’d add). But Dylan’s departure is just not the tip of his story. By the tip of Season 2, he stays within the battle—not for Lumon, however in opposition to it. His resignation is just not from work per se, however from labor emptied of affection. He steps away not as a result of he has given up, however as a result of he is aware of now what sort of work is unworthy of him. Of all of the characters, Dylan often is the one we see ourselves in most (whether or not we want we got here in a extra heroic bundle maybe), but I submit he’s additionally the one who most displays the individual we should lengthy to change into, too: courageous sufficient to give up, daring sufficient to return again for what issues.

Season 2 ends in uncertainty, with questions that echo past Dylan himself and into the fourth wall of a viewership that additionally feels unsure about their futures within the workforce. Resignation is on the desk for Dylan clearly nonetheless, and now, so, too, is one other occupational danger Dylan and the remainder of us in 2025 are all more and more conscious of: large layoffs. What’s subsequent? What occurs if the job is just not there in any respect and the corporate shuts down? These identical questions dangle over all who proceed to toil in silence, and all who’ve chosen—or are selecting—to stroll away or to remain. And sure, all those that concern to stroll anyplace in any respect as a result of the selection won’t be ours to make for very for much longer.

So what’s subsequent in Severance, and for us? Will Dylan’s divided selves, now talking to 1 one other finally, learn to love Gretchen—collectively, or aside? Does it matter in the event that they merge? Will his outie uncover a deeper objective? And can his innie’s sacrifices, provided in self-sacrificial dedication, ever be honored in any concrete approach?

Dylan’s character locations earlier than us the vocational selections all of us face: will we stay divided, or will we absolutely inhabit the settings we’re in—at work, at residence, and in every single place in between? We will select to look into the faces of these we love—mates, household, coworkers, parishioners—undivided and with sacrificial objective, placing the opposite first, simply as Dylan evokes us to do. Or we are able to reside life divided: midway current, distracted, listless—by no means absolutely there for anybody, together with ourselves. And together with God.

As Annie Dillard reminds us—and as Dylan’s vocational journey makes plain—how we spend our days is, in fact, how we spend our lives. Our complete days. Our complete lives.

And in the long run, her phrases echo the invitation of the Incarnation itself: to carry our full selves into the world God so loves, to be actually current the place we’re, to like with our complete hearts and undivided selves. To look into the faces of these earlier than us and to see God. It’s a name not simply to consider, however to inhabit—to reside undivided from this world and the subsequent, to reside complete, to reside unsevered. To reside in love.