Tuesday, 17 September 2024

The fig tree analogy - i want to be understood


 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” - The Bell Jar 

The fig tree is a metaphor used by Sylvia Plath in her novel 'The Bell Jar'. I hold this book dear to my heart and I love Sylvia Plath very much. She just gets me, maybe it is because she was once a teenage girl or maybe it's the mental illness that she also endured. This particular metaphor really resonates with me as I have NO clue where I want my life to lead, I have so many ideas and so many dreams that I can't live out. I'm unsure which fig to pick from my tree and which one is right for me. What if the fig I choose is rotten, or it's not sweet enough for me? I am the most indecisive person ever and I will admit I rely on others often to help me/ make decisions for me. It's a bad habit, I know but I don't know where to start. I cannot pick one fig from the tree, the sheer prospect of losing the others is daunting to me. This analogy is my Roman empire because this is truly all I can think of at the moment, the idea of having to pick A-levels for college and decide what I want to be doing in 10 years time is truly frightening. I fear that by the time I make this decision, all opportunities will be lost and all of my options gone. It is incredibly overwhelming and quite paralysing, I feel completely stuck and frozen. I can't face the things that I find difficult, I cannot do it. I always choose the easy way out and I fear that in this, there isn't one. 
I hate the idea of uncertainty and not knowing where I'm going to be in the future, I need it laid out for me, I need to know what is going to happen. I can't help but think I'd rather starve at the crotch of this tree than choose a fig to eat.

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”

Who am I, if I cannot be everything? 

I think that Sylvia and those much like her could be the only ones on the planet who TRULY understand, who really know how my brain works. I don't want my journal to be the only thing that understands me, because it can't reassure me, and tell me I'm okay.

Sylvia Plath is someone who inspires me, not only because she truly assimilated things in incredible ways, but because I am so much like she was. I completely understand her. The alienation and self-destruction she describes in her work resonates with me in ways I simply cannot put into words. Sometimes I wonder if it's just a coincidence that I am so similar to her, or maybe I am connected to her somehow. It sounds silly, but I want to believe that there is some link there, even though I know it's not true. As much as I wish I was not born into this body and growing into this mind, I do sometimes enjoy being able to understand and feel such complex and deep things - even though it brings great pain. Because I want to understand everything, every emotion and idea. I need to understand it. I know I'm naive and unpragmatic.

Will I ever be understood?

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