Mila's logs

Nowadays, the sphere of the internet is vast. There is just about every category, every community, and every hashtag that one can find belonging to when scrolling through 10-second-long videos and small squares of pictures. I’m not one to critique this development in human evolution as I find a sense of serenity in losing myself in its loop just like my peers. What I do want to point out is that in these internet hubs of users, there is a word I see often among the book-lovers and poetry creatives—the fig tree analogy.

The fig tree analogy is originally from Sylvia Plath’s most renowned work, The Bell Jar, and it seems to have impacted the minds of many women and girls. The quote is as follows:

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 analogy is simple yet profoundly resonant with young women of our time. In current times where women see their paths doubling and tripling, the change appears so rapid, so boundless, that it gets troubling trying to discern which choice is the wisest—and it is because they are wise that it causes this predicament. It is in the nature of the wise to contemplate and consider in a feeble attempt to predict the future. An idiot would move forward without doubt, as its mind is reckless and stupid. Yet, as the cards in the tarots have demonstrated so, such quality is also what makes an idiot so powerful.

In the end, thinking too much and not thinking at all can both be detrimental in the fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century. Personally, however, I never think it is a waste to ponder. Time will pass, and youth will fade, but perhaps in the journey of it all, you’ll find that you’ve already chosen the fig you wanted a long time ago.