fighting the fig tree analogy

The feminine urge to try everything.

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 physycal experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.

Sylvia Plath

I want to be everything, I do.

This desire has haunted me for as long as I can remember. Throughout the years, I’ve been drawn to countless pursuits that, while initially the recipients of my full fascination, inevitably became victims of my eventual boredom.

The pattern repeats itself in every area of my life. I wanted to be a ballet dancer, and then a hip-hop dancer, then a gymnast—and I did. I trained and I accomplished great things, even if I didn’t make a living out of them.

It happened again when choosing my career path: I wanted to be a fashion designer, and a marketing girlie and a journalist—and I did. I studied all of them.

I wanted to paint, and design, and write. And I did.

I pour all my passion into whatever I hyper-fixate on, so intensely that I eventually burn out of feeling it too much. I don’t just want something, I crave it with every fiber of my being. Until I don’t.

I will not be able to articulate this feeling better than Sylvia Plath did, but I felt like sharing my take on this experience.

I do pursue my passions, and I am proud of my accomplishments, but I’ve also been a victim of impostor syndrome far too many times. And sometimes, it’s not only just in my head—it’s others questioning why I changed paths when I was so determined about that other thing that meant so much to me.

I stand there with not much to say except “because I felt like it”. Because I like everything.

It’s an answer that rarely satisfies people, which makes me wonder: why do I have to want all of it? Why am I so restless?

And also, why can’t I just enjoy other lives as a spectator? Why, when I watch a movie about a ballerina, do I immediately want to become one? And far worse, why do I actually try?

If I am content with something, why do I still crave more?

It feels like nothing is ever enough. Each new passion suddenly becomes the most important thing in the entire world, leaving once-important things behind.

I want to be a writer, a designer, a dancer, an artist, a creative director, an editor-in-chief of a magazine.

I want to live in Paris, in Lisbon, Japan, in London.

I want to form a family but I want to be free.

I want to read all of Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Jane Austen, Joan Didion.

I want to speak all languages.

I want to do everything, explore everything, see everything, study everything.

I want to be so many people and none at all.

I wish I could try a demo of every possible life. Or better yet, live them all at once. All of this figs, and I have to choose one, because not choosing is still a choice, and leaving it all to the universe and the fate of my already written destiny is too much for an anxious girl like me.

Maybe it has to do with being a creative person, no? We have this inherent need to create, to exist in materialized thoughts that, like energy, keep transforming into different things.

And maybe it’s even worse now. Social media has shattered our sense of direction, molding us into fleeting archetypes: clean girl, office siren, black cat energy. One moment I want to embrace my feminine side and have a family. The next, I want to climb the corporate ladder and become a CEO. And almost always, I just want to be happy and feel fulfilled. This is part of my one and only birthday wish, recycled every year.

So, perhaps, what I truly crave most is the feeling of fulfillment itself, that sense of wholeness. But it’s exhausting to always be reaching.

And maybe the key isn’t focusing on the impossibility of tasting every fig, but on reaching for as many as I can, savoring each one and understanding that my inability to settle isn’t a curse but a blessing in disguise.

Maybe we should just celebrate the richness of experiences accumulated in that constant seeking, no?

Something in me wants more. I can’t rest.

Sylvia Plath