I've been keeping a book of quotes lately. Quotes copied down when a line in a book inspires, surprises, lingers, disturbs.
Lately the books I read have been on the darker side, but also more pensive.
"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 had 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 Te Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more 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." -- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
The quote is an eloquent imagination of the less eloquent phrase, FOMO (fear of missing out), but with an additional warning. By trying to keep all these doors open, we are only lessening the time we have to go through any one of them.
I see myself, in this quote, as the girl at the foot of the tree wondering: how long do I have before the fruits fall? And how do I know that by climbing to some of the branches, I won't fall off instead?
Lately the books I read have been on the darker side, but also more pensive.
"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 had 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 Te Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more 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." -- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
The quote is an eloquent imagination of the less eloquent phrase, FOMO (fear of missing out), but with an additional warning. By trying to keep all these doors open, we are only lessening the time we have to go through any one of them.
I see myself, in this quote, as the girl at the foot of the tree wondering: how long do I have before the fruits fall? And how do I know that by climbing to some of the branches, I won't fall off instead?
