field notes: the fig tree analogy or whatever
Maybe it's best to simply focus on consuming one thing, just one thing, from the dreaded fig tree
Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.
If you read the post immediately before this one, then you’ll have read my various grievances about posting on social media as a creative as well as how it feels to view those who post on social media now that I’ve had experience with having a personal brand. Honestly, looking back on that post, it’s definitely giving “old woman yells at clouds”, but it turns out that it was exactly what I needed to further understand my relationship to social media and how I might want to use it in order to further my “brand” and also to create more opportunities in my life.
It’s always said that the sooner you know what you want to do, the sooner you can begin working on that thing, but as I get older I’m realizing that it’s even more powerful to know precisely what you don’t want to do. That way you can narrow things down further and further until you’re left with the only option(s) that you’re willing to take on, until you find yourself eventually culling those down too until you’ve created your own a la carte life, built entirely from a list of likes and dislikes.
Spending the majority of my 2025 putting myself out there in this new and foreign way (via building a personal brand on Instagram utilizing all the tips and tricks and “growth hacks” that I see posted everywhere) has taught me quite a lot about what I don’t like, but it has also made me think even deeper and further about the fig tree analogy. If you aren’t familiar, I’ll post an excerpt below:
"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."
A few paragraphs down, the book notes this:
"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."
And then, six pages afterwards, it notes this:
"The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket."
The author of the article explains the meaning in much deeper context, and as someone who hasn’t read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar yet, I highly recommend reading what the writer has to say about the deeper meanings of the novel that are commonly missed by those who are just posting the fig analogy quote without its entire context.
But when I think about 2025, I do see myself as this character who yearns to consume all the fruits of the fig tree. I’ve been grappling with the realization that I can only do what I can do, and part of that does mean letting go of what I can not longer do, or even more importantly, what I no longer want to do. In addition, aging has made me realize that doing everything simply because you can (aka freewill) is not all its cracked up to be. It is all much more exhausting than simply choosing one, or maybe two things at most, and simply working towards being proficient at those things.
While being on the cusp of a small financial boon, I feel grateful of course, but I also feel this frustration striking me. Now, I think, oh, well since I have more resources, then maybe I could revisit this or that. But when I think of returning to, say, my skincare business that I put on hiatus due to the COVID economy wrecking havoc on my costs of ingredients and materials, I get this immensely conflicted feeling.
This fig that was once so full and rich for the taking has fallen and rotted and, well, has been rotted out for the past two-ish years. But now I see it growing once more, and I see the opportunity forming for me to take it (funnily enough, I checked my skincare biz email and saw a major franchise inquiring if I could sell my products in their store. A major franchise ya’ll! That’s a major opportunity that I would’ve begged for four years ago!! This is crazy af too because they’re asking to work with a business that hasn’t been running for the past 2 years and it’s not even a scam, it’s a real opportunity! wOW).
However, although I can see the opportunity and the promise of capital gains, I also see the price of that fruit. Being in business mode 24/7 (because it’s basically impossible to turn your brain off when you have a product based business). The body pains from standing and combining and mixing products for hours on end. Thinking of the year in quarters and having to match up to the entrepreneurial expectations of each quarter. The volatility of the materials/ingredients market right now (cocoa butter prices alone are at a record high due to “driven by adverse weather, diseases, and climate change affecting West African cocoa production supply, causing significant shortages and escalating costs” as noted by my cocoa butter supplier). All of the hats that I’d have to wear (business owner, R&D, PR, social media manager, web designer, product designer, and the list goes on). Not to mention the hassle of having so many things all the time (all the ingredients, all the materials, all the stuff).
When I look over at the fruit of the fig tree that simply makes me a writer, I feel… icky about it. Logistically speaking, you could say that becoming a writer is my destiny. I always got straight A’s in my English and Reading courses, and before I was given a laptop, I would write fiction stories by hand and fill up countless notebooks (I have since transcribed those stories onto digital documents and am too terrified to read them back lmao. Sometimes I wonder if I should take a look at them again). When I begin a writing session, I instantly yawn not because it’s boring, but because it just calms and relaxes my brain to such an extreme that I could literally take a nap afterwards (yes, even after writing my essays about society).
Writing is really just something that I just… enjoy doing. But I think that I’ve colonized my mind away from the idea that I could ever enjoy what I do (due to various traumas and such), so I had never truly considered writing as my life’s path, my career, or even a thing that I could just sink time into as an adult. Yes, even though I majored in Writing & Rhetorical Studies in college (with 7 out of 8 possible Dean’s List awards might I add), I still had never even considered that I would—or could—grow up to become a writer in any professional capacity.
So when that financial boon came into fruition, my mind, of course, went to the now, reopened door to my skincare business, not the fact that I guess I could focus on writing my novel and on Substack without worrying about starving in the process. I instantly went for the thing that I can’t quite say that I enjoyed doing, but rather the thing that I did immediately after college because the job market sucked and I needed to make money some way some how, and starting a business with $100 was somehow the easiest way to make money at the time.
I think another part of this fig tree predicament is the social media aspect. I would like to utilize social media in order to capitalize on opportunities, but man do I fuckin’ hate the growth hacks being presented to the world. Honestly, all this narration and showing glimpses of your life and creating scenes and B-roll just ICK. I’m obsessed with living a private life and I also really hated every part of the Instagram/TikTok personal brand building process because it’s just not authentic to me. I’m currently writing this post wearing my husband’s oversized Modelo tee and a pair of Aerie flare leggings with a light blue bonnet on (the leggings and bonnet being mine obviously). I have the AC cranked to a crisp 66° and I’m wrapped in two blankets—a blue and white checked blanket with tomato accents and a plain grey blanket.
Guys, I am not about to film all of that and put it on the internet as a show of “authenticity” and “realness”.
But the problem is that in turn, I was filming content that was just so unrepresentative of what my life and process actually looks like that it irritated the hell out of me. It was all made even worse by the fact that now, I can see just how much everyone’s content on social media is so faked, fabricated, and curated. Now that I’ve been in the production chair (so to say) I can spot it all a mile away. In a funny way, this has cured a lot of my social media scrolling addiction (as I am now easily repulsed the second I even begin scrolling), but now I feel too irritated to utilize social media to further my potential opportunity gains.
I love writing on Substack. I don’t have much of a community here yet, but it reminds me of the good ole’ Wordpress days. I have an old 16 year old Wordpress account that I grew to 300+ subscribers, which to me meant a lot. I blogged about my personal life and personal thoughts as I came of age in my turbulent upbringing and my words really resonated with people and I really enjoyed that tbh. I honestly think that if Substack hadn’t boomed in popularity and had gotten on literally everyone’s radar, I’d probably be back on Wordpress blogging there again. Sometimes I think of leaving Substack behind and just going back to Wordpress anyway.
This was just a random assortment of thoughts, of course, as always. I’ll have more to say in the future, but for now, I’ll be experiencing life with a few more resources than I’m used to. An experience that will certainly change the way that I craft, create, and live. I’m nervous and excited for this new endeavor that will yet again expand my human experience and grow me into, well, who knows.