My fig tree.
“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”
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok in the last month or so, you’ll have seen the “fig tree trend”. Inspired by a quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the trend encourages people to consider all of their own “figs” – all of the different careers, opportunities and hobbies one might pursue given enough lives.
The biggest disappointment in life is that there is not enough time to do all of the things you’ve ever dreamed of. I have so many dreams that I would need so many more lifetimes to complete, but for now I’ll have to be content with choosing a small number and fantasising about the rest.
Museum curator
I love visiting museums. Whenever I visit a new place, I can’t leave without going to a local museum and learning something new. It’s hard for me to understand how people can find museums and art galleries boring, because to me they’re some of the most interesting places on Earth. They are not without criticism, with many museums in the West containing stolen artefacts, but we have started to see the repatriation of some of these items to their rightful homes, and I hope we will see more museums follow suit.
Writer
I’ve always loved to write and my loftiest aspirations in life are to become a writer. I’d love to write articles for magazines, collections of short stories, novels and non-fiction books. I used to write all the time but stopped in my late teens as I was pushed towards STEM subjects at the expense of my creative interests. I’ve recently returned to writing, and whilst I don’t expect to make a living from it, it’s something that brings me joy.
Astronomer
Astronomy was always my favourite subject within science. I am constantly in awe of the night sky and just how much lies beyond the tiny part we can see above us when the Sun goes down.
For a long time I intended to become an astronomer, but I’ve come to realise quite recently that I was never really designed to be a scientist. I find it so fascinating, and I’m quite good at it, but it’s not what I really want from life. I still plan on purchasing a telescope and observing the skies in my free time. Looking up to space is one of the times I really understand why people believe in God – it is almost hard to believe that this happened on its own.
Fashion designer
Fashion is one of my favourite forms of artistic expression. I love looking at runway collections – the more outlandish and imaginative, the better. I have put personal style at the forefront of my self-improvement journey. Liking fashion can be seen by some as vapid or shallow, but personal style is expression like any other form, and it can feel really comforting to express yourself through your clothing. I struggle to give myself permission to wear what I really want, so I often imagine a life where I have my own design company – because if a fashion designer can’t dress a little bit outlandish, then who can? My dream style is fantastical and whimsical, but it doesn’t work so well in my fairly mundane, suburban life – but maybe I should wear the big flouncy dresses and the impractical shoes to the supermarket after all.
“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.”
Professor
I qualified as a teacher in 2021, but only lasted a year. Education is one of my biggest passions – I love learning but school was Hell on Earth for me. Education no longer seems to value learning
I know I hold a somewhat romanticised view of academia, and working in higher education I see every day the issues facing academic staff. Nonetheless, I love the idea of being a Professor and teaching my passions to university students. I’d love to teach English literature, art history or linguistics – something that allows room for creativity and expression (and time to spend reading).
Librarian
I love books, but I think it’s a misconception about librarianship that you get to spend a lot of time reading. For me, the appeal of working in libraries is to fulfil the part of my brain that loves to collate, organise and categorise information. Many librarian roles nowadays are more akin to a customer service role, but I would love to work as an academic librarian in an old university library, surrounded by archival copies of old textbooks and helping students find obscure articles for their dissertations.
Actress
My first forays into drama were in my final year of primary school. I landed one of the lead roles in the school play, much to everyone’s surprise as I’d always been incredibly shy and hated public speaking. I’m not sure what pushed me so far out of my comfort zone, but I really loved the process from rehearsal to performance. I played a personified star, in a very insane play written by the school’s headteacher. In secondary school, drama was now on the timetable as a weekly lesson. Initially I loved it, and was placed in the Gifted and Talented programme, but once the bullying really worsened it became difficult to continue. I went back into my shell
I think if I hadn’t been so affected by the bullying, I’d have stuck it out and probably attended drama classes outside of school. I’d love to perform in the theatre – maybe my star role would be as a Shakespearean tragedienne. I have no desire for fame so I think realistically I’d quite enjoy working as an extra.
Florist
I love to garden, but it’s not something I’ve ever really been able to explore as I’ve never had an outdoor space of my own. Every year I grow herbs and chilli peppers on my windowsill but I dream of having a cottage garden full of flowers and homegrown fruits and vegetables. I’d love to have my own floristry company, where I sell beautiful bouquets inspired by nature, floriography and history. I would offer preservation services to keep the bouquets as mementos of happy times – weddings, birthdays, first dates… I’m a romantic at heart.
“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.”
Writing this all out makes it really clear to me that I’m making the right decision by moving away from my background in STEM. It’s not that STEM is not important or worthwhile, it definitely is, but it’s not the only valid choice for study and careers and it’s not the right choice for me.
I think it’s interesting that watching this trend unfold on TikTok has shown how many people dream of having a creative career. I’m becoming more and more passionate every day about the importance of the arts and humanities, and hate to see how much we devalue them. To some, it’s probably a little bit controversial of me to quit my second STEM degree to pursue more creative paths but I only get to do this once – why waste it doing something that’s not right for me? We need scientists, but we also need creatives.
If you could do absolutely anything with your life, what would it be? What does your fig tree look like?