There’s a story going around social media right now, pulled from Sylvia Plath, about a fig tree. You’re sitting beneath it. Every fig on the branches is a life path, a passion, a version of you. You can reach out and take one. You just can’t take them all.
In Plath’s version, the woman under the tree is so paralysed by which fig to choose that she never chooses. She sits there until they all rot and fall around her.
People love this story right now because it’s about niching down. Modern life, social media, every business advice thread ever, all telling you to pick one thing. One niche. One lane. Go too broad and you won’t find customers. Go too broad and you won’t find yourself, apparently. Boil your whole life down to a single fig.
I find that impossible. I am deeply, unapologetically multifaceted. I’ll pick up a project and for a few weeks it becomes my entire personality. Then I move on. Under all that shifting, a few things never actually leave: I will always make art. I will always chase learning, technology, medical research, whatever the subject, doesn’t matter. I will always write. I will always read. I will always love fashion and makeup and the way they tie into architecture and aesthetics more broadly. One day I’d love to fold all of it into one thing. But niching down has held me back for a long time, because I’ve never been interested in just one thing.
There’s a quote I love: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” We shortened it over time to just “jack of all trades, master of none,” and in doing that we flipped its whole meaning. What was once a compliment about range became an insult about lacking focus.
I read something once about someone’s grandfather, also a jack of all trades. He said: among the sailors, I’m the best chef. Among the chefs, I’m the best artist. Among the artists, I’m the best sailor. That’s the whole idea. Spend your time and energy stepping into different spaces, learning new things, following whatever pulls you, and you become someone who has something to offer in every room you walk into. Sure, the bird watching group has someone who knows everything about birds. But one day a car’s stuck in the mud and someone needs to know how to tie a rope. One day someone breaks a leg and you need whoever actually paid attention in that first aid course.
We get so much messaging pushing us toward being an expert in exactly one thing. Find your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life. Go to university, pick a degree, do that one thing forever. For a lot of us, especially anyone with ADHD or who’s neurodivergent in some way, that message just doesn’t land. We’re told the problem is we haven’t found “our thing” yet. Try harder. Look more. As if the answer is always singular.
But for some of us, it was never going to be one thing. That’s not a deficiency. Your life doesn’t have to be a single note to be a life well lived. It can be a tapestry, loud and overlapping and made of every damn thing you’ve ever cared about. That’s exactly what this space is. A place for me to share all of it. Maybe you connect with one part of what I make here. Maybe all of it. Maybe it’s just the recipes, and honestly, that’s fine, take what you want and ignore the rest. It’s not that deep.
I can be scattered across a dozen interests and still feel completely whole. I don’t sit at the end of the day wishing I’d just picked one thing. I love having a hundred things pulling at my attention. The people who get stuck are the ones sitting under the tree waiting for the “right” fig, the perfect one, the correct life, until they’re old and tired and the choice isn’t even on the table anymore.
So here’s what I’d rather do. Grab the hem of my shirt, hold it out like a basket, and start picking. Take as many figs as I can carry. Eat them all, even if I give myself a stomach ache doing it. Better than starving under the tree, holding out for the one perfect fig, watching everything else rot on the ground around me.
I’ve never been someone who eats just one fig. Put me under a tree full of them, and I promise you, I’m eating every single fucking one.
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