Wanting to take part in everything and everything to be a part of me
The world used to be silent
Now it has too many voices
And the noise is a constant distractionThey multiply, intensify
They will divert your attention to what’s convenient
And forget to tell you about yourselfWe live in an age of many stimulations
If you are focused you are harder to reach
If you are distracted you are availableYou are distracted
You are availableYou want flattery
Always looking to where it’s at
You want to take part in everything and everything to be a part of you
Your head is spinning fast at the end of your spine until you have no face at all
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.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar