The Truth Behind Why I Started Thought Couture

On Life, Loss, and Limits

“I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” — Sylvia Plath, from The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Every reader has that one quote they stumble upon when they’re sixteen that makes them feel seen for the first time. Mine was the Plath quote above: Never before had anyone articulated the precise mixture desire and dread that plagued me at the time. On the verge of “real life” beginning, I knew I could be anything, but I could not be everything, though I wanted to be anything and everything.

Writer. Painter. Pianist. Designer. Teacher. Editor. Actor. Journalist. Traveler. And on and on and on.

As if to make a minor martyr of myself, I chose this as my senior yearbook quote. A bit cringy in retrospect, but true to form for a moody teen who reads Plath.

Sixteen-year-old Jo felt crushed under the weight of her horrible limitations. College sophomore Jo, when she wrote a whole personal essay about Plath’s fig tree analogy from The Bell Jar (again true to form), tried to accept them. Current twenty-something Jo thinks, perhaps, the horrible limitations are self imposed. We believe they exist, so we act like it. We stop ourselves before we start. We get ourselves stuck.

Figs harvested from a tree in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s cloisters

If you’ll allow me, I’d like to get open and honest for a moment (vulnerability is a strength y’all!): I’ve struggled with pretty severe depression and anxiety for my entire life. I had a lonely childhood; missed out on the full “college experience;” developed PTSD as a result of the “pandemonium,” from which I am still recovering. I want to live so many lives, yet have hardly been able to live the one I was handed from the start. My mission at Thought Couture is not only to help my fellow artsy intellectuals live all the lives they want—it’s to take my own life back.

It’s not so much, then, that I want to be everything; it’s that I want to express the extent of creative potential I know I contain. And I suspect you want the same.

Plath of course is correct that we are all “horribly limited” by reality and mortality—she more than most of us, tragically—but I’m one stubborn b*tch who, in her more lucid moments, takes a limitation as a challenge. More accurately, I believe that as long as you’re not dead (and if you’re reading this, you’re not), there’s still time. The realm of infinite potential opens its arms to you.

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Maybe you’ve nodded your head a few times in the past three minutes, or have stroked your proverbial beard in curiosity (or your literal beard). If so, I’m glad. But if you’re hesitating, let’s narrow things down and lay out whom Thought Couture is not for:

• The experts. If you’ve published multiple books, performed at Madison Square Garden, achieved fluency in five languages, and earned your black belt in karate…there’s not much I can help you with. But if you want to stick around and support people who are where you were 20 years ago, that would be swell!

• The primarily science-minded folks. STEM fields can absolutely be part of a multi-passionate lifestyle—in fact, original Renaissance souls like Leonardo DaVinci would make a point to include them—but they’re not where my skills lie. You have far more to offer me than I could offer you.

• The close-minded. The uncurious. The unserious. The sticks in the mud stuck in their ways. The people who argue for their limitations. You know how I feel about limitations.

On the flip side, Thought Couture will be right up your alley if you:

• Want guidance from someone who gets it. I’m no expert either. I’m figuring things out too, and am at most only one step ahead on this rocky road towards self actualization.

• Are done with distraction. On more than a few occasions you’ve found yourself doomscrolling through Instagram and thought “Why the hell am I here? This is not how I want to live.” (Same.) You’re finally ready to take control of your time and your mind.

• Can handle a bit of magic, mysticism, and good old-fashioned optimism. By which I mean—art as a means of transcendence. Remaining open-minded to new ways of thinking. Striving to become slightly better people today than we were yesterday. Choosing to believe in love, joy, and humanity despite all evidence to the contrary. (I promise I won’t throw crystals at you though.)

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So you’re picking up what I’m putting down and want to hang around. Magnificent!

By subscribing to Thought Couture, you can expect to see biweekly essays that may take the form of:

• Meditations on works of literature, art, and culture

• Personal reflections on the reality of a thought-oriented life

• Actionable and advice-driven articles related to intentionality, self-education, and polymathy

• Reviews and walkthroughs of personal development and creativity/craft books

Every Friday, I’ll also post one of the following:

• A roundup of articles, essays, videos, or podcasts that might give you food for thought

• A list of creative writing and/or journaling prompts inspired by literature

• My personal reading recommendations based on a chosen theme

By subscribing, you’ll receive a (dare I say) unique blend of intellectual stimulation and practical guidance from a dreamy-yet-determined overthinker and who’s in the trenches with you. Specifically, you'll learn valuable strategies for cultivating a multi-passionate mindset and enriching your life by embracing all of it. We’re going on a journey of continual becoming, crafting a community of fellow multitude-containing individuals passionate about literature, creativity, and the pursuit of a well-rounded intellectual life.

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As a reward for reading this far, here’s a pic of my boss—er, dog, Stella.

One thousand words later, this post has reached its limit, though not a particularly horrible one. Thank you for taking the time to get acquainted with Thought Couture and the humble writer behind it; it’s my immense pleasure to share this space with you, and I look forward to witnessing what we can create together <3. Please feel free to introduce yourself in the comments!

Until next time!