When she said surely that we had creepy, perhaps even unhealthy obsession with dolls, I thought, isn't the sentence supposed to end with a blank, not "dolls"?
I woke up to a post by a fellow Instagram user who happened to be annoyed by a recent post from NYT concerning doll or miniature lovers. I didn't feel as annoyed, though but the idea made me spend my early morning coffee thinking how that article came to be.
I will start and base my opinion entirely on my own doll collecting experience, because I don't know how it's like for others. But I'm sure there is some overlapping happening here and there.
I grew up in a fair-ish world. I had my taste of toys, caring parents and relatives. I'd say I lived a good childhood. But, what got me started with collecting dolls and miniatures since childhood, I can't exactly point out. I just liked to look at and be amazed by how things which were originally human-sized, became small. It's probably for my own peace of mind.
Fast forward to now, at 38, I still own dolls and miniatures. It's not too obsessive, I guess since I've seen quantities and commercial values of collections more than 100 times my own. But I guess the idea of keeping them is the obsessive part.
We all try to keep things. We all try to capture, and hold for as long as we can, some things that make us feel good. When we experience a great feeling or connection, we save it in the folders of our brains as "Great feeling". And as we go on with our lives, we are eventually presented with new things that remind us of that great feeling. Then we try to capture that thing. We buy it, keep it, and thinking, "Yussss! I'll have this great feeling forever!" Feel, capture/collect, repeat.
So let's have a game. Try to think of as much words you can put instead of "dolls", in the blank below:
"Surely some people have creepy, perhaps even unhealthy obsession with _______________."
Books. Clothes. Bags. Perfumes. Money. Houses. Cars. Pets. Canned goods. Hobby tools. Shoes.
Sorry, I know I sound lazy with that super short list but my world is too limited. But my point is, anybody has an obsession with trying to capture an experience in a thing. And I guess, that is pretty much simply because it's a human thing. We live to survive. And for as long as humans existed, we devised survival tactics according to how our worlds operate at the time. Survival started with just water, shelter and food. Okay, air of course. And of course to defecate. It was such a simple cycle. Then our egos told us we need clothes because the weather can sometimes make us sick if we roam around naked all the time. And then tools to protect us from other organisms that threaten our existence. And.. okay, you get the point, right? Fast forward to the 21st century, our survival tactics have developed into complicated layers that are aptly on track with the current world.
But basically, we enjoyed survival too much that we do anything to continue surviving. We collect ways to survive. We collect to survive. We also let out things to survive. It's the process. It's the cycle.
So, I understand if people don't see it in my perspective, why I collect dolls and miniatures, and why I let out/defecate/detoxify through creating, by crafting. Those people had their own perspective of surviving. Their collections might just be creepier than mine! Even the minimalists have collections! They collect an image of themselves as minimalists. They collect ideas of what being a minimalist should be. Everyone is a collector. It's a way of surviving.
So, shall we continue with our game, then?
xoxo,
shasha
