It’s such a busy, overwhelming world, we all need to take a little time out sometimes. The Bold Doll offers some strategies on self-preservation in the modern era.
Doll collectors already know that our hobby offers some respite from the rigors of everyday. But did you realize that it might also be good for our health and sanity? In her new book How to Do Nothing, the author Jenny Odell discusses the ways that the impact of modern life can be mitigated.
As she explains, we are in “a situation where every waking moment has become pertinent to our making a living.” One of the things that’s key to her is something that anyone who enjoys dolls will be familiar with: the ability to take our minds to another place, to be completely absorbed in something that requires no thought about other cares, and to consciously pay attention to another reality.
Odell points out, “That decision to pay attention to different things – to me, that’s the beginning of free will. If, in that abstract mental space, you can be reminded that the decision is actually yours to make, that it wasn’t made for you, I think that cascades into all the other areas of your life – like, for instance, using social media – where you actually have a choice, where you didn’t think you had one.”
This is something that we can tap into with our dolls. Odell suggests that we train ourselves to assume a different perspective, one that allows us to see familiar things in a new way and in the process find momentary relief. “When I try to articulate it, it sounds really abstract, but I think it’s actually very practical. If you think about your mindset when you go to a place you’ve never been, especially on vacation, the way that you look at things is quite different than how you would normally look at things while on your way to work. A lot of what I’m describing is trying to apply that same mindset to things that you’ve seen many times – you will always be surprised.”
So there you have it: doll collecting is actually good for us and, by inference, for those around us too!
This feature first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine, Winter 2019
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