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Adults with childhood toys
Jan. 14th, 2012 10:38 pmMy box arrived today, woohoo! Three are drying off after their trip to the sink; the others didn't need it. Photos coming when the weather breaks... if it ever freaking does. *shakes fist at cloudy sky*
Also today I saw Toy Story 3 for the first time. Everyone was right: it is really sad, and really extraordinarily good. I mean, the first movie was fun, and the second so forgettable that I can't recall a single thing about the plot, but this one made me cry.
It also made me feel a little awkward about customizing. :/
( Very vague spoilers )
Adults tend to catch flak for keeping, displaying, or just taking care of their childhood toys, but this just isn't fair. It's damn near impossible to have spent so many hours of your life pretending that an object is real without developing some kind of real emotion for it.
I still regret allowing my childhood Moondancer to get so beat up that she's now custom bait. I still regret donating my Rattlin' Wrestler (if you don't remember these, and most people don't, they were huge four-foot-long plush snakes with rattles in their tails, and yes, they were big enough for a kid to wrestle with... he looked exactly like this but I don't have $75).
But I still have my stuffed tiger, who has been at various times named Tigger, Hobbes, Raja, and eventually just Tiger... and I'd sell all my ponies, all my books, my ukulele, my computer, my college degree, my passport, and my bike before giving him up.
We're talking about an inanimate object that has no practical, ethical, or even financial value. My books, uke, computer, degree, passport, and bike collectively have immense practical value, from communication to work and travel opportunities to invaluable stress relief to basic transportation, and losing them would hurt my life a great deal... but losing my tiger would hurt my soul. It would hurt me in a way from which there would perhaps be no true recovery, with no possibility of replacement. This is, of course, not even remotely rational.
And yet, there it is. Human beings are not rational.
My toys are not real, but my feelings about them are. I logged so much time in my childhood getting joy and comfort from these objects that the objects are now permanently seared into my brain, a direct and immediate pavlovian link to brief feelings of happiness.
Adulthood is not exactly associated with happiness, is it. You know what I mean. Why the hell would I give up something that can instantly, albeit briefly, remind me how to be happy? Just so visitors wouldn't snicker when they see my stuff? Who gives a shit?
I'm an adult man who collects these little girl toys because they made me happy when I was a kid and they still kinda make me happy, at a time in my life when not many things can. That's all, really.
I... wasn't expecting that to turn so... uh, personal. I'd planned to wax nostalgic, lightly and lovingly, about the role of childhood toys in adulthood. Must've taken a wrong turn somewhere, heh.
Also today I saw Toy Story 3 for the first time. Everyone was right: it is really sad, and really extraordinarily good. I mean, the first movie was fun, and the second so forgettable that I can't recall a single thing about the plot, but this one made me cry.
It also made me feel a little awkward about customizing. :/
( Very vague spoilers )
Adults tend to catch flak for keeping, displaying, or just taking care of their childhood toys, but this just isn't fair. It's damn near impossible to have spent so many hours of your life pretending that an object is real without developing some kind of real emotion for it.
I still regret allowing my childhood Moondancer to get so beat up that she's now custom bait. I still regret donating my Rattlin' Wrestler (if you don't remember these, and most people don't, they were huge four-foot-long plush snakes with rattles in their tails, and yes, they were big enough for a kid to wrestle with... he looked exactly like this but I don't have $75).
But I still have my stuffed tiger, who has been at various times named Tigger, Hobbes, Raja, and eventually just Tiger... and I'd sell all my ponies, all my books, my ukulele, my computer, my college degree, my passport, and my bike before giving him up.
We're talking about an inanimate object that has no practical, ethical, or even financial value. My books, uke, computer, degree, passport, and bike collectively have immense practical value, from communication to work and travel opportunities to invaluable stress relief to basic transportation, and losing them would hurt my life a great deal... but losing my tiger would hurt my soul. It would hurt me in a way from which there would perhaps be no true recovery, with no possibility of replacement. This is, of course, not even remotely rational.
And yet, there it is. Human beings are not rational.
My toys are not real, but my feelings about them are. I logged so much time in my childhood getting joy and comfort from these objects that the objects are now permanently seared into my brain, a direct and immediate pavlovian link to brief feelings of happiness.
Adulthood is not exactly associated with happiness, is it. You know what I mean. Why the hell would I give up something that can instantly, albeit briefly, remind me how to be happy? Just so visitors wouldn't snicker when they see my stuff? Who gives a shit?
I'm an adult man who collects these little girl toys because they made me happy when I was a kid and they still kinda make me happy, at a time in my life when not many things can. That's all, really.
I... wasn't expecting that to turn so... uh, personal. I'd planned to wax nostalgic, lightly and lovingly, about the role of childhood toys in adulthood. Must've taken a wrong turn somewhere, heh.