It's been fun and rather insightful over the last week or so, blogging and sorting through my piles of miniatures simultaneously. On one hand I've had an opportunity to reflect on my own personality through my hobby choices, although I'd never dream of boring anyone else with those thoughts. On the other hand, however, I've had a chance to think about our hobby as a whole and it really strikes me what a perfect pastime it is.
There need be no end to any aspect of it. Collecting, painting, playing, these are all open-ended commitments. Painting especially falls into the do-it-then-eventually-abandon-it category. This could be depressing. Very depressing. But what one needs to remember is that a hobby is supposed to be exactly like that: it's a space for dreaming and doodling, for experimenting, for creativity and absurdity. For fun.
We all at some point take things too seriously and that's when you feel like Sisyphus, dragging the hobby-load up the mountain only to find you've tumbled to the bottom again. But this isn't a mountain climb. The summit is an illusion created by our socialised need to categorise things into tasks with beginnings and ends and with a defined purpose. The enjoyment this hobby brings is outside those definitions. We should all remember this whenever we can.
We're not climbing mountains - we're dancing through foothills.
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