It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do'; they can only be done by.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the limitations and lack of agency in being a doll, symbolizing those who exist to be shaped by others rather than taking action themselves.
Rumer Godden's quote highlights the vulnerability and helplessness of dolls, which serve as a metaphor for individuals who lack control over their own lives. It suggests that to be chosen rather than to choose can be a source of anxiety and danger, emphasizing the importance of agency and the power to take action in one's own life.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth and overcoming adversity, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of making choices in life.
A writer who has never explored words, who has never searched, seeded, sieved, sifted through his knowledge and memory...dictiona ries, thesaurus, poems, favorite paragraphs, to find the right word, is like someone owning a gold mine who has never mined it.
The real cost of the State is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that donβt exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The State has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.
However much you feed a wolf, it always looks to the forest. We are all wolves of the dense forest of Eternity.
I knew Snoop Dog didn't start misogyny. I knew that Tupac Shakur didn't start sexism, and God knows that Dr. Dre didn't start patriarchy. Yet they extended it in vicious form within their own communities. They made vulnerable people more vulnerable.
One of the most important misunderstandings for white people to get over to move forward is this idea that racism is a good-bad proposition - that if we're good we can't be part of it, that being uncomfortable means you're a terrible person. We have to let go of that and understand it as a system we all live in.
Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination.
Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self.
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