For those of us who have been active in this world of Second
Life for more than a few weeks know this place as SL; and we refer to our “real”
world as RL. For many of us, the distinctions between Real Life and Second
Life, or Real Life and Unreal Life become blurry.
My favorite sociology professor says, “The end of it all is
this: Nothing is as it appears to be.”
And he was referring to the world we normally consider real life.
Seriously. Now shift the focus to Second Life. Second Life is clearly “unreal” …
or is it?
Side Note: It is within the scope
of the mission of Otium Leisure & Laziness to encourage spirited
discussion, so please excuse a bit of tavern-style discussion for this blog post.
A long time ago in SL, I learned to avoid judging citizens
to quickly. Case in point: citizens who
appear in monstrous, outlandish, threatening, and simply silly avatars. In RL,
we are accustomed to judging people by outward appearances, so it is little
wonder we carry that habit to SL. It is we, and not the unusual avatars we sometimes
encounter, who are carrying monstrous, outlandish, threatening and simply silly
ideas from the real world into SL.
Second Life is a place where everyone is free to experiment with personal
inner feelings and desires. That is not wrong. What is wrong is to judge those
whose experiments do not perfectly align with our own.
Spending many hours on Otium Beach over the past few weeks,
I’ve come face-to-face with some rather imposing, scary, and downright silly
looking avatars. “Who their right mind
would choose to look like that?” It’s a natural question. But it is a terribly unhealthy one, because
we really don’t know the spirit of the person behind the keyboard.
In some instances, avatars poofing onto Otium Beach and rez
as gigantic black dragons, vampire bats, or warrior queens with sizzling hair, fiery
eyes, and snaky tongues. But rather get getting grossed out or fearful, I stand
my ground. Often, they begin to morph to more human-looking shapes, eventually
becoming rather ordinary looking SL avatars. “Hi J”
I offer. “Hello, how are you,” they respond. They have apparently sensed the benign
atmosphere of the place and adjusted their avi accordingly.
Other times, the threatening-looking avatars don’t morph,
but turn out to be quite friendly and
civilized in their off-the-wall shapes. One in particular confided that he was
surprised and pleased that I wasn’t put off by his appearance (and he was one
menacing looking dude). He went off on this thing about how prejudice has
messed up his life. (Which life? That really doesn’t make any difference). There
are all kinds of very real people in SL. Some need someone to cut them a few
meters of slack.
Yes, of course, there are exceptions. Creeps with names like
Oodles2334456 who are less than an hour old show up to grief anyone they can
find. But in this case, it is helpful to keep in
mind that immature brains are impatient. If they can’t get you upset and
freaking out within a few minutes, they will move on.
Okay, so “Saint” Vonnie is kind to unusual and generally
unpleasant-looking avatars. But there is often a very thin like between events
in Second Life and Real Life. So I’m at the supermarket in RL this afternoon. I’m
just picking up just a few items of produce, some dairy things, and — yes, of course—my weekend supply of
Chardonnay. I could have been out of then in less than 5-7 minutes if I’d gone
to one of the self-checkout lines. But, no-o-o, I had to get into a regular checkout line
where the two ladies in front of me were buying enough stuff for a household of
ten or more. I mean their bill was over $300, and they were taking forever with
cashing pay (welfare?) checks and food stamps.
Let me be honest. Each one of these ladies were moving
around the world in bodies three times as
heavy as mine. Their clothes most likely came out of a cardboard box at handout
place, and they probably hadn’t done anything with their hair in weeks. I’m trying to paint a picture for you here.
There was something really wrong with my snooty, stereotypical
picture, however – the kids. The kids, even with their worn clothes and unkempt
hair, were well-behaved. As the checkout girl began filling their third cart, I
spoke to the lady immediately in front of me. “Well, they have bagged this up
for you, but now you have to carry it all into the house.”
The smile on the face of that overweight, poorly dressed lady with the
out-of-control hair was bright and vibrant. “Oh, it’s not a problem,” she
smiled, “My husband is home, and he will carry all this into the house.”
The flesh is too easily judged, but the spirit speaks
volumes of truth.
My lessons in Second Life give my real life more vibrancy
and meaning. Please don’t underestimate the power of SL to shake and shape your
real world.
