Been Missing You

As tens of thousands of people have discovered, my SecondLife (www.secondlife.com) avatars have become my way of expressing my artistic talents. Okay, so I'm not really designing clothes, or writing music, or writing a book. When a terrific event comes up on my calendar, I can spend weeks shopping for new clothes, eyes, skin, shape, or even full avatars for my avatar to wear. When I just want to go exploring, I enjoy hooking up with newbies and taking them along on "in world" adventures. At one point, I stumbled into a "role play" game, where zombies were attacking us, and we had to climb into a space ship and fly out. But lately, the real world has been encroaching on my SecondLife time. So I'm missing my avatars, and the personalities they draw out of me. That may sound a bit schizophrenic, but I think I have it under control.

That's not to say, the friends I've made on SecondLife are replaceable.That is absolutely not the case. They are a wonderful support system, since I can discuss things with them that I could never do with local friends. That distance provides a blanket of obscurity, and eases any worry of bias or widespread rumor. One of my SL friends offered that he's a transvestite, while another revealed that he's an alcoholic. It's just easier to talk with them, because they have exposed presumably "real life" secrets. Tongue in cheek, here, because everyone plays their part and you can appear to be something entirely different from reality. But in SL, everyone is a good dancer, and everyone has perfect hair, and perfect teeth, etc., etc. And if you wanted to protest in a big rally and march in support of a volatile cause, you can do that safely in SL. I can't claim that it would have the impact in the real world, but it does create a support system for those that ARE really in that volatile situation. And as we've seen in recent history in Egypt and Libya, it only takes a single spark to light a fire to drown out the darkness.

So, when I say I've been missing you, I mean it. Real life gets in the way far too much. SecondLife allows me to drop out of a crushing reality and "wear" another life for a little while.