(I'm still working on Part Two
of my response to critics -- specifically a defence of polyamorism
as an essential component of effective Model Intentional Communities. Coming soon, I promise -- Dave)
I want to confess two things I've learned about myself -- things I'm
not particularly proud of -- from my time in Second Life. I suspect I'm
not alone in these two sad admissions, and I even wonder if they are
precisely what makes Second Life so appealing, and keeps so many
addicted to it:
1. We judge people, and assess their 'lovability', by their appearance:
"In Second Life, everyone is young and beautiful." Those of us who are
neither of these things in 'Real' Life have the opportunity in Second Life to:
- appeal to others who would probably, if they met us in 'Real' Life, not give us the time of day, let alone their hearts, and
- discover and love beautiful, attractive people, the people of our idealistic dreams.
No matter if it's a two-way illusion.
Or maybe it isn't an illusion at all. Stephen Downes has argued
that 'Real' Life is no more real, no less an illusion, no less a
construct of our minds and imaginations, no less an invention, than any
dream, any Second or Third Life we may choose to 'live' in. Whether or
not you buy Stephen's argument, the sad reality is that we do assess
and 'value' people on their looks. 'We' want to love who we want to
love, and 'we' want to fuck who we want to fuck. Our bodies decide
this, and fairness and rationality have nothing to do with it.
It's
insane that we should want to spend time with, and love, shallow young
pretty airheads, instead of brilliant, sensitive, wise, articulate,
informed, self-knowledgeable people, but we can't help ourselves.
In
Second Life we can have both. Everyone in Second Life appears lovable,
aesthetically and erotically. So from the safety of our lovely avatars
we can afford, and have a platform, to put our hearts and minds out
there, completely, nakedly, and be accepted for who 'we' truly 'are'.
2.
We are attracted to those who offer mystery, passion, attention and
appreciation, even when that is unhealthy, insincere, needy or
manipulative:
These qualities feed our curiosity, or
desire to 'fill in' and complete, our egos and self-doubts, and our
need to love and be loved and wanted and needed. It's the chase, the
Game. In Second Life everyone is enigmatic.
We are all looking
for people who complement us, who offer us what we want and lack and
who let us offer what they want and lack. That is our social nature.
When people give us attention and appreciation they are almost
impossible to resist. No matter if that is mature and genuine, or
childish, greedy and needy. Or false and cynical or psychopathically
contrived to seduce us.
When it's needy or manipulative it can
get really ugly. It can lead to bizarre and co-dependent relationships
that are sick, depraved, horrifically and endlessly painful. It can
exhaust us, consume us and all our time.
We also love to be
charmed. People who burn bright, who entertain and tease and lure us
with their cleverness or brashness are irresistible. But often like
magicians what they offer is illusion, and illusion is hard to sustain.
Once you know the tricks they become tedious, the magic wears off, and
the magician must, for their sake and ours, find new people to seduce
with their sleight.
And, equally, we love mystery. One of the
astonishing qualities of Second Life is its ability to make perfectly
ordinary people who live mundane and (yes I know I'm being harsh and
judgemental) rather superficial lives appear mysterious, profound and
enigmatic.
It does this through the use of text rather than
voice-to-voice communications (in Second Life you can use either though
most people prefer to stick to text, with the excuse of conserving
bandwidth, but in most cases I think really to create this mystery, and
to allow more time to think and be clever). We all love to 'fill in'
spaces, and it has astonished me when I've read and reread the
'scripts' of Second Life conversations (you can choose to save all your
conversations automatically) how much I have 'filled in' those spaces
to make the person I am speaking with exactly as I would want them to
be, rather than who they really are.
And I am sure they are doing precisely the same thing, 'inventing' me to be exactly who they want me to be.
As
long as this is done as a form of creative entertainment, as exercise
for the imagination, it's wonderful (and totally addictive). But I
suspect in many cases we are creating in these other people impossible
fictions, making them out to be what no human could ever possibly be,
and then loving them, these creations of our own imaginations,
hopelessly, unreasonably, dangerously.
We do this in 'Real' Life
too, I think. We never really know the people we think we know and love
(and until Vulcan mind melds become possible, we never will). We love
who we imagine people to be, and that can create terrible problems
when, as the relationship matures, they are revealed to be something
very different from who we imagined.
That's enough from me
on this. These are half-formed, scary thoughts, and I just wanted to
get them out there. What do you think?
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
