I am in the world when client is on and logged in, and avatar is walking, talking and stuff. I am also in the world when reading Herald or NWN or SL Insider, no matter that client is off and avatar is sleeping somewhere in temporary death of database. Am I? Really, where is the border of our two lives?
Do your human lives through your avatar? Do your avatar lives through your human? When you post on forums or blogs, whose words are you typing?
For some it is hard to know, maybe even to notice there is a difference, that there is a border. It is usually case with residents who feel their second lives as an extension of their first. May they be hard core neuromancers with heavy connection between their two bodies, or just ordinary human who plays their toys in computer game of Second Life. Between them is the rest of the population: role-players, virtual businessmen, all the crowd that have fun in the clubs and beaches… More or less, they are all roleplaying. They have their roles that are fine mixture of their “real” and their imagined selves. But, are we aware where is the thin and sometimes blurry line that separates our flesh bodies from those we created in the world of pixels? Really, whose words you will type in the comments?
Since I started “playing” (or maybe i should tell “living”?) in SL, things changed a lot for me. I promised myself never to mix RL with SL and to keep my SL experience as a “game” in a cyberspace i so long awaited to be realized… Then days passed, that strange feeling of “pointlessness” faded away as I met people, visited sims, enjoyed clubs, established strong relationship with some other avatar. In this very last days, when i sleep, i noticed that i dream a lot about my SL. It was funny in the beginning now it makes me wonder where the border is. And if I really need to know where it should be. Sometime i think that it would be so good to have a SL client directly “connected” in my brain, to be online when I like and to express my feelings in a better way, other than words and gestures. Then I realize my Eidur is already “growing” and behaving in a different way compared to my RL. She is making literature of her Slife. Should I stop her? Have I the right to quit acting how her SL friends expect her to? Where is the border and where is right/safe to place it?
Evoery time somebody tells me about dreaming second life, I have that mix of relief and panic: “OK, that means I am not the only one, but that again doesn’t mean we haven’t gone nuts!” Idea of skipping keyboard&mouse and jacking something directly to the spinal cortex is another issue that some residents share. I suppose we are lucky that such an interface is not developed yet. Just imagine lag storm while being connected that way!
But, I will rewind back to the main question (leaving this one for one of next posts)…. Can our avatars develop their own personalities? Do they speak and behave differently from their humans? Do they feel…. no, they don’t feel, but do we, people behind the keyboards, feel differently through them then we would feel if we were where they are, doing what they do?
actually, going back to the dreams thing, I did have a dream once where I was in a pub, chatting to someone, when I heard behind me the keyboard sound you get in SL, and so I turned and . . . .
Well, I think yes. Of course it’s just my personal opinion but I when I started SL i suddenly grasped the chance that this “game” was offering. Not even for a single moment i thought about projecting my RL on my avatar… No way people, this IS my second opportunity, my avatar should be free as i never could be in RL, she is a small boat sailing the sea of feelings and emotions that (courtesy of other “players”) i try to navigate (and sometime i even sink into…) I like to say when I chat with others – “i don’t lie in SL” – well, that’s true, in a paradoxical way i am a lot more myself in SL that in RL… I guess in RL we are forced to lie more or less, or maybe I am just too weak and tired to fight and try hoplessly to make people understand my points. Now I have this second chance, I won’t waste it, even if it should eat my brain away…
At this point, I live 30/70 both in RL and in SL. And yes, of course, cuz a lotta new things happen to me each moment in SL, and not plenty of them going on in RL – and when I say this, just meaning that in RL I reached a stage where I have everything I could have (yeah… I’m one of the lucky ones *winks). On the contrary, in SL I still have plenty to build, develop, meet.
However… Summer’s myself no doubt, and probably the most free and deepest part of me – but me over here I’m much more than just Summer. On the other hand, circumstances in-world do have a say about the way the chars develop… many things just happen and u can only react to them. At one point, u realize her life is so far from ur own that although it’s still u… it’s u going beyond all of ur own borders and limits (hope I’m getting this straight, sorry guys english’s not my first language).
An example of this: I had once a camping alt, who wasn’t at all supposed to be a full resident. This guy started talked to her and I broke rule nr 1 “alts don’t speak”. He turned out to be a great guy, they got married and settled down and have a great life together. Meaning, he literally made her born out of nothing. She usually lays down on their bed while ME over here have my Rl sleep overnight. The other night I was worried bout the pool they were building and remind that in my sleep I thought I really should get up and check that out. When I woke up RL… my display showed a empty bed and my IMs revealed a concerned husband speaking about his wife wondering naked on the garden during the night. When I reached for my cam… yeah… I was stuck in a walking animation… naked… by the pool. And I know, it’s jsut bad SL… but it surely makes our mind wander, huh ?
Loved ur blog… u got urself a new reader, thanks a lot !!!
Thanks for all the responses!
It seems some interesting facts occurs throught the grid. Many of us dreams second life, and after a while our avatars seems to diverge from theit typist. At the same time we have that feeling that despite the fact that there are differences, we are not lying in either in RL nor in SL. It struck me for the first time when a friend who was transgendered in that moment said that e doesn’t lie nor presenting self in deceptive way. And yes, that makes perfect sense. Seems that there is something deeper than body and avatar that we recognize as our self. Something that holds our identities and that can trawel from body to avatar however they differs. I can just imagine how it goes with more avatars and alts (I have no alts).