So, there was me in the lovely evening, on the Tycho Beach in Extropia. Over one year old but fresh as a noob. If you don't know what I am talking about, check the post about how and why dandellion Kimban incarnated as myself, Mr. Dee. It surely was the strange feeling, one of the strangest I've ever felt in second life.
Habit is a funny thing. I got used to see myself differently. Changing shape can be a tricky thing. It is not like changing the shape for fun of playing a temporary avatar while the same person stays inside. It is not like a costume party. This time I felt kind of clumsy. I guess different way of walking has something to do with it. Not to mention male shape. And of course, there is a feeling that it is not the old me now, but completely other person. Which one? I had no idea.
There was no point in standing alone at the beach so I headed to the nearest two green dots. Argent and Vidal were in the beach house. I introduced myself and, as many stranger in Extropia, was welcomed for a chat. In that moment my story really begins. Literally. In that moment I had to answer questions like who am I, what am I doing, where do I come from. And I was just few minutes old. Boy, those girls gave me some hard time.
It happened to all of us. Each and every avatar that is to spend some good time on the grid goes through the same thing. We develop through the interaction with others. There is no other way. But, first time it happens, one doesn't notices it. Noobs are too confused anyway. There is so much about walking and flying, about exploring new world and how things and society work, so the personality development goes unnoticed in the background. This time, I had no such privilege. I already had all those skills, I knew how to walk and not to hit the door and how to change clothes without getting naked in the public. I just had to watch my persona developing in front of my eyes. In less than an hour, basics of my history were there. I was listening them from my own mouth for the first time, just as Argent and Vidal did.
But that was only the beginning. Personal history is not what makes one's self. It takes time, it takes meeting people, it takes thinking and feeling from the new perspective. Personal history is just a side effect of all those events. No matter how that first evening in the beach house was intensive, the next days were a real problem. I was new, but name tag over my head had many acquaintances and affairs. It is hard to develop from the scratch when everywhere you go you are living in the shadow of the older avie-sister. Thousand times, people around me just neglected the different me and got into talking with her. You can imagine how easily that breaks the immersion and the fragile personality. I had to run away quickly. Somewhere where people don't know either of us.
So I went to, you guess, a club. One that I don't visit regularly. Just the same as when anybody comes to one of those places for the first time, the question arise: how to dance? I had no dances in my ZHAO (which serves me as a personal dance machine). I had to stay in the back and enjoy my drink for a while. That, combined with the personality and identity that are "under construction" made me feel and act as a shy person. Usually, people are reporting that they are more outgoing in second life, but this adventure is all upside down.
Now I see that this is not going to be easy as I thought it will be. Having one personality popping out of my human's crazyness was easy and natural. But, while I know there are so many of us in that head, second time will be not that easy. Sure that it takes more than a couple of folders of clothes and several dance animations. Yes, it also takes more than just a story of an avatarian childhood. It will take a lot of nights of roaming around, meeting people, getting in and out of troubles. It will be a long walk until I finally meet myself. One of my selves. Just to break this initial shyness and to start walking.
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