Two years ago, while I was still kind of young in my second life, I met a woman. She was a vampire dominatrix though the lifestyle really doesn’t play any role here. We chatted a bit so I’ve learned that she’s very old, something like late beta. And while she was a great conversationalist, intelligent, informed and remembering the old days of the grid, there was something in her eyes or voice that was… well, not sad, something even beyond that. Like she has passed the state of sadness, got used to it and learned to live with it. Something I really couldn’t point at at the moment.
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She lived in her castle, somewhere at the mainland, with her girls, let’s say there was three of them. They were her slaves, lovers and friends. They were her only friends. As much as I gathered, the castle was secluded, maybe even hidden in the sky, and protected from entering. She cut herself off from the rest of the grid. She was leaving the place very rarely. Every now and then she had to go out to renew her clothes, probably get presents for the girls and maybe some furniture, but even then the sight of the rest of the grid was too harsh on her eyes.
I guess that many of you now show the exact amount of misunderstanding that I had at that moment. I was one year old, avatar at her peak. Grid was huge and colorful. All over the place there were people sparkling with ideas. Windlight sky was smiling at us. Life was an adventure. It just wasn’t right to sit home, somewhere in some dungeon, be it even most beautiful dungeon, with only three friends, be it the best lovers in the world. It just wasn’t right. But now I know better.
It’s inevitable, at one moment each of us gets that "seen it all" feeling. Older we get there is more and more empty sims, less and less places captures our attention let alone the imagination. Less and less friends we have. Avatars don’t die but they do go back to databases to never come back. We don’t have much nerves to talk to dozens of people to discover one that is worth another conversation. Our favourite club got closed. And that’s the fifth time that the favourite place has to be deleted from the picks. We have inventories with 30K or 50K items and no new pair of shoes can tickle the heart.
So, why doesn’t she doesn’t leave, you ask? Why doesn’t she join her late friends in the databases? Because she can’t. And that’s the hard part. Nevermind her lifestyle and fashion, she is a vampire. She is doomed to live. She loves her girls. And she loves second life, though there is not much left of it for her. But she loves the feeling of being on the grid. And she loves herself, I guess. We fall in love in our own avatars, that’s the essence of this world. So there she is, logging not so often as she used to, but more than she need to. Waiting to see how the story ends. If it ever ends.
So there I am now, three years old in this world of imagination and illusions. Naked, holding an umbrella, falling from the sky, as the tradition says I should do on my rezzday. That symbolism never fails. Sometimes it’s about the unknown that you jump into. Sometimes it’s the nakedness and the feeling that you exposed yourself to the end. Sometimes it’s the emptiness of the vast space around you. Let’s see what comes in the next year.
Thought-provoking post, Dandellion.
How long is *too* long to stay? So many have left and come back. The siren call of SL is strong. Maybe it’s better to remain and to find something that sustains you, be it work, or money, or love. I find I am happier in SL when I’m involved in a project of some kind.
Luckily, I found it with acting and doing voice overs. Some are not so fortunate. As you pointed out, SL is littered with the “database dead.”
Here’s to never joining that ghoulish lot and jumping naked from the sky year after year, yelling “Geronimo” on the way down as we greet another breathtaking year in our world.
While it is always nice to see you naked, I don’t like much the jumping custom; it look too lonely, like being sad of “here went another one”, instead of celebrating it. It probably would be different if you landed naked by your friends… or on your friends? ^-^.
I had more things to say, but I did it again; a long comment became a post :-p
[...] 18, 2009 by London Spengler After three months of silence, dandellion Kimban just wrote a new post, and you shouldn’t miss it; she nails the feeling of tiredness that affects many of us, SL [...]
I’ve been there many times, had the feeling “Why do I keep logging in” many times. There were times I only came online for a handful of friends (among those you, btw), and was sad and lonely if none of them had time.
But every time a new project came up, a new love developed, a new skill offered itself to be mastered, a new exciting opportunity waiting to be claimed.
This world never ceases to surprise me, never ceases to enchant me. I owe so much to this world, it has given me so much.
So take the opportunities as they come! And don’t make yourself a stronger.
P.S. I enjoy seeing you naked too :-)
A lovely and thoughtful piece; thank you!
such a beautiful and deep post dandellion.
as usual, we seem to be perfectly tuned on that very same “note”.
You cannot even imagine how much I share the feeling you wonderfully expressed within this post.
And, in effect, I’m loggin so rarely in these days, that I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t cancel forever my virtual life.
It just doesn’t hold a grip on me no more. I felt I was feeding my SL with the fuel of passion but in the end, I was just consuming myself (my passion for SL, I guess).
And in those very rare and cold nights, when I feel so bored and lonely that I give up and log in, I know I’ll find nobody home (yes you’re not there no more… :P)