Second Life: The Experience So Far

I've been on Second Life since May 12, 2009, and I guess I'm still technically a newbie. But, I've been having SUCH a merry time making fun of and feeling superior to the people who let themselves get hurt in this fascinating and quirky universe. It was all a game, you see.

But somewhere in there, I apparently forgot to mind my own emotional levees, because I got a sharp dash of reality when I fell for someone, and subsequently got wounded. And all the cold logic in the world can't convince me now that any of this is only a game.

Previously, I've walked away from friends and lovers as easily as taking them off my Friends list, accompanied by a mental shrug and an "Oh, well." Now, it's not so simple. I feel slightly battered and frayed around the edges, but after a little consideration, I'm not entirely sure that that is a bad thing. I certainly can't make fun of people so readily who have been hurt.

I can no longer blithely say that one must at all times mind one's boundaries between First Life and Second, because now I know that it can become very difficult and, occasionally, impossible. I'm not even sure anymore that it's wise to maintain a distinction between the two. Emotions felt don't distinguish between Real and Virtual. Grief and loss and hurt are real, regardless of where they were experienced. The comfort of friends is as warm, laughter is no less real, and beauty exists in pixels.

Recently, I was invited as a friend of a friend to a memorial service for someone who had existed as a vibrant presence in Second Life, and then subsequently passed away. I didn't know many of the people there, but the number of lives this man had touched, and the deep affection he inspired in so many people truly amazed me. He mattered, and he was missed, and he was remembered with a great deal of love. None of it was false.

To create a schism in the mind and label the experiences in one part real, and the other unreal, I think could even be unhealthy and, in the long run, dehumanizing. To refuse to acknowledge that the person behind the avatar is entitled to real emotion is to make ourselves less real, and less human and, ultimately, more shallow.

I don't think that places like Second Life are going to go away. I think that they're going to become more and more real--or at least less distinguishable from what we call 'reality.' I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge as real the emotions created by interacting with others in virtual realities. Joy, no matter where or why it is felt, is still joy.