Does the pic contained within ring true for you?

Hmmm, debatable.

So, debate!


Edit: Added attachment also

It doesn't show on my browser

I dun see it eether.

strange. I see it fine. wassat all about den?

It didnt show for me but when I hit refresh it started loading

Isee it now, I see it now!!!
Ta much Eggy.

And as to the picture prompted discussion.....
at times, yes
other times, no

This is true, sometimes I find online life easier than Real Life, although both are totally me, through and through, feelings, attitude, personality, occasionally the way I look (not with bondage stuff on >.>, all online representation of those are just a better looking and sexier mirror image of the RL me.

But is it easier to go through all the feelings you have on SL, or does it cause just as much heartache and pain, joy or sorrow, laughter or tears as it would in RL?

Sometimes I think online is harder than RL, cos you let yourself go more, you are more open (or I know I am) and ultimately sometimes, that can lead to causing more issues than you have in your RL, where you are more wary and have more guards up.

Bleh iunno, I'M TIRED

Too many Pixies can give you a sugar high

That's like Habbo Hotel, Donnie Darko style!

Willow, the environment here may be virtual, but the people are real.
As a consequence the emotions are just as valid as in real life.

Yes, after being here for almost 2 years, I have learnt that both the easy and the hard way

Willow and Lucifer, I agree with you... the only thing that is different in SL compared to RL is the way I look ( about 20 years younger lol ).

All emotions I experience in SL, both good and bad, are as real as in my Real Life... don't really see how it could be different since, like Lucifer says, we are all real people behind our avatars.

My € 0.02

Nah - it's Second Life when Eggy first joined.

(Sorry Eggy - couldn't resist!)

One minor question - why are the eyes of all the other pixelated characters blacked out... Did they commit crimes, or star in adult movies, or ask that their faces not be shown on these forums? I think if you wanted to protect their 8-bit identities you could have blurred/pixelated them out like they do on TV. Oh, wait...

I don't separate real life and online I just see online stuff, be it SL, IM or forums, as a way of communicating - same with the telephone.

I'm more confidently social with people I don't know in forums because I get more time to think about what I'm saying and what the other people have said, and can put off responding for a bit if I want though.

Life isn't "easy" pixilated or not. Being hurt in SL is just as painfull as being hurt irl. On the other hand, true joy and happiness isn't lessened by being seperated by miles and miles or that part of your connection involves pixils.

two ways to take this:

Irl I go to a job, I take care of children, I teach, I take care of a house and a car, I run errands, I have to shop (I hate rl shopping...and housework...and driving...and children-heh, kidding!)

In SL I shop, I build things, I visit friends, I dance, I shop, I cuddle with my honey, I shop, I spend hours trying on skins and hair, I shop...

So yes, in that way my virtual life is heavenly

However,

In rl I'm single and in love with my virtual honey, who lives 1000 miles away, so we only see each other in SL or WoW, and talk on the phone and on yahoo voice. I can be a total emotional wreck sometimes, due to my virtual lives (yes, I have two or maybe six virtual lives if you count ALL my WoW characters). It's much harder being in love via electronics than in person.

It helps if you can build up enough trust and love each other enough to go visit in real life. But then it's impossible to separate your virtual life from your real life because your pixelated representation of you is no longer the person your significant other sees when he sees you virtually and vice versa. (Ok, that sentence makes sense to me...) In fact, I don't think I can separate my virtual from my real because now my virtual is pretty much...real.

My question is: How do you have a romantic relationship with someone virtually without the hope or idea that someday you're going to actually meet, unless you're just playing around?

SL isn't pixelated, it's polygonated!

Having said that, if I were pixelated I'd wish it was 16-bit at least.

For me second life is a alternative universe that runs parrallel to RL. I've been hurt, and I've been overjoyed in SL. I've hung out by a pool in some ancient ruins and shared deeply with others. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the real people I have met here.

This ability to met and care about people to the extent that I do is only possible because it is parrallel, not intermeshed. If I tried to get to know people the way I have in SL,here in RL the consquences are just way beyond what I would want to do. If you ask me, the emotional attachment that occurs here is a lot more threatening to my RL if it was happening in RL, than what virtual romantic actions two people might do togather.

I care dearly for the people I meet in SL, but I have no illusions about what our relationships could be if we "ran errands, shopped, drove and raised kids". That is the primary joy and burden of my RL relations and I. Relations that have developed over many years.

All that history and geography can, and in my case has, led to need for a little bit of "heavenly virtual life", but RL, for me at least is a long way from hell. So I say RL first, forever.

I saw a woman's profile that said "no voice chat, no RL pictures, husband's rules". I think that pretty much describes an SL life openly lived with RL boundaries.

So is that playing? If in RL I was in a wheel chair am I playing if I go dancing? I am one person RL and SL. I was born in SL on Nov 16 2005. I have learned so much about myself and my SL friends in that time it just makes me stop and reflect in awe. As with any relationship, if the limits are concelled then I am just playing that person. But if you know me and my SL bound avatar then I am fully here in this world.

When I log off, I'll tuck my kids in, do some errands, give my wife a squeeze, try to figure out the bills, sleep, and then head off to work and all the while I might be thinking of what was said last night at a pool amid ancient ruins in a place where thoughts run deep.

I've seen your RL pic. No way could your avatar be sexier than the RL you.

P2

Wow. Just came back from watching a basketball game with one of my sons and checked to see how my first post ever went.

Those lyrics are like a freight train going right through my soul. But probably for a different reason than posted. It describes with great precision my adult relations in RL, in marriage, work and community.

The rot that is the busy-ness of American culture. I have no idea how human beings can live such independent lives, devoid of any close friends, devoid of any time to just be there for others. As if the only time we need to spend hours in just being togather was some frivilous years in High Schools and College. How many times and in how many ways can I try to suggest some way of doing things togather with those rapped up in their busy lives? How many attempts to find a common effort before you just say, OK you go do your thing and I'll figure out what I can do to save my spirit?

Any one who knows what my AV looks like can be certain that I didn't come here to find love in all the wrong places. When I first showed up I went from place to place where there were lots of people and I saw more of the same emptyness of busy consumption. And right before I was ready to just bag SL I found people that were not trying to consume each other. People that were looking to get to know another human being and share with them.

What followed from there was a total surprise to me, I did not understand the power of the medium. And if I have walls between RL and SL it is becasue in SL I am me but it RL there are 4 kids, my wife and me that make up "ourselves". As the line in the song goes.

Is there nothing we can do for ourselves? Or only what we should?

I think that is a false choice. I really want more than anything in either world to have my kids know that there is an us. That throughout life we need to hang out, have some unstructured time, outside of all the school, the leasons, the teams. Time to be human. To value open sharing with others.

It is not what I should do. It is who I want to be. It is what I want us to be.

There is an us that is forming in SL that I am a part of. But there is another us that I have been a part for a long time too. Who knows, maybe SL is all part of "sleeping on a time bomb". I hope it is part of discovering what it means to be human.

"Is there no redemption? No common good?"

God I hope so.