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Anonymous Post

Robin Linden
Linden Lifer
Join date: 25 Nov 2002
Posts: 1,224
08-26-2005 14:19
A Second Life resident asked me to post this anonymously:

I want to thank Linden Labs for giving
the physically challenged folks a place to fly:). For those of us who
wake up in the morning and and grab our chairs, walkers and canes to
make it to our computers lol...its great to sit down and run through a
field of flowers. We dont have to use anything special to change our
clothes, no one looks at us differently, and we get to work everyday if
we choose to do so! We dont have to talk about what is 'wrong' with us,
no Doctors, no meds. And hey, no insurance or medical bills:) You have
no idea how it breaks the boredom of a day to be able to log on to SL
and be free. To do all the things I remeber once doing and just being a
regular ole person:). I am not uncomfortable with my body in real life
mind you and actually thank God everyday for just letting me survive and
being here, but you see I dont want people to know I struggle to
walk.....I dont want to be different. I want to be just normal, its nice
to have no one know that you are different or challenged:) And that is
why I could not post this in the forums. And I know there are others out
there like me. So from all of us to all of you that work hard to keep SL
up and running, to keep it alive and our lil AV clear and on grid TY TY
TY:) post this if you can!!! But plz DO NOT PUT MY NAME ON IT!!! I want
to stay average! :)
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Fushichou Mfume
Registered User
Join date: 30 Jul 2005
Posts: 182
08-26-2005 14:21
Very sweet.
Aimee Weber
The one on the right
Join date: 30 Jan 2004
Posts: 4,286
08-26-2005 14:23
Aweeeeeeeee. This is really moving!
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Trinity Serpentine
Schwan's Avitar Reject
Join date: 1 Oct 2003
Posts: 2,972
08-26-2005 14:30
That gave me a warm fuzzy. :)
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Nolan Nash
Frischer Frosch
Join date: 15 May 2003
Posts: 7,141
08-26-2005 14:32
Nice!

It's so awesome to hear that SL can make people happy who have limited ability to enjoy themselves physically in the real world (and the rest of us too)!

Spread your wings and FLY!

:)
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Gary Bukowski
Registered User
Join date: 4 Jun 2004
Posts: 13
08-26-2005 14:47
I've met alot of people in SecondLife to whom it is a freedom. I've found this really fascinating, since many of us may consider SL a subset of reality -- a less-than. Yet in these cases it's a place where they're even more enabled. In a sense, it's almost more real.

Now that is astounding.

But what really touches me about this situation is how it's not at all different from how the rest of us respond to it -- not at all! I don't know about you guys, but I'm smarter, cooler and better-lookin' in Secondlife (well -- slightly) than in the first. We're all using it the same way -- and the cool part is there are no boundaries to how much of it you take advantage of. No 'game' does that.
Jim Lumiere
Registered User
Join date: 24 May 2004
Posts: 474
08-26-2005 14:52
In the three online worlds I've spent time in over the past several years, I've known a number of people who are challenged in one way or another, and SL (and others like it) allows them to set those aside for a time.

I think it has also helped me grow as a person, because its taught me how important it is to look past the things we see in RL ... look past so much ... to see the what's "real". How ironic, that it sometimes takes a virtual community to see reality.

So, not only do I appreciate what a place like SL offers to some; I also appreciate what it has offered to me ... an opportunity to grow and mature in a way I might not otherwise have had.

Now its time for my milk and cookies ... and maybe a nap. :D
Enabran Templar
Capitalist Pig
Join date: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 4,506
08-26-2005 14:54
It's truly amazing what a few truly dedicated people can accomplish with their dreams. Linden Lab has a lot to be proud of in the technical and business arenas. But I think that their ability to empower so many different sorts of people to pursue their own dreams -- even ones as simple as flying -- is the greatest accomplishment of all.

I'm so excited to be part of such a new frontier.
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Foulcault Mechanique
Father Cheesemonkey
Join date: 28 Mar 2005
Posts: 557
08-26-2005 15:24
I agree it seems Second Life is the one place people can be 'normal' and allow them to do things they cannot normally do be it reality or fantasy. I myself had a friend that was severly ill and tried to get her to come here as I knew she would love it. Unfortunatly her choice to join came to late as a few days later she passed away. She was very excited though to join and be able to walk around and try to be like everyone else. I still wonder to this day what she would ha ve looked like here in SL and picture her standing next to me in a avatar much like what I was like when I met her in the game we met in.
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From: Jeska Linden
I'm moving this over to Off-Topic for further Pez ruminations.
Merwan Marker
Booring...
Join date: 28 Jan 2004
Posts: 4,706
08-26-2005 15:34
SL can be a place where the daily activities of living can offer new life, joy and peace.

Thank you Anon for sharing!


:p :)
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
08-26-2005 15:41
Wonderful post!

I have several friends who enjoy SL (and other online environments) for these same reasons.

These online environments also provide a place for well-known and famous people to thrive in the anonymity so many of us take for granted. I bet we'd be surprised at some of the people we've been playing next to all these years!

It has always been my philosophy - since the first day I got a computer - that in many ways these online environments are more real than real life, because they let you connect with the heart and souls of other people, with little of the physical - age and whatnot - getting in the way.

coco
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Jillian Callahan
Rotary-winged Neko Girl
Join date: 24 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,766
08-26-2005 15:59
Wow. That could have been me writing that.

I think that's one of the reasons I get to over-reacting to people marginalizing SL for me. (i.e. "Don't take it seriously, it's just a game..." etc.) because SL is about all I've got.

In the "real" world, I am a hopeless mess. I can no longer fake social skills like I could 8-9 years ago, and it has wrecked my career, lost me so-called friends, and has come dangerously close to making me a shut-in.

On-line, however, I've adapted fairly well. I still have to retreat now and again, and I'm still very easily overwhelmed, but I can do it. SL has become quite a place of solace for me - where I can talk with real people about real things and not get those looks I get in RL when I miscue.

Better still, SL is a place where I can create things. All kinds of things that would simply be out of reach for me in RL. And people like the things I build... It's really fabulous to have some real praise for my work, that keeps me from believing that nagging fear in the back of my head that I've reached the bottom and have become a mere waste of valuable space.

So, thanks to Linden Lab and all the neat people paying to use this fabulous social media/development platform/collaborative environment/game-playing thingy. :)
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Willow Zander
Having Blahgasms
Join date: 22 May 2004
Posts: 9,935
08-26-2005 16:20
Very moving post.

Makes me so proud to be part of this community.

Go Mysterious AV! :D
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Lisse Livingston
Mentor/Instructor/Greeter
Join date: 16 May 2004
Posts: 1,130
08-26-2005 16:30
From: Jillian Callahan
Wow. That could have been me writing that.



Wow. that could have been me writing what you wrote!
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Aces Spade
Raise you One♠
Join date: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 2,774
Wonderful post
08-26-2005 19:26
This post Moved me and i even cried a bit.. I transport disabled kids to and from school, some with serious handicaps like autism and other disabilities...i am so happy that this person is able to have a second life. :)
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From: someone
Posted by ZsuZsanna Raven
So where is the "i don't give a shit'' option?
Stymied Ennui
Real Life Custom T-Shirts
Join date: 19 Apr 2005
Posts: 85
08-26-2005 21:39
This post made me very happy to read. In rl, I have some illnesses that make my "normal" life a lot different from what other people's lives are. In sl, that doesn't matter. I also love sl because I can talk to others on my own time, and retreat if I need to, and no one minds. Plus, it's my way of making friends, and talking to people, since I get to do so little of that in rl.
katykiwi Moonflower
Esquirette
Join date: 5 Dec 2003
Posts: 1,489
08-26-2005 23:43
For those who pigeon hole Sl as a "game," it is clear that SL is also a virtual world of freedom. :)
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Willow Zander
Having Blahgasms
Join date: 22 May 2004
Posts: 9,935
08-27-2005 02:50
From: Aces Spade
This post Moved me and i even cried a bit.. I transport disabled kids to and from school, some with serious handicaps like autism and other disabilities...i am so happy that this person is able to have a second life. :)


WOW! Really Aces, thats what I used to do, and my folks still do, I miss those kids like hell!
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PetGirl Bergman
Fellow Creature:-)
Join date: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 2,414
08-27-2005 02:57
Very memorable!!!

I can write a lot about this but most are already done here so.. YES!... its something to thing about to remember.. *tear*
Roseann Flora
/wrist
Join date: 7 Feb 2004
Posts: 1,058
08-27-2005 03:01
tearing up here....I am glad sl can do that for you:)
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Aces Spade
Raise you One♠
Join date: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 2,774
08-27-2005 09:06
From: Willow Zander
WOW! Really Aces, thats what I used to do, and my folks still do, I miss those kids like hell!


It's one of the rewards of the job, the bad thing about the job is that sitting on a small bus for 6 hours a day is hard on the knees :rolleyes: school started last week and i got new kids on my bus, one of them has a heart condition i learned yesterday and takes some hefty meds..i get nervous about that, he loves to joke with me calls me "hey you" i turn my head playing and he laughs i tell him i do not know who hey you is then he calls me by my name lol.. there so special, i consoled a crying child on my bus yesterday i guess something happened in school, anyhow i wiped his tears and told him it was ok,we started talking about the 7 cats i have at home that seemed to have distracted him from being upset, as he got off the bus to his home he hugged me, i got emotional when i returned to the bus..the bus company does not tell you what disabilities these children i dunno just thought i would share that with ya lol :) the job has it's ups and downs
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From: someone
Posted by ZsuZsanna Raven
So where is the "i don't give a shit'' option?
Nyx Divine
never say never!
Join date: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,052
08-27-2005 09:09
I suspect that there is quite a high percentage of people in SL who could have written the original post.

People never cease to amaze me, myself included. No matter what shit, trials or troubles our lives dole out to us, some that would make UR hair stand on end. We as a species just pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and shug saying 'Hell is could be worse' and keep on keeping on......tis amazing really.
Pendari Lorentz
Senior Member
Join date: 5 Sep 2003
Posts: 4,372
08-27-2005 10:44
Really wonderful post!! :)

Thank you for sharing that Anon, and thank you Robin for posting it for this person. :)
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Richie Waves
Predictable
Join date: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 1,424
08-27-2005 10:49
Great post. TY LL and Anon
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no u!
Baccara Rhodes
Social Doyenne
Join date: 10 Jul 2003
Posts: 627
Thanks Anon & Robin
08-27-2005 14:08
This really is a wonderful post...
So many of us here have RL issues, major or minor that have made us "retreat" from things we used to love doing in our everyday lives.

Now we are able to fully express that which made us "whole" and complete, be the person we may have wanted to be and couldn't have for whatever reason, and fashion an image which gives us great pleasure.

As someone who has so many "good days and bad", I am so greateful to SL for giving me a place to come where I can be me, without a constant *tsk-tsk*, "How are you dear?"
Here, I can be Baccara, whoever she wishes to be...

We are not a perfect world, but we are closer than most...
Kudos to Linden labs, and to each and every one of my friends and acquaintances for making every day a wonderful Second Life day to enjoy...

With all my love, Baccara
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