Double Entendre

It is my habit to wait a while before I express some off the cuff opinion of what I see happening around me. I have read a lot of snarky posts about the recent addition to Second Life’s™ policies and guidelines section of it’s website. The Second Life ™ brand center now has guidelines posted for using it’s logo and/or trademarked names. I’ve also read some posts that are expressing resignation to corporate law and making changes to rid their Second Lives of the evidence of SL™ or LL® trademarks and logos.

Content theft is a serious problem and addressing it WILL require action from Linden Labs ®. I understand the outrage of people consistently having creations stolen in Second Life for the profit of an ass wipe who won’t develop the skill and creativity to create their own content. The outrage belongs there - not at LL® for enforcing their brand guidelines. It is just annoyance to have to keep up with trademarks and logos, nothing more. Trademarks and logos are a necessary part of doing business, anywhere, period.

My true hope is that Linden Labs ® is simply taking steps to clean their own house first. The call from residents who have created a Second Life ™ product, only to have it misused or stolen may just have to get a little louder.

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you’re a dreamer, but you’re not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I’ve been trying to stay online in Second Life for the last two hours now and I’m so tired of just trying to stay in-world that I can’t do anything about the boredom I complained of earlier. I’m a patient and persistent person. I have even thought that I may have a motto, “Patience, Persistence, Practice.” That persistence and patience sustained me during my first couple of months as a newbie. I learned how to navigate the grid, make friends and decide what kind of Second Life I wanted to have.  I was able to decide if I wanted to continue to learn more about this virtual world and my place in it.  I’m still here.

Now, that I can find my way around the Grid, I can’t stay online long enough to enjoy it. I’m sure new hardware and a different type of connection would help, but it can’t be done right now. The U.S. Government has decided that the chunk of my income dedicated to it last year wasn’t quite enough and is billing me for more. There goes any hope of new purchases for a while. I had a target date of July for a new computer at least - then changing my internet service provider soon thereafter. Now, I’m just not sure that can work.

I’m also not sure how that is going to affect the Second Life I have made for myself. I have forged relationships, reluctantly, and accepted responsibilities.  I don’t intend to abandon any of them now, so what are my options?  I have to decide whether a vacation from the frustration of Second Life is in order or if I persist and forge ahead as is my usual way.

There are times when my persistence actually does pay off.

Oh, the humanity of Second Life. If you see me like this and you are any of kind of friend to me, you will kill me - right? Or at least tell me, that our servers are not communicating with one another so I can spare you the sight <g>. Never mind the poor taste in clothing. What we can see of clothing, anyway.

I didn’t know, until now, that my Second Life could get boring.  My work has been very demanding, therefore, leaving me little time to get online and play.  The time I’ve spent in Second Life has been organizing inventory and sort of decorating the Skybox.  A neighbor on Vleet decided to sell her property, so there were ugly twirling signs floating in  my windows for a short while. The property sold very quickly.  It was actually sold before I could build my little walkway around the exterior of my Skybox.  The walkway is now holding some trees and plants to make a nice view through the windows - they block any signs that may spring up.

The sale of my neighbors property made me think, though.  I could easily sell my two little parcels, but do I want to?  I complain about how crowded the sim has become, but I could easily do something about it.  I like having this little place to putter around in though. It’s just mine.  I can make any sort of change that I want to, whenever I want to or  just enjoy making a mess without worry.

I have a few days to myself for the Easter holiday.  I can catch up on writing, building, and all the real life spring cleaning stuff.  I am so content in this moment.

A song may seep into your consciousness once in a while. You hear it once, maybe twice, and then you hear yourself humming the melody or singing a particular lyric while you are doing mundane tasks. You realize that you are singing that song over and over it again because it moved you, somehow. There is something about that song that validates a thought, emotion or event in your own life. Some songs bring de’ja’ vu. Others just make you want to dance. You download a song into your iPod because it is just plain fun to listen to.

I heard Cylindrian/Grace sing Song of the Sparrow, this weekend on the Valinor stage at Avilion. That song didn’t seep into my consciousness - it was a direct hit. I felt moved to ask how she sings directly to my soul without even passing through my thoughts first. Will the memory of my love for him give my son strength when he is a man and I am gone? Cyl says that the song was inspired by a friend’s relationship with his Grandmother. The straight to the gut lyrics combined with Cylindrian’s sweet, hypnotic voice brought images of my own son to my mind and pulled at my heart.

So, how does she do that? Sing straight to my soul?

One Responsible for Our Existence speaks up.  

Living in the Metaverse has a couple of well written posts on the subjects of immersion and augmentation. The links provided in the mentioned posts are well followed reading, as are the comments.  I want to pick up the thread, and then run my own line with it, but my own thoughts on the subject ramble. The same blog presented some interesting questions about real life meeting Second Life. I’m going to expound anyway, so consider yourself warned if you read further.

I agree with dandellion’s conclusion; bending the terms “augmentation” and “immersion” to fit our collective Second Life experience is unnecessary. The meanings of the two terms are simple and clear.  I don’t personally think either of them really identifies “separate camps” of Second Life anyway.  My avatars’ personas are as individual as I am.  My actions in Second Life follow my imagination which is unique to me.

I admit that I am just coming to my own opinions and reasons for continuing the personas I’ve created - seven months after my rez day.  The discussion was started by a friend some weeks ago.  He asked questions about Lady Mandylia that put me on the defense in some ways, though I don’t really understand why.  I wasn’t prepared to explain, because the thought had never occurred to me that someone may “play” in Second Life any other way.  The people that I spend the most time with in Second Life play some sort of role.  The avatars they sport may be that of a Dragon, Fairy, Elf, Wizard, Ent, or Drow (the occasional Balrog, too) and the list goes on.  It is common for the same person to have more than one role and character in the place we choose to play our roles.  One person may have a few different accounts/alts and play each role separately when they choose.  It seems perfectly natural to me. You may feel that you have to assign a category to this behavior and you may call it immersing.  It’s true that what I am feeling during this play is the same feeling I have when reading a good novel or drawing or writing.  I am inside of my story and living it, feeling the emotions with the same intensity that I may feel in any real life situation. Time and space fall away.  People sitting in the same room with me in reality will have to call my name once or twice to bring my attention to them.  I have done and do many different things to take my mind to that place. My friend seemed to want to understand what I DO as Mandylia.  The comment he made more than once while I was explaining was this: “I don’t use Second Life as an escape. I use it as an extension of my real life.”  He went on to explain that he didn’t think that escapism was wrong, just different.  I didn’t ask for an opinion.  I didn’t and don’t feel that I “use” Second Life as an escape.  It may be a harsh opinion, but in my mind, the only escape from life is death.  My characters are part of my imagination, making them part of ME. 

I’m not able to physically manifest a purple eyed-elf in the real world. Second Life has given me the opportunity to bring Mandylia Meili to life after a long previous life only in my imagination.  I say and do things in the role that I would not say or do in real life.  This doesn’t mean that my Second Life companions don’t know or see the real me.  They may see more of the real me than I can share with people in real life. The real life mask is much more conservative than the Second Life avatars, by necessity. In that way, we ARE separate.  My immediate family knows about Second Life, but they choose not to participate in it.   I don’t bring Second Life up in general conversation, but I wouldn’t avoid the subject if it came up.  I have made it a point to keep my true identity quiet, because it makes me feel more secure.  A real life meet up is not completely out of the question, but I don’t want to encourage it.  I like my imaginary space.

Playing a role doesn’t mean that I completely disregard the real feelings of the real people behind the characters.  I do have a tendency to ignore the dramas that people stir up in Second Life because most are not worth my attention.  I may say and do a lot of things I can’t or won’t do in real life but that doesn’t mean I will abandon my true nature.  The most intense emotional pain I feel is caused by knowing that I have hurt someone else emotionally.  I can’t leave that behind when I enter Second Life just because it is a “cartoon” world.

Melynn comes to SL as me, the human, because I am okay with just being me sometimes.  Mandylia is outgoing, flip, flirtatious and always involved in some class or training. Melynn and I are okay with just sitting in front of the fireplace, contemplating our separate worlds as we know them. These are my Double Entendre and they are me.