Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Damaged, But Not Broken

Yesterday was more or less a wasted day. I slept in long, woke up, drank some water, then crawled back to bed again. All day the only memorable thing I did was brush my teeth, nothing else really. I didn't eat, didn't talk to anyone, didn't leave my home and didn't get dressed. I walked around in the flat and slept in my boxers, a t-shirt under a hoodie and thick hiking socks. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.
Luckily I am off from work until January 2nd, but still I want to do more in my free time than sleep, blog and be in SecondLife.

However I didn't do a worthwhile thing until I finally crawled out of bed at 9 PM to make some coffee. After my first cup of coffee I started reading predictions for 2012 in the SecondLife and virtual worlds blogosphere. That was to a large extent a dreary ordeal.

Every SecondLife blogger with any ambition or pretension to be a serious part of the metaverse had come up with some prophesy or other on what we could expect of 2012. Many seemed to have taken their starting point in Philip Rosedale´s views on SecondLife as he expressed it earlier this year. The "high threshold" and the residents being “Smart people in rural areas, the handicapped, people looking for companionship, they love it. But you have to be highly motivated to get on and learn to use it.” statements.

Some of them even went so far as to say that a vast majority of residents are "broken" (physically. emotionally, mentally and/or spiritually).

I have never ever considered myself broken in any way, shape of form, and certainly not when I first arrived to SecondLife and decided to come back again, again, again and over again for almost five years now. Maybe I have gotten somewhat damaged during my time here, but I sure as hell have not been broken by this life.

Although most of them predict SecondLife will still be around for all of 2012, they still rant on about its high threshold compared to online games like "World of Warcraft", which is one of the fastest growing games and is therefore seen as a model to which SecondLife should adapt to recruit new users. So I went ahead and tried that game to see how easy it would be to join, learn and how interesting it would be in there.

I spent four (4) hours in the trial version of the game. First I must say it was not that easy to sign into. One has to register twice, which I cannot understand the need for and which was totally bewildering because the sign in´s come at different points of the registering process.

Once you are in, you choose if you want to belong to "the good" or "the bad" side and what kind of apparition you want to be in those alliances and how you want to look. Creating your looks isn't as advanced as in SecondLife if you want to vary from the given avatars and the resulting avatar is a disappointment.

After downloading, registering twice on different services (the game itself and something called "Blizzard" - if I remember correctly) and creating my looks for about 30 minutes I spent 3,5 hours honestly trying to give the game a chance to intrigue or fascinate me.

There was never any interaction with real people, just with machine dummies who gave you missions or could bring you to life if you died, all the set was about clicking fast and hard on things you had to kill. I admit, I am easily bored sometimes, but after doing this for 3,5 hours my brain was numb and bored to death by the simplistic shit.
If that's what they think we should strive for I for one don't want any part of it - ever.

Do you finally see to what extremes I am prepared to go so you should not have to, my dear readers?

14 comments :

  1. The most insightfull article about the virtues of Second Life is also one of the longest, but that is the kind of effort you and me buddy put into this, so I´m sure you will read it: http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2011/12/22/tackling-the-self/

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  2. Dear boy... My wednesday looked a little bit different.
    When my children is two weeks with their father I set aside some time to myself. I pulled on my rain gear, not my Musto & Hyde is for sailing, but an old-fashioned but reliable from Grundéns rain clothing factory in Uddevalla. Complete with sudvest and wellies. I walked for two hours in the rain along the coastline. Very nice. I realy felt that I was alive and a part of nature. Before I went I had started the sauna. Back home, I took a nice hot sauna bath, painted toe nails and pamper me for once.
    Kynlif Leikfang
    (PS couldn´t find out what profile to select)

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  3. Nu har jag skaffat googlekonto så jag slipper vara "anonym".

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  4. Thank you for that link, Apmel buddy! Like you I have saved it as a PDF for later reading ;)

    Welcome Kynlif, I am so happy your Wednesday was more rewarding.

    I actually do agree with what you may - or may not be - implying but what I read into your comment anyway. The fact that I have responsibility for only my own well-being and am not entrusted/burdened with the care of anyone else (a partner or children) really allows me to wallow too much in my self obsession at times.

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  5. -Did I say all that?
    It is not easy to "talk" with someone who takes
    interpretation prevail of everything said.
    Sometimes words mean nothing else than what is written or spoken.

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  6. So even when I agree, I succeed in getting everything wrong, even though I tried particularly hard to be clear about what I put into my reading of what you wrote?

    I have never claimed that I have, or should have, any preferential right of interpretation to what you mean with your words in your comment.

    My promise to you and the rest of my readers is that the next time I receive a comment from any woman or man from the West coast of Sweden I will simply answer "Thanks for sharing, XYZ".

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  7. This is all way off topic anyway. Lets agree my first comment on your comment read only "Welcome Kynlif, I am so happy your Wednesday was more rewarding." and leave it at that.

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  8. Agree 100% in regards to WoW and because WOW it s a game you have a goal/mission to finalize which i believe attract more people at the moment and off course blizzard is a famous company that spend a lot of effort and money in advertising , but in SL as you know we can do so much more the just play games, but it is difficult to attract people with almost no advertising, to be honest i have never seen a Secondlife banner on Youtube or anywhere else, which i think it s a bit sad, because you and me we know how powerfull secondlife is, but i would say most of the younger crowd (17-25) have no idea about Secondlife. Cheers

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  9. Bock, jag måste ge dig beröm för du har alltid haft (så länge jag har läst din blogg) positiv attityd till Secondlife och inte ägnat dig åt "pajkastning" som jag har läst/läser i andra bloggar, visst secondlife är inte perfekt och kommer aldrig att vara det men det finns väl inget som är perfekt vad jag vet iaf, det är alltid lätt att kritisera saker och ting, man borde ägna tid till annat tycker. Sorry det va lite off topic ! Gott Nytt år iaf !

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  10. Now that you mention it, NEO, I cannot recall ever having seen any advertising efforts whatsoever for SecondLife.

    Thank you so much also for the praise in Swedish, NEO, my humility prohibits me from translating it ...and kind words are never off topic. ;)

    I wish you a happy new year also! ;)

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  11. Hugs Ziggy, and need I remind you - I still owe you a kiss... (bring the bf a long when you get it and I may give him one too) ;)

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  12. Happy New Year BOCK.
    I am not a philosopher, Swedish or gay.
    I use secondlife, its not a game in the real sense; its more of a place to interact with people and a place to explore your imagination.

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  13. "A three dimensional virtual reality" is what I think describes it the best.

    In every and any decent reality you need all kinds of people, I think, even non-Swedes and heterosexually challenged ones ;)

    Happy New Year to you too, Anonymous! ;)

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