I’ve been trying to post a few posts now for a few weeks, and what happens is I start them, get interrupted—usually by having to go to work—and then they sit unfinished because I’ve started a new day, with a new train of thought, and truth be told, I’ve usually dreamt out the remainder of the post while I was sleeping, so I’m not really left with any real desire to finish writing it because I’ve just finished living it. I have to force myself to write, and that’s not good, because this is supposed to be what I want to do. And I can’t keep writing about how I’m not writing because that’s boring for the reader and self‐serving for the writer.
What I’ve concluded is I’ve managed to write myself into a corner—the expectation I’ve placed on my larger writing project eventually coming together from the chaotic mess of my smaller ones seeming less and less like reality and more and more like a rehearsed explanation to myself about why I’m not finished.
That doesn’t sound like you. Or me.
No—I can see right through it. I doubt myself. I see my own doubt, it sickens me, and I turn away.
That’s a biggie. Not to seem like we’re doing just that, but what if we tried talking about something else… The title and featured image for this post—What’s that about?
It’s the name of an online world where you can walk around and build stuff and chat with your fellow onliners. It’s sort of like an unending multi‐player game but without the game portion. It’s supposed to be a place where anything and everything is possible because you build anything and everything you see yourself using graphics and code. I used to play around with it from time to time, and the other week I found a screen shot from around ten years ago on my computer of myself as an anthropomorphic blue husky resting peacefully in a hammock.
I liked the idea of Second Life, but when I looked a little closer at this world where anything and everything is possible, I found it’s only actually possible if you follow the same rules we have out here in reality, whatever that is, with regard to land, ownership, and money. There’s an in‐game currency which you can trade American dollars for. As a result there’s an entire little economy running inside the game. That land my hammock is on was given to me by a friend of mine who’d bought some land in the game and let me use some of it to do whatever on. He used what land was left to build a house with a couch and a big TV in it for himself. Sometimes I would see him in the house watching TV—actual TV streamed into the game.
Just like in real life.
Yeah, well that’s what I didn’t get. He already had a TV and a house and a job and a pile of money. Why have a world where anything is possible and use it to build things you already have and then do things things you already do? Why would you have a world in there where anything is possible and end up having to go through all the same rigmarole you do out here? It reminded me of jobs I’d work at where I’d be asked to think outside the box, I’d do just that, and they’d freak out—I only realized after the fact what they really wanted was the same box that was already for sale dressed up as a new box to sell.
Some people are comfortable in their boxes.
I get that—I do. I totally get that. What I don’t get is… I understand why some people like their boxes. I’m not trying to do anything to them. What I don’t get is why those same people then get freaked out when I’m happy with another one. Or none at all. I may as well have set up a real hammock in a real field because the reaction I got in the game was the same as I’d imagine I’d get in real life: What’s wrong with you?
What is wrong with you?
Nothing—except maybe for always being aware there’s going to be people wondering if anything’s wrong with me.
Sounds cyclical.
It does make me a little cynical.
No—cyclical.
Say again?
Cyclical. It sounds cyclical, and—
Heh…
You’re just supposed to write. This space isn’t a book. There are no rules. It’s just your words. Make it into the second life you wished Second Life could have been. It’s your world to play in, to play with words and language and concepts. You don’t have to polish anything. It’s just you here. You and a very few others.
A very few? Is it that few?
Oh definitely. I’ve pulled the stats for this thing many times. There’s like—very little traffic. If it were an intersection a yield sign would be plenty.
I see…
All the more reason to not care how things look—it’s what you wanted. It’s where you’re going—a place where it doesn’t matter what things look like. Remember?
I was headed to a place where appearance mattered above all else—I broke free. Hey—this does remind me of the early version of this thing, where we’d talk back and forth to each other trying to figure out who was who. Did we ever figure it out?
If I remember correctly, you’re me, and I’m you—but we’re from different times.
I came back for you.
And I went forward to you.
Ah—time travel.
You’ve done this before. You’ll do it again. And don’t forget—when you get to Iceland at 4 in the morning—look up. Write about it.