Discovery

[Solaria Goldshark]

Have you learned anything about yourself you would not have learned had you not participated in this experience?

[Perrie Juran]

yes

[Syo Emerald]

Maybe

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

Maybe

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me either.

 

 

[jwenting]

that's always impossible to answer with an affirmative. I don't know and can't possibly know what I would have learned and experienced had it not been for SL.

[Irene Muni]

Of course. All the experiences of the life teach you something.

[Solaria Goldshark]

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jwenting wrote:

that's always impossible to answer with an affirmative. I don't know and can't possibly know what I would have learned and experienced had it not been for SL.

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It is a hard question to answer for sure.....when you think about what you'd be like if this thing or that thing never happened.

Forks in the road, paths not taken.......

Am I better or worse, for this road, or that road?

Interesting to think about, but definitely hard to answer.

[Alicia Sautereau]

Yes, befor i thought i was average, but 5 years later i discoverd i have a natural facepalm imprint...

[Jo Yardley]

I learned how to build, create and manage a roleplay sim, run events, run a virtual shop, deal with weirdos, learn some mesh, etc, etc.

[Maryanne Solo]

Yes.

An ongoing difference of opinion about SL made me return home from my travels (& other stuff) and complete formal study.

Continuing on with more studies now which is detrimental to my SL time allowance :-(

Can't have everything unfortunately.

[Qie Niangao]

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves. -- Ernest Becker

[Perrie Juran]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves. -- Ernest Becker

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So we are all just figments of our own imaginations?

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Shortly after I moved into the Forgotten City lighthouse, Samuel Clemens, Richard Feynman, Hedy Lamarr and Robert Frost stopped by to visit. Unfortunately, I was not home at the time. It was a chilly evening, and it seems the four warmed themselves by the fire while imbibing the wine they'd brought to welcome me. I've tried to piece together what happened from the evidence left behind, and from the best recollections of each, who all claim not to remember much of that evening.

On the wall near my workbench, Sam chalked sketches of what appear to be a corset and a pair of lederhosen, in what I believe was an attempt to coax investment money from the others in pursuit of his latest inventions. On the wall of the lighthouse tower, I found, drawn in red lipstick with exquisite detail, the cover page from Hedy's 1942 patent for an ancestor of Wi-Fi. Across from that, Richard had sketched an aft view of an exotic dancer who once worked Gianonni's Bar, no doubt inspired by the view he likely had of Hedy, as her patent sketch was tall enough to require the use of my loft ladder. I can almost hear the raucous debate as the artist did her science and the scientist did his art.

And finally, on the shaft that turns my lighthouse's "Beacon of Hope", Robert carved these words into the wood with the knife he used to remove the cork from the wine bottle...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I can't say I was terribly happy to see the graffiti my friends left behind that evening, but I have had my sigh over it. Though Sam's chalk and Dick's charcoal are easy enough to scrub away, there's little I can do about the work of Hedy and Bob, who were well aware that if you wish to leave an indelible impression, nothing works so well as lipstick... or a knife.

 

 

Solaria, have I learned anything about myself I'd not have learned had I not come to SL?

I don't know.

And that has made all the difference.

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves. -- Ernest Becker

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I'd like to think so.  But what about all the other realities created by those around us?

Did Ernest Becker factor in co-creation?

Am I still creating my own reality when it bumps into a opposing reality?

I wonder if Mr. Becker thought the whole thing through to the end.

[phaedra Exonar]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves. -- Ernest Becker

---

So we are all just figments of our own imaginations?

 

---

My computer is quite real and in clolor so may be it would be, just a pigment of our own imaginations lol

 

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

Solaria, have I learned anything about myself I'd not have learned had I not come to SL?

I don't know.

And that has made all the difference.

---

Thank you for that post Madelaine.   That was pure joy.

I hadn't read that Frost poem for a very long time.  At one time I would have said that the traveler was confident that the choice of roads was the right choice.  Wisdom and time, and further ruminations of this Frost classic tells me that is not the case.

 

[SinfulPrince]

Yes.

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Solaria Goldshark wrote:

Have you learned anything about yourself you would not have learned had you not participated in this experience?

---

Yes. I have learned so much about myself by being given the freedom to be myself. Who I want to be, who I am, and who I still am even given that freedom.

More so, I have been given the gift of being able to be spontaneous and anonymous, while still being true to myself, to other spontaneous authentic others.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Solaria Goldshark wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

Solaria, have I learned anything about myself I'd not have learned had I not come to SL?

I don't know.

And that has made all the difference.

---

Thank you for that post Madelaine.   That was pure joy.

I hadn't read that Frost poem for a very long time.  At one time I would have said that the traveler was confident that the choice of roads was the right choice.  Wisdom and time, and further ruminations of this Frost classic tells me that is not the case.

 

---

Frost is my "stranded on a desert island" poet. I think he was poking fun at we who look back and make the nostalgic, romantic leap to suppose that even our most mundane choices are life changing. I'm sure there are people for whom Second Life has had a tremendous impact. I also believe that it's difficult to know which of us are those people.

Although this place is called Second Life, in truth we don't get to run the experiment of our lives twice.

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Solaria Goldshark wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

Solaria, have I learned anything about myself I'd not have learned had I not come to SL?

I don't know.

And that has made all the difference.

---

Thank you for that post Madelaine.   That was pure joy.

I hadn't read that Frost poem for a very long time.  At one time I would have said that the traveler was confident that the choice of roads was the right choice.  Wisdom and time, and further ruminations of this Frost classic tells me that is not the case.

 

---

Frost is my "stranded on a desert island" poet. I think he was poking fun at we who look back and make the nostalgic, romantic leap to suppose that even our most mundane choices are life changing. I'm sure there are people for whom Second Life has had a tremendous impact. I also believe that it's difficult to know which of us are those people.

Although this place is called Second Life, in truth we don't get to run the experiment of our lives twice.

---

 

But in many instances it (this) is that experiment.   Setting forks in the road aside for the moment, for many, for some, or even for few, it is that chance..to experiment..to take an alternate path...and perhaps to learn things about yourself on a different road....a different role.

I agree in full that we don't get to live our lives twice....I'll climb out on a limb and say that you're different for being here and have leaned something about yourself, even perhaps others, that you would not have if not for this....I'm pretty sure I have.

Would I have learned these things if not for this?  Perhaps not.  I don't know.

 

[Solaria Goldshark]

---

Charolotte Caxton wrote:

---

Solaria Goldshark wrote:

Have you learned anything about yourself you would not have learned had you not participated in this experience?

---

Yes. I have learned so much about myself by being given the freedom to be myself. Who I want to be, who I am, and who I still am even given that freedom.

More so, I have been given the gift of being able to be spontaneous and anonymous, while still being true to myself, to other spontaneous authentic others.

 

---

 

In some way I think you've hit on the experience on many.  There are aspects of yourself that could not have surfaced if not for this.

I like this part "authentic others"  

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Solaria Goldshark wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Solaria Goldshark wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

Solaria, have I learned anything about myself I'd not have learned had I not come to SL?

I don't know.

And that has made all the difference.

---

Thank you for that post Madelaine.   That was pure joy.

I hadn't read that Frost poem for a very long time.  At one time I would have said that the traveler was confident that the choice of roads was the right choice.  Wisdom and time, and further ruminations of this Frost classic tells me that is not the case.

 

---

Frost is my "stranded on a desert island" poet. I think he was poking fun at we who look back and make the nostalgic, romantic leap to suppose that even our most mundane choices are life changing. I'm sure there are people for whom Second Life has had a tremendous impact. I also believe that it's difficult to know which of us are those people.

Although this place is called Second Life, in truth we don't get to run the experiment of our lives twice.

---

 

But in many instances it (this) is that experiment.   Setting forks in the road aside for the moment, for many, for some, or even for few, it is that chance..to experiment..to take an alternate path...and perhaps to learn things about yourself on a different road....a different role.

I agree in full that we don't get to live our lives twice....I'll climb out on a limb and say that you're different for being here and have leaned something about yourself, even perhaps others, that you would not have if not for this....I'm pretty sure I have.

Would I have learned these things if not for this?  Perhaps not.  I don't know.

 

---

Well, sure I'm different for being here. But I could argue that I'd be different for being anywhere, couldn't I? I don't know what else I would have done with the time I spent in SL over the last four and a half years. What if I'd joined the local theater group and gone up on stage? What if I'd fixed up my home and re-started the family tradition of hosting house concerts? I've no reason to believe that the path I'm on is the best path I could have taken or the worst... but it's been a pretty cool path and here I am!

What different things would I have learned on another path? What similar things? I don't know!

This is one of those philosophical discussions that I truly enjoy, can approach from any angle, and may be absolutely pointless. Thanks for indulging me.

;-)

[Solaria Goldshark]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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This is one of those philosophical discussions that I truly enjoy, can approach from any angle, and may be absolutely pointless. Thanks for indulging me.

;-)

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 I knew I liked you.

[Kelli May]

"I came here to play at something I wasn't, and found out it was me all along"

[Dillon Levenque]

I've been watching this since it got here and I keep meaning to post something, but each time I look I get caught up in what others have said. I see that's still the case this morning.

I think in my case it's more that I've remembered things about myself than learned things. I was just talking with some friends the other day about how much my Second Life feels like my life as a young adult—the relatively carefree attitude, the effortlessly renewed contacts and conversations, the joy of communicating.

There are a great many posts to smile about in this thread :-).