QuietEventide

Yes - F1 feels a bit like "the undead" these days. Fits right into this thread! "Avatar got a top job for an F1 team - filling out endless Excel sheets (containing things that drivers are banned from saying on camera)"

Went to a "drag race event"... Planned the outfit meticulously – a huge purple wig, a slightly daring Coco Chanel-style dress, Gloria Vanderbilt pearl bling glasses (Deluxe), and lots of Dame Edna-style makeup. Zoomed into the event region where the orange cloud rezzed after about 5 seconds. There was a thunderous roar as two 8-litre Top Fuel dragsters finished the quarter mile in about 4 seconds.

Participated in some South Park roleplay and was assigned the role of "Kenny".

Ordered an ACME prototype leather hood with chains and passed out from oxygen deprivation...

Disappeared while swimming off-sim Entered SL rocket hoping to find the 5000 meter height line but hitting the skybox dome Walked onto spooky shipwreck late one night and was never heard from again Used a crocodile avatar and became (1) a wall trophy in a virtual 1800's mansion and (2) several SL handbags Naively gave away real life name & address to seemingly nice & helpful person near the welcome area...

The Metaverse (and an Internet taken over by a few extremely large corporations) can very easily turn into a digital prison, comparable to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

Yes, I sense there is a good bit of truth in that.

I'm struggling too. Past the sell by date. I don't really think I'm all that offensive. But, there is that nagging uneasy feeling now. That's not going away. The thing is ... I'm old (65) and I might say something "old and unwanted" and someone out there might take offense even if I didn't mean any harm at all. I look over my own shoulder a lot more than I used to do. That's just the way it has become. I visited one club in SL earlier today, just to see what it was like. It felt uneasy. I left after about 10 minutes. I had no business there.

I wrote a post here but then I decided to remove it again. It was kind of silly, so ... never mind.

I made a more age-appropriate avatar (profile pic) for all in-world travels. Feels strange. I guess I'll get used to it. At least this latest avi is somewhat closer to reality. Not enough - but closer. When in Rome... I have enjoyed this forum discussion, believe it or not. I find it very enlightening. Filed under "Life long learning". Yes, me too.

Not at all, I still find it a very creative environment. I'm not stopping SL completely, just the social aspects, and I'm adjusting the way I am looking at SL as a whole. Just when you think you've "got it figured out", you find yet another level and you have to reassess your thinking. I put quite a bit into my little "SL photo studio" which I rebuild from time to time. That's where I set up the images. It's got various houses, scenery, trees, even some jumping dolphins from TrigiTec (I really like them). The photo studio region is down at the moment but I am considering rebuilding it at some point, that's just a question of finding a suitable spot for it. It's all good.

I have had SL experiences of this type more than once. Those experiences have taken their toll I'm afraid. Quite a bit. In my case it's been more about faking the age than about faking the gender. Presenting "myself" as being 25 and "hot" when I'm really 65 and well past sell by date with saggy boobs is not right either. I shouldn't do it. "Hello 60's my old friend We're back to guilt and shame again" SL has unlimited possibilities for avatar & region creation, but I feel increasingly uncomfortable in the social hangouts in-world. It is utterly impossible to live up to (everyone else's) expectations of "what SL is". I can't do it. And I sure as heck can't live up to (everyone else's) expectations of what I should or should not be. I was never on SL for relationships in the first place... But I sure learned a lot along the way and I am genuinely grateful for that. Enough to know when it really is time to call it a day - that is good knowledge too. Might set up a "blog" or something for my cartoons, to disconnect my RL self from the SL avatars, so they are no longer personal. I think that may be the way to go – to observe rather than participate. Jeff Goldblume's character Ian Malcolm put many things so very eloquently, and one of the best is of course: "Life finds a way".

Thank you all for your input. It has been most helpful and I will do my best to learn from it.

With respect, why would one then have an avatar at all...? (Note: I have left out the middle part of this quote since it contains a quote from a third person.) ------------------------------------------------- If we presume the following: (a) mr Deakins is correct (b) one really can not have it "both ways" (c) "the person behind the avatar" is the (only) accepted norm ...then I would argue that the entire concept of "SL avatars" becomes a bit pointless. We should all use real photos of ourselves only, and be done with it. Imagination... what's that? Such waffle! ------------------------------------------------- Instead of the made-up picture of Evie in the flower garden, let me show you a RL picture of the concrete wall I'm staring at in RL right now. That's a lamp, the top of my PC screen and the stand for the screen. And the wall. Looks great, doesn't it...? I think I probably over-compensated for RL shortcomings by going full on in SL instead. We weren't "amish" in my RL youth, but there was certainly a "strict" feel to a lot of things. The rural area where I grew up was a very different place compared to the modern world of today. In SL, I built the amazing house I could never afford in RL. I built the garden I could never dream of. I made Evie 40 years younger and prettier than I ever was. The vanity... vanity falls under "pride" which is one of the seven you-know-what. It may very well be that the biggest deception I'm guilty of - is the deception against myself.

+1 and that goes for the rest of the post too. I also did not enter SL for sex or relationships, but lately there have been a few 'incidents' that made me feel uneasy. Am I expected to "show my papers" now...? Maybe my avatars went to the wrong SL places, I don't know. It's a dark and mysterious world... anyway, moving on: ----------------------------------------------- My female avatar is a regular but ageing cis woman who remembers happier times and tried to recreate those happier times within SL. But, just like in "real life", she is forced to more or less conclude that life has passed her by. She can type well. But she is also be a tiny bit vain. That's my fault - I gave her "vanity" as the main flaw. It's on me. Having had the tools to "be beautiful again" (and the flaw of vanity) she has drawn attention from people, mostly male avatars but not exclusively, who: 1) obviously did not read the profile 2) started sending IM's (despite the profile saying open chat preferred) 3) quickly pushed those IM's onto sexual themes that I really did not ask for 4) start interrogating me about my real life (then they get confused when I start telling the truth - because truth is suddenly complex and difficult and it takes time) ----------------------------------------------- My male avatar is not the type who goes dancing at all. He's not interacting much, he might say "good morning ma'am" if he sits around. Men rarely speak to him. Some women avatars do. He keeps it polite and usually short. If he was looking for sex, he could easily "get some" and he's definitely cis. He would never be with a man. ----------------------------------------------- As Evie, I've had wonderful chats with people who were "not mainstream". I didn't ask them, they told me. Some were men with feminine souls presenting as women (I've gone shopping with a couple of them, that was fun). A few were women presenting as men, there was the occasional "shemale" or "femboy" etc. Most people have been wonderful, make no mistake. I have learned so much. Very grateful. ----------------------------------------------- I made that "body vs soul" post. My (personal) belief is that a body has parts but a soul is infinite and can take any form. Reincarnation may play a part there, we don't know. In SL, we can leave the RL body behind, outside the PC screen, and maybe some of us take the journey into the soul a bit further than others. You are a soul (infinite) You have a body (with limitations) SL gives you the tools to paint your soul. There are infinitely more colours than simply "male/masculine" and "female/feminine". Using only those two colours is like painting your soul in black and white. The picture below is the best colour painting I have of Evie's soul. She's probably writing a poem. Maybe lyrics for her next song. Maybe it's her memoirs - the story of her life. Everything intertwines into everything else. Worlds merge... ------------------------------------- Here's a quote I like (CS Lewis, from "The Magician's Nephew"): Make your choice, adventurous Stranger, Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had. ------------------------------------- I'm old and I'm tired... My beautiful Evie has been travelling enough. I'm taking her home.

It can be both of those things, plus thousands more.

King Solomon solution: Cut SL down the middle. 1) Those who see SL as an extension of their RL selves/genders go to the "RL=SL" regions. 2) Those who don't care about real life genders go to the "RL≠SL" regions. And never the two shall meet (like wives and girlfriends). And The Great Calm descended upon Second Life.

Why would it get locked...? If this thread should for some reason get locked I would kindly like to ask the person who locks it to clearly explain why. A couple of other threads are into their hundreds of pages, this one only has 16 at the time of writing. I find the discussion interesting and it seemed like the original poster did too. I'm trying to learn from it. Honestly. I vote for keeping this thread open.

Thank you for a very interesting thread, Gopi. Before SL I was playing The Sims. From DVD's. I had no experience of any "online" gaming at all. I was creating little Sim people and shaping their Sims storylines. It is a good game, but it also contains a lot of "Get me a job", "Send me to a party", "Learn this, learn that ", "oh no, your kitchen caught fire"... And just as the little Sim was about to fall asleep some annoying Sim neighbour would knock on the door and tire them out completely. That little "plumbob" thing over them would turn yellow and then red... I got tired too. I wanted something with more depth, but I didn't want to be forced to do a lot of energy-demanding tasks all the time. Enter Second Life back in 2010 with my previous avatar Madeline. Madeline was unfortunately lost to the Second World - a loss that caused me more sadness than I had expected. That's SL for you... it goes deep. My Sims history probably affected my SL in that I see the avatars as "created characters" and not necessarily a direct representation of my RL self. They are me, but they are also their own people. In SL I have only created Evie and Prescott (and Maddy, 2010-14... ). Both my current avatars are infinitely "deeper" than any Sims characters I had made before. The respective "second lives" of Evie and Prescott have, on occasion, reached an almost "spiritual" level which I had never thought possible. Life will find a way.

Exactly that!

I'll just do one more. Feeling inspired by this thread. I'll stop after this one...

My two avatars are having a conversation in character - and getting increasingly annoyed with each other. (Prescott is thinking: "The lady sure got some nerve criticizing my new Cologne de Frontière Ouest while sitting there smoking herself... I'll put that cig out with a bullet next. Yes ma'am!")

Very good point. Yes, that can be a sign. And it just hit me – I keep changing Evie's looks and hair, but Prescott has been more or less the same all along. He's so like Zebulon Macahan. And he needs to get out more. We used to watch the series "How the West was Won" back in the day and joke about the number of days between Zeb 's showers.

I put my (old) age on my profile but I'm kind of on the fence whether to post RL gender. I'm not sure "RL gender" really matters. Sorry for the long post, I've tried to divide it into parts. I hope someone may find it reasonably interesting. RL Age - RL gender I posted my RL age (born 1958) and that's partly because I might not have all that much in common with 20-somethings and I really don't want to waste their time. As for gender ... well, I'm not on SL for sex or SL relationships. I'm mainly here for escapism and soul searching and some fun/virtual relaxation. I don't feel I owe it to anyone to tell them what my real life body looks like. It's not in super shape anymore, that's for sure... sigh... so I am a little bit vain since I like to at least feel pretty here. But both my avatars are frauds if we put RL in the mix... ...physically I am nothing like either of them. Body vs Soul I keep coming back to the old song "Body and Soul" (recommend Coleman Hawkins from 1939, it's on Youtube). Note the key word "and" in the title. I think many people are mixing up the concepts. And many don't seem to be able to separate the "body" from the "soul" which lives inside you - the soul being the "spiritual life form" which inevitably will leaves the physical body when our days on this earth are over. The body will wither and go back to Gaia. We don't know what happens to the soul. A Spiritual Paintbrush In Second Life, we have been given the paintbrushes to paint our souls. We can leave our earthly body behind and we can instead get a digital Maitreya or a Jake or whichever more or less perfect 3D body we like. The soul is the same. Does a soul have a gender? My take on that is that our souls - the inner spirit - is completely free of all that. It is much more than simply "male" or "female" or "trans" or any of the other earthly limitations and ticked boxes we carry around. Free. Inner Desires My female avatar is a "spirit painting" of my futile inner wish to return to the more carefree days I remember from the 1970s. Rolled-up jeans, great pop music and somewhat ridiculous clothes. I felt at home there. That period represents a form of security for me (Evie). Prescott (my male avi) paints a picture of something that happened even longer ago - to the "wild west" and a homestead or a wagon out in the wilderness. I don't think anyone ever asked Prescott if he is really a girl in RL. Gosh... I guess nobody dared! He seriously looks like the type that shoots first (no, not like that...! ) and asks questions later. Which one of these two avatars is the "real me"? Answer: both of them. Plus probably many more, but I have only explored these two... My main point We are all so much more than just a physical or digital body. We have bodies - but we are souls. SL gives us the tools to make a journey inwards, into ourselves, and see a glimpse of our own inner spirit. May peace and love be with you all.

My personal take on this chess thing is that we are being played. I am putting forward a theory that people are being played against each other on a massive scale. Specifically, we are seeing the old technique of "divide and rule". The purpose, from my very personal viewpoint, seems to be: to keep people perpetually unhappy, demoralised and in-fighting between themselves. It's a rather sad outlook, I know. That's why I'm making this post - in the hope that I am wrong! Some groups I can think of being relentlessly played against each other are: men against women old against young black against white immigrants against residents LGBT against CIS homeowners against renters working people against unemployed "left wing" against "right wing" (a massive group) petrol car owners against environmentalists trans chess players against all other chess players... There are many more, but these groups popped into my head first. "Divide and rule" seems to be actively pushed by channels like television, newspapers, large marketing companies, politically driven vested interests etc. --------------------------------------- In the case of chess, I would like to take a closer look at the board/management of the Chess Federation. Who, exactly, took this decision to play one group of chess players against other groups of chess players? Where exactly did such an order originate? It must have originated with a person. Someone decided this. Who was it? That's where we should look. "We the people" should not get distracted into in-fighting. Look further. --------------------------------------- I also think this specific attempt at causing division among chess players (seriously...?) needs to be seen in a larger perspective. This "divide and rule" concept is going on in every corner of society. Someone wants things this way. Next question: Qui bono? Who gains? I do not have any answer to that. The road ahead becomes too foggy around that bend.