An old eastern proverb says that there are two ways to get wise: Either you travel around the world, studying it and getting to know the people you meet, or you sit still and watch the world flow past you.
After spending a week in London IRL, I yet again find that while I feel kind of wiser travelling the world, I also long for the quiet place at home where I can just watch the world doing it's crazy deeds.
SL has made me know the world in a different way. In my best moments of being Cris, I feel I am a bit wiser for the experience. But while I chat and blog english all my second life long, IRL I feel like a noob, stuttering and barely able to formulate questions in the class I am attending.
So I wonder: What kind of wisdom does SL bring: The one you get while exploring the world, or the one you get by letting the world fly past you?
In my best moments of being Cris, I would insist of the former. But when I meet the REAL world, it teaches me differently. Yes, of course there are experiences in SL that makes some RL tasks simpler (the way I seem to THINK in english for instance, is a habit found during long chats inworld). But in no way can SL (or any other virtual world) replace the experience you can get elsewhere.
(And I'm sorry there is no picture in this post; I tried to sit down in a budhist temple but ended up 20 meter below the ground with my legs in a less-than-comfy meditation position behind my neck, and whatever I tried to do the 140 percent package loss in this city defied all rescue actions. Better luck next week:-) )
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1 comment:
very cool self-observations! and neat about being in London
certainly (although i am not sure what makes it feel certain to me), real world travel opens one's eyes the most. to feel, hear, smell, touch the real world is what we are attempting to do with the internet
and , imo, one reason that second life even came about was to emulate those experiences more closely. i feel a true connection with my avatar and with other avatars i meet. far more than i ever did on a Webex phone call (skype now with video cam)
there is an added layer of intimacy with two avatars working together and it more closely relates to the real world than say a forum exchange or commenting on blogs
even if both avatars are not rl approximations of their agents, there is a deeper connection than previously possible online. perhaps the avatars not being representative help us focus more on the substance of the other, rather than the more superficial aspects
i doubt any online experience will ever match the rl one like you had, but it grows closer and allows us to explore more than we could with travel alone
thanks for sharing this very introspective and personal experience =)
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