This might be a post I regret in hindsight, when I wake up in the morning and world is back in perspective and I feel – just – more in control.

But right now, all I can work my head around is that Second Life is so amazing but it turns balanced people into unbalanced people.

Take me as a prime example. I’m a generally well rounded individual. I’m ‘with it’ and I have my shit together. But a while back, before I was a full time Dad (albeit to the most amazing and brave little boy anyone would ever meet) I was in Second Life 12 hours a day. I had one business that enabled me to generate a very, very comfortable income on a work from home basis and I was in SL whenever I could be. I’m in the UK, so I would shift my sleep patterns around to work on schedule with a certain Californian I was smitten with. I would sleep at 6am and get up at 3pm and I would be straight back in world.

Let me clarify one thing – I don’t blame that Californian for that. I blame myself in many ways because I let life lose its balance.

Now I am a full time Dad, I run 2 businesses and I work solidly up to 55 hours a week in an office environment for one of those. When my little boy is tucked up in bed dreaming of the day he takes over the world, I don’t switch on the TV to relax. I turn on my computer. I check my email and log into Second Life

I say it again: I LOVE SECOND LIFE! As a creative and collaborative platform, it is just amazing. I have met people in Second Life who I hope that I am eternally in touch with. They are amazing. I know women who are getting divorced, raising children, working full time and who are so creative and talented… I know people who have experienced such tragedies in life and who still wake up each morning and battle on. The people in Second Life who I consider my friends are people who truly, truly inspire me – in all worlds. But I have experienced first hand, and see in others I know (not all, but some), the way in which this immersive experience can really lead to unbalanced lives.

Tonight I lost a friend. An amazing friend. She was someone I knew from SL only and the typical “Second Life drama,” meant that something I once considered a core part of  my life was tonight deemed “fiction.” Some of the most sensitive issues in my life, some of which I have only ever shared with that one person, were used against in me in a war of words because issues get blown out of proportion. A line was crossed and no matter how angry someone is, I honestly believe that certain lines crossed indicate the end of the road. Tonight she and I reached the end of the road.

I don’t know why I am writing this on my blog. It’s not satirical. It’s not even really in character for me. But somehow this seems like the most relevant thing right now and something is telling me it’s something I should document in the relatively public domain.

I say it again. I love Second Life. I love so many people I have met through the platform. But I don’t love the drama. I don’t love the way in which the immense level of immersiveness can sometimes drive people to lose all sense of perspective on some things.

I have my perspective back these days. I run, as I said, 2 businesses and look after the most wonderful, bright and beautiful boy on the planet on a full time basis. I log in for a few hours a week. I love it that way. I can see my friends in world yet be up at 6am each morning, achieve 55 hours worth of work and to be a full time parent on a week on week basis and see “RL friends,” too.

Yet I still (and yes, I know this is becoming repetitive) love SL. I have high hopes for its future, especially in terms of a community platform for writers, musicians etc) LOVE SECOND LIFE. I’m only sorry to see people I care about lose perspective because of silly situations.

When I find myself getting engrossed in  drama…I step outside, remind myself of the colour of the sky and I sigh a smiling sigh. I think of my son, I look around and I realise that an IM comment, or something someone said about someone’s next door neighbour’s prims or some flirting, or some dispute over what someone wrote in their profile is relatively negligible – not because the people are negligible (because they are not) but because the things we argue over or get bothered by in a virtual world are, in the grand scheme of things, often trivial. If your Second Life friends were close by you in real life, would you fight about something someone wrote in a profile? No. Would you argue over prims? No.

Second Life, as much as I adore it, has a tendency to distort perspective if you take your eye off the ball for too long.

I’ve read back over this post and again don’t know why I am posting it. But I am posting it anyway. I’ll dedicate it – to everyone in world who has ever inspired me. From the comedians to the finest parents, from the creatives to each and every person in Second Life I’ve sat and chatted with for hours on end – you all inspire me.

Tags: second life drama
Categories: Random Thoughts and Musings

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 3:36 am and is filed under Random Thoughts and Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.