Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Sunrise in Aglia

I remember the first time I was aware of the sunrise in Second Life. I was only a few days old. I had purchased my land on the hillside in Aglia and I had just built my home over the Labor Day weekend. It was just after midnight SLT and I was about to log off, when my lover logged in. The sun was rising where he was, just as the sun was rising in SL.

It was an innocent time. A time when we were preoccupied with figuring out how to take a bed out of a box and how to position it. A time when my Friends List had only a few people. A time when SL seemed incredibly huge. A time when each day brought a sense of wonder and amazement in this new magical world. A time before Xcite. A time before sex balls. A time before heartbreaks.

As I approach the first anniversary of my rez day, I sit again by my pond and watch the sunrise and remember.

There was a time when going into people's virtual yards felt like trespassing. A time when I wondered what was down in the valley. A time when I was curious about the people who built these structures. Now that I know every piece of land in my sim, now that I know the layout of the valley like the back of my hand, Aglia feels small and crowded. The view of the valley has different meaning now.

Now that I know how to build, how to script, how to create animations, how to make clothes, how to create sculptie textures, -- now that I know how things work -- very few things amaze me anymore. And I wonder. Could I bring the magic back? Could I still experience that sense of wonder and amazement? Could I still see SL through the eyes of a newbie?

Blessed are the newbies, for they have a time full of magic and wonder and amazement ahead of them.

3 comments:

  1. Oh NO! Don't tell me Opal is thinking about being a mentor to get that newbie smell :)

    So you seem like you are talkative. How about the surprise of just meeting and talking to a new person? Or catching up with an old friend once in awhile?

    Everyone has an interesting story to tell and they love to tell it :) And when our desire to sort them into "best friends", "lovers", "casual interest", "no interest" no longer exist, they become simply..... a newly encountered living being with a new story that is interesting. How cool is that!

    Maybe this is the 8th wonder of SL :)

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  2. New skills to learn/hone....

    Know how to build...How to build a broken man back up, making him new, making him better than he ever was before, without expecting anything in return.

    Know how to script...How a person thinks. Know how a heart learns to love. Know why it breaks when a virtual lover is lost.

    Know how to create animations - How a person reacts to things. Know what makes a person tick. Know how to read the hidden messages behind the gesture. Know when it is real and when it is virtual

    Know how to make clothes - How to make a person pretty. Know the different colors of personalities. Know what different shapes of barrier a person puts on to hide from the world, and how you can break them down to reach the heart.

    Know how to create sculptie textures - How love, real or virtual, can completely engulf a person and make her beautiful. Learn how to make someone as plain as a box become as beautiful, colorful, sweet as an apple.

    Once you have learned these skills, go back to the beginning and do it over again. You missed something.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here's a response to Xiana: http://wildopallei.blogspot.com/2007/08/keeping-my-psychoses.html

    ReplyDelete

Eighteen!

 I'm at the age of majority now. ;)  Unless it's in dog years, then I'm really 126 years old. Not much has changed since a year ...