Time and time again

As I lived in Second Life, I've learned that time is the greatest commodity, even in a virtual world. It's what makes virtual life very real. You can have a virtual body, virtual clothes, a virtual home with virtual furniture, a virtual car or helicopter or yacht. You can separate your virtual friends from your real friends, your virtual relationships from your real relationships. You can earn virtual money in a virtual company producing virtual products made out of virtual materials. But there is no such thing as virtual time.

Virtual time is real time.

Time is eternal, but our lifetimes are not. There's only so much we can do in a lifetime and there are many demands on our time. We give time to what is important to us. Likewise, we are given time if we are important to someone else.

Time and priorities. That's all it's about.

Intuitively, I have always known this. I've always felt overwhelmed when a man sacrifices sleep several nights in a row just to spend a few more hours dancing with me, when a man misses his plane to an important client meeting the next morning because he lost track of time chatting with me, when a man parks his avatar next to mine and occasionally says something sweet just so he could feel my presence even while he's working.

I was important enough to them, even if only briefly.

Maybe the true measure of a lover is not how much he loves someone or something. Maybe the true measure of a lover is how much time he allots for the object of his love.

Love, as an emotion, is not a zero-sum game. Love, as an aspect of time, is.