Second Life? Why Not Make the Fantasy Reality?
David Thompson, 14 Nov 2008
I just read one of the most perplexing news articles I’ve seen in months. With everything that’s happening in the world at the moment – from seemingly interminable wars to the imminent collapse of the global financial system, that’s saying a lot.
This article was about the virtual phenomenon called “Second Life,” an online experience that I just don’t get. I know it’s huge, with millions of users, corporate megaliths and even online versions of real political campaigns. And I understand when people say that in places like Second Life you get to be whatever you want to be.
But I always ask – why not be the person you want to be right here, right now?
Second Life is an online world in which people can create avatars of themselves – through which they can live a fictional existence in cyberspace. The article in the online edition of today’s Daily Telegraph notes that:
“a major appeal of Second Life is that it’s like real life, only much much better. It’s a world where you don’t have to be dumpy, or from Nuneaton, one where your avatar can look like a model, shop for virtual designer shoes and make virtual friends. You can start a new career, own a big house with a pool and, increasingly, fall in love.”
Which all sounds nice enough – but it makes me wonder just what would happen if the people who invest so much time, money, and imagination to create the ideal Second Life for themselves put just a fraction of that energy into improving their experience of the real world.
Exploration in the world of fantasy can have value – opening up the pathways of consideration, and even stirring new possibilities for one’s own identity. As one of the people interviewed for the Telegraph story put it:
“Kira [her avatar] was everything I should have been,” says Kristen, who has a 12-year-old son. “Beautiful, blonde and slim. My real life was diabolical and I wanted an escape. In Second Life I could be who I wanted to be, and when I met Nik I was in control for the first time in years. I got my life back.”
While I commend Kristen for exercising her imagination so thoroughly as to create a new version of herself that is everything she wants to be, I so badly want her to know that she has the power to be that person – in real life. She had her “life” back – but her life was spent sitting in front of a computer screen from 7pm to 4am daily. She created a relationship online while her real-life marriage crumbled.
The great thing about Second Life and other such online communities is that they are invented worlds, created realities – universes with limits determined only by the imaginations of the participants.
Ay – there’s the rub. The great thing about REAL life is that it, too, is invented, a created reality – a universe with limits determined only by the imaginations of its participants. Its ours to experience as we will – if only we decide to do so.
OK – I admit – it’s a lot easier to create a virtual buff body and a limitless cyber-fortune by clicking a mouse than it is to do the same in the physical world.
But it is no less possible to do that – or to do anything we choose - in our world than it is online. Each of us has the ability to affect their experience of the world – and to change it for the better. Each of us has the resources we need to begin making the changes – physical, emotional and financial – to achieve the life we want. The challenge is in accessing those resources and taking action for positive change.
In Second Life, it’s easy to have what you want in a very short period of time.
But in this life, we can make the real and substantive changes that have a powerful positive impact on ourselves, on our loved ones, our communities and, by extension, our world.
What excites me about the work we do at Total Awareness Coaching – in our one-to-one sessions and in our larger trainings, is that it’s all about helping people shape the reality they want to experience – and taking real, tangible action to do just that.
In sum, you don’t need an avatar to be the person you’ve always wanted – all you need to do is decide to realise your dreams.
