'Tis Sometimes Better to Receive Than Give

Dream Worm Shoulder Pet by Madcow Cosmos

I was brought up in a secular family.

Hitchens and Dawkins were, and still are, discussed far more than, for example, Mohammed and Christ. It is not that anyone in the family is particularly disrespectful of religious figures, not at all – it’s simply that they are not considered important enough to warrant any serious discussion outside of mythological or other academic studies. In our house, Mohammed and Christ are considered in similar vain as, say, Osiris or Mithras. 

As such, I am rarely motivated by religious festivals.

Dali clock & baked beans by Dave Vellhi
Hand drawn sketch  & Xmas tree by Tutsy Navaratha

Yesterday and today I watched a 20min film shot by a close personal friend of his meeting with the Dalai Lama, (or to use the official title ‘His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama of Tibet’).

I found the film to be deeply moving in a strange and quite unexpected way.

'The Creature' by Markus Inkpen
Asphalt & Shovel by Dave Vellhi
'The Watcher' from Tutsy Navarathna 

It seemed to me that the Dalai Lama radiated humanity and warmth, a natural love and empathy for his fellow man which is often spoken about in religious circles, but sadly rarely ever seen in my, admittedly limited, experience.

Today, for possibly the first time, I seriously wondered if there may actually be “Holy Men” on this crazy planet that orbits a rather ordinary and nondescript G-type star.

Stilts by Heb Dexler

My only other exposure to such ideas as “Holy Men” was an in-depth documentary about the Hindu Kumbh Mela pilgrimage held every 12 years on the banks of the Ganges. Although fascinating for many reasons, proof of the authenticity of “Holy Men” was certainly not one of them.

Ground mist/fog from Bazz Soulstar

So did my friend’s film of his meeting with the Dalia Lama cause me a personal epiphany of sorts? No, I don’t think so. But it was nevertheless emotionally beautiful - causing bodily streamings from the crown of my head to the base of my spine, as mentioned in traditional yogic texts describing the ‘Chakras’.

Violin from Lar Jun

I am at home from University for Christmas, staying with my parents. The best thing about being home for Christmas? Central heating. Oh, and on-demand hot water. Seriously.

We have a Xmas Tree in the corner of the living room. It is really pretty with delicate blue lights playing against the silver tinsel. But there is neither star nor an angel or any other symbolism remotely religious on it.

Latrine by Dave Vellhi
Shopping Trolley by Bryn Oh

I am sitting here wondering if that is a deliberate policy of my parents. If so, how much influence has it had on my professed atheism, if any?

On Christmas Day, while my mum and I cook dinner, dad and my brother will go to the local pub for a few pints.

Ciggy by Squonk Levenque

We exchange gifts on Christmas morning and that is the subject of this blog-post. Or rather, *receiving* gifts is the subject matter.

This last year I have been blessed to have been given some extraordinary special gifts in Second Life from some extraordinarily talented people.

Comic book speech bubbles by BobE Schism

Some of these gifts, like Madcow Cosmo’s ‘Dream Worm’ shoulder pet or Lucia Genesis’s beautiful outfits are free to anyone who visits their sims.

Others, like Byrn Oh’s shopping trolley or BobE Schism’s comic-book speech bubbles are props they have used their in installations or films and have generously given me a copy of.

TV slideshow by Lollie Razor
Portrait by Jinx Jiersen

Other gifts have been made especially for me - like the pile of asphalt, baked bin tin, latrine, Dali clock and lots of other things by Dave Vellhi. Or the hand drawn RL sketch from Tutsy Navarathna.

Shopping trolley by Bryn Oh

Squonk Levenque and Miuccia Klarr of Kamikaze generously gifted me items from their store; Lisa, owner of Warm Animations, overwhelmed me by giving me a copy of her whole store’s stock after noticing one of her animations being used in ‘Rapture’.

Cello from Lar Jun
'The Watcher' from Tutsy Navarathna
Ciggy by Squonk Levenque

Other gifts have been purchased for me – Lar Jun brought me my violin and cello, for example; Tutsy ‘The Watcher’.

I have been extraordinarily lucky.

Not only to have received the gifts themselves, although that as well of course, but to have found myself in the right place at the right time.

2012 Machinima calendar by Glasz Decuir

In almost all cases, I could not make these gifts as well as the Creators have. And, even if I could, they would not have the same meaning to me or be as special as they are.

These gifts make my Second Life special and meaningful to me.

I am incredibly grateful.

Rocking chair by Dave Vellhi

The biggest single gift is that Debbie Trilling and Adec Alexandra so generously let me live on and share their beautiful island. It is such a privilege that I hardly know where to start. As I student, I could never afford to live on a sim like this with no prim policing forced upon me.

Debbie & Adec

I love my corner of the Metaverse; I love my existence in the Metaverse.

I am so, so thankful to all the people who have helped me. I wish I could return more than just my thanks and my love. But I, being poor, have only my dreams…and you are helping me realise them.

The gifts that people have given me are special. They help me feel good about myself, my work and my life.

And, because of that, ‘tis sometimes better to receive than give.

Happy Christmas to you all, regardless of your beliefs, religion, timezone, skin colour, mental health records or any of the rest!

Pixie xx

Synchronicity, Serendipity & Coincidence in Virtual Worlds

In the Name of Annah,

the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities!

Haloed Be Her Eve!

Her Singtime Sung!

Her Rill be Run!

Unhemmed as it is Uneven!

from ‘Finnegan’s Wake’

James Joyce

(orig. pub. 1939)

This blog-post discusses the intuition that instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence occur more frequently in Virtual Worlds than in the Atomic physical world.

I was intending to use as examples recent occurrences I have had in Second Life with Squonk Levenque and Phillip Sidek, and our respective connections to Treptower Park - both in RL and, photographed on this blog, the SL version.

However, all too rapidly the events became too intense, too entangled and too personal to try and unravel and make sense of on a public blog.

(Click images to enlarge)

In at least one respect, coincidences are very much like dreams – to the person experiencing them they can be interesting, absorbing and intensely meaningful - but, the sad fact is, that it is often awful to have to sit and listen to others’ tell of their dreams and coincidences!
And I wouldn't want to inflict that upon you, dear reader.

So with this in mind I decided to make this blog-post somewhat more general and impersonal - discussing how events in time in Virtual Worlds often seem to “flow” at an accelerated rate in comparison with their atomic equivalent.

I am not thinking here of the rather commonplace “time flies when you are enjoying yourself” experience but rather a sense that ones personal learning curve, ones personal “life experience quotient” if you will, is somehow accelerated by having a virtual presence.

It seems sometimes as if virtual living allows us to pack more life-experiences into a given unit of time than would be possible in the atomic world. I think it is therefore possible to conjecture that virtual worlds could – by design or otherwise – facilitate a kind of “emotional incubator”.

Just as we already use computerised simulators to learn skills like flying an aircraft, surgery and other mechanical procedures, it might be possible to develop virtuality to help individuals emotionally and psychologically mature at an enhanced rate.

In fact, even with the shortest time immersed in some of the many various sub-cultures in Second Life you’ll hear people say how their affinity for different types of music has expanded; tell how their understanding of, for example, the GLBT community has been improved; describe a new-found ability to communicate and empathise with people quite unlike themselves – an ability which they never previously even suspected they had.

There are many more examples beside, but the point I am trying to stress is that without any co-ordinated effort or central planning, many people are already experiencing in Virtual Worlds a rudimentary form of the “emotional incubator” I am trying to describe.

In my mind’s eye I am visualising Virtual Worlds being employed in a manner analogous to, say, the so-called “astral journeys” used to experience the Sephiroth of the Qabalistic Tree of Life or maybe some of the techniques employed in Jung’s analytical psychology - perhaps even to Timothy Leary’s and others’ claims for the therapeutic uses of psychoactive drugs like LSD.

Understand that I am not stating that “virtual worlds are like astral journeys”. Nor am I advocating the use of psychoactive drugs or expressing a preference for the psychological philosophy of Carl Jung.

Not at all. What I am attempting to do is make a comparison between their *claims* (whether real or imagined) for the “accelerated evolution of human consciousness” with what I am envisaging could be a possible similar use for Virtual Worlds.

And I do feel that there are valid grounds to compare the internal image-making consciousness-exploring techniques of the Qabalah, Jung’s psychology and psychoactive drugs with an immersive presence in Virtual Worlds.

In my First Life I have noticed that instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence seem to occur more frequently when I am “in the zone”, or “riding the wave”, “on the crest of a wave”, “on a high” etc.

Things just seem to fall into place at such times – the right people call; someone passes me just the right link; the right DVD is returned to the library the day I go looking for it; I get introduced to a friend of a friend who happens to have an expertise I need. I am sure you have similar experiences.

I believe I have noticed a direct correlation between the frequency of these things and my own internal sense of well-being.

That is, the better I feel about myself the more frequent are the occurrences of synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences.

In and of themselves, it is not the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences which are making me feel good about myself – they appear to be a side effect of some sort.

No, I think that other things are contributing to me feeling good about myself and the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences follow on from that.

Sure, there is likely a feedback loop from there – the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences sometimes result in changes in conditions or circumstances which then reinforce the feeling of good about myself which then in turn results in further synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences… and so on.

But there is a more fundamental cause in this chain of events, I believe.

Something, or more likely some things (plural), is/are occurring to make me feel good about myself in the first place – and this initiates the chain which we have just described.

My sense of well-being seems to be directly proportional to my sense that I am “being me”. That is, that I am behaving in a manner that is natural for me – as an individual human being – to behave; that I am creating in a way that is natural for me – again, as an individual – to create; that I am dressing, working, playing and resting as naturally befits who I am as a unique individual.

When these elements of my life are smoothly functioning like a well engineered machine, my sense of well-being sky rockets and, seemingly magically, synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences follow in abundance.

In Virtual Worlds, we find that many conditions are easier to control and influence than their Atomic World equivalents.

Objects can be moved and positioned with pin point accuracy without many of the frustrations experienced with physical objects. The avatar body can be adjusted in so many ways that it is possible to have the perfect body – no matter how one might define that. One can dress in any way or have tattoos or piercings, hairstyles, jewellery and all the rest which just may not be possible in Atomic Life, for whatever reasons. One can conduct oneself in practically any way, if on the right region or parcel, without being questioned or harshly judged.

In short, for those motivated enough, it is possible to build a simulation of the environment and personal conditions that that particular individual needs to express themselves in a more natural way than their atomic life might permit.

This, I believe, leads to an increase in ones sense of well being and, as such, has genuine therapeutic possibilities.

In this blog-post, I’m suggesting that the ability in Virtual Worlds to effortlessly manipulate objects, easily change looks and the ability to reside in a community of likeminded individuals who will allow you to behave in most any manner you wish without repercussions, sets up the exact same set of conditions which simulate the “being me” that leads to an increase in well-being.

And that, I submit, is why instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence apparently occur more frequently in Virtual Worlds than in the Atomic physical world – because we are more easily able to create environments that are natural to who we are as unique human beings.

Pixie xx

Credits:

All pictures taken on 'Treptower Park' region owned by Squonk Levenque and Miuccia Klaar (co-owners of Kamikaze fashions).

Special thanks to Phillip Sidek for providing the inspiration for these thoughts and ideas.

Brian Viveros 101

Squonk Levenque is co-owner of Kamikaze clothes store and the Treptower Park region.

I intend a more comprehensive blog-post on how we met and the mysterious threads of connection we keep stumblingly discovering about each others’ work within the next week.

Squonk recently introduced me to the art of Brian Viveros.

In amongst its other delights and wonders, Treptower Park has an art gallery of Viveros’ work.

Click here to see the Google Gallery of Brian Viveros images. I am sure you will agree that the work is fabulous.

The pics on this blog-post were taken in the art gallery at the Park. Watch out for the full report later in the week.