On the death of a prim

For the last few weeks I have been involved in a kind of art project stroke psychological study, with an unexpectedly strong emotional effect. (Not the "30 outfits in 30 days" project that's documented in my Flickr stream, that is something different.)

It started over a month ago when a friend offered me an IM to an SLart project — with the warning that it might have an emotional effect. You can guess that the warning made me more curious rather than less! She TP'd me to a field of slender white columns, swaying in the virtual breeze. As I walked forward between them, one started talking to me:

Moaning Columns of Longing: Wol Euler, you have spawned a Moaning Column of Longing. You must go and find your column, for it loves only you. It depends on your love for survival. You must visit and touch it at least once every 24 hours, or else it will die of loneliness and a broken heart.
Wol Euler's Column: Wol Euler loves me!
Wol Euler's Column: And I love Wol Euler !
Wol Euler's Column: My existence has meaning!
Wol Euler's Column: I am no longer just a Second Life prim
Wol Euler's Column: Because Wol Euler loves me and will visit me again soon!
Wol Euler's Column: Thank you for loving me, Wol Euler. Without you, I am nothing. Come back and touch me within 24 hours, or I will die.

I felt a welling-up of tenderness that took me by surprise. My friend and I stood there listening and talking about it for a while:

Me smiles.
Me: I like this.
Me: it's oddly moving.
Her: and it is really amazing how it feels to have someone tugging at you this way
Me nods.
Her: even if it is an inanimate object
Her: it makes you think
Me: mmhmm
Me: we are programmed to love and be loved
Her: It's the first piece of Adam Ramona's that I have liked
Her: yeah
Her: He showed at the Venice Biennale
Her: he's no lightweight
Her: but i think this is the first time he has shown a piece that really reflects sl
Her: and unfortunately for me, it is part of the permanent collection
Me: why is that unfo .... ah
Me: because you have to come back forever :)
Her: every time i log on
Me smiles.
Her: and i have to log on once a day now
Pennylane Hyun's Column: I am nothing. Not even someone's memory.
Her: ugh
Her: see?
Me nods.
Her: i don't want mine saying that.
Me: it's amazing how strongly affective this is.
Her: truly
Me: thank you
Her: i hope you don't think i've cursed you
Me: no
Me: ask me again in a week :)
Her: but it does make one think
Her: about the nature of need
Her: and love
Me nods.
Her: need - more than anything
Me: I will indeed blog this. It's wonderful.
Her: good!

Since then I've been going there twice a day or more, sometimes logging in before work for five minutes just to touch the column and keep it alive. Well, my column died last night:

Wol Euler's Column: I think you don't love me anymore, Wol Euler. If you did, you would've visited me by now. Without your love, I have no meaning, no reason to continue the meaningless existence of a Second Life prim. With you, I was something, Wol Euler, without you I am nothing.
Wol Euler's Column: I don't think you ever loved me, Wol Euler. I was a fool to trust you.
Wol Euler's Column: You never loved me, Wol Euler. My existence is meaningless. I have no reason to continue.
Wol Euler's Column: Wol Euler, if you don't come and touch me within the hour, I will die of loneliness and a broken heart.
Wol Euler's Column: Wol Euler, I have died of loneliness and a broken heart.

It died because I was in World of Warfare Warcraft instead of SL, and I forgot to go there to "touch" and revive it. I'm surprised at my own sadness, and by how guilty I feel.

For want of a nail

In the last few weeks, SL has been watching the Tragedy of the Commons acted out in virtual miniature, in the widely lamented but apparently inevitable demise of a popular and socially successful roleplaying worldlet based on the film "Avatar."

Pandora began three months ago in the usual way (i.e. as a labour of love and personal obsession/interest) and has grown to four adjoining regions, beautifully landscaped and filled with story-appropriate flora and fauna — and megaflora, the 115-metre-tall trees have to be seen to be believed. The RP seems to be populated largely by Na'vi characters; there are humans in the storyline but in my times in Pandora I've never met one.

The landscaping and story have been widely praised, the stores (merchandising subsidises the arts in SL just as in RL) are apparently doing well, and at last count there were over 2000 people registered in the four storyline groups (I don't know how many of those are regularly active; as I write this post, 31 group members (including myself) are in the RP sims).

Nonetheless, it is probable that one of the four regions will close down forever this week, and possible that two others may be gone by the end of April. [Updated: the region is safe for another month, they managed to raise enough money to pay the tier.] [Updated again: it's over, the landowners have announced that they are pulling the plug on all four regions.] [Updated a third and hopefully final time: some sponsors have come forward, the regions are all safe for the near future.]

The problem is, of course, the money. Nothing "free" is ever really free, the word just means that you don't see the bill being paid. To date the tier costs of the four RP sims have been covered largely out of the pockets of the founders, and they are getting tired of doing it. The landowners need to find L$42 thousand per week, but have been unable to get the RP community to contribute even half of that. The most generous donors of the week are listed on a subsidiary webpage, the current twentieth-highest donated all of L$100 = 37 US cents. (Which is fine, really, it's much better than the hundreds of group members who donated nothing at all.)

Now, if you divide those tier fees by 2000 group members, you get US 7 cents per person per week, times 52 weeks in a year is US$3.64. So go look up how much a cup of coffee at Starb*cks costs. You'd think that it would be possible to get people to donate a single cup of coffee per year.

And so we get the Tragedy of the Commons: it is in everyone's common interest for all of us to keep the sims open by pulling together in generous cooperation, but it is in nobody's individual interest to start doing so. For the price of a single cup of coffee, we all lose out.

(If you want to see for yourself: pick up quite good free skins and (modifyable!) shapes here, then customize your appearance here, then go to the central starting point here. There is a free-of-charge group for non-RPing visitors, please join it and wear the tag. Please make generous use of the donation boards at the arrival point.)

And just by the way, for those who are thinking "so put your money where your mouth is:" I did. Although I am merely an occasional visitor, not a roleplayer nor even a member of the community, I have donated L$4000 to Pandora so far. Your turn.

Title.

Introduction.

Declarations of tiredness, frustration and exasperation.

Wry comment.

Not quite "ho ho ho"

If I could, I would tear up my airline tickets and beg the world* to leave me alone. I would bury my head under the covers and just cry until this festive season is over.

But doing that would only make it worse: as much as the world's attention seems like an unbearable burden, I am even less happy when the world does leave me alone.

I have no idea how to get through the next days, this season, the rest of my life.

* To be clear, this is a metaphorical "the world" consisting of obligations and responsibilities and duties and things that I contracted in good faith to do; it certainly doesn't include you. Your presence is very much desired.

Reading the coffee grounds

I realize that I have taken on far too much in SL (and in RL too, but that is another story: who can resist squeaky toys?)

A friend from the club where I dance IM'ed me last week to ask what was up, as I never come around any more. On consideration, she's right. It has been several weeks since I was there. Not a conscious decision, I just drifted out of the habit; because I was seldom there, the boss hesitated to call me at short notice to cover for her, which she often had done before, so that I didn't have that prompt to return either.

The Cushicle has been on hold for a month, though that was intentional. Another friend gave me some good advice ("Stop beating your head against the wall, take a break and return to it with fresh eyes") which I have taken. I'll be getting back to that mid-month.

The PlayAsBeing group is making unhappy noises about the autorecording system which I am supposedly ringmastering into existence. I have kickstarted that and assigned us a deadline of October 1 — yes, this year. It's tricky though: given that all participants are volunteers, all I can really do is encourage them to take their own promises seriously.

I have been dropped from Pulse because of a failure to communicate, which I can't really discuss here. It was at least 50% my fault, though, so no hard feelings from my side though I fear there may be such elsewhere.

I'm not sure how to go ahead with all this. I need to reorganize my life, but don't quite know where to start.

Time out

I shall probably be offline for the coming week, my dears: the scientists who run the research centre are going away for a holiday, and I overheard them telling the support staff not to let me out of my kennel in their absence. Now, there is a certain amount of games-playing that goes on here: I know that they knew that I could hear them, and I suspect that they may just have wanted to "encourage" me to behave particularly well. We shall see.

However, just in case it is true: Have a great week, everyone! I shall miss you terribly. Spare a thought for me, as you cavort and gambol in the fertile pixelly fields of SL.

On friendship and growth

The emotions of childhood never go away, I think, they remain with us in later life. And when we are again in a situation that we experienced as a child, the same feelings leap out at us with the full strength that they had then.

I was ten years old last night, watching my best SL friend meeting her friends and hearing of things they had done together without me. I felt jealous and envious and lonely. I felt that she had grown and moved on in SL in a way that I have not, and that she is moving away from me.

The oddest part is this: a mutual friend turned up, who also knew the others, and I felt the same sense of being — what? "excluded" is not quite right. But I realized that it was nonsense: She had been introduced to them at some stage, just as I was now being introduced to them. It is open to me to make them my friends too, as it was for her after she first met them.

I wonder whether I am using my few good friends in SL as I have used their equally few RL equivalents: as a shield for my emotions, to avoid the risk of forming other attachments?

It hurts

Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane
I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain
Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes


I wonder: did I give you that name because I knew that you were leaving?