I'm not going to sell or extol the virtues of spending time in Second Life. Honestly, I've been one of its greatest detractors in the past. I felt that my lifestyle didn't suit the concept of a virtual world, it was complicated enough.
A friend of mine encouraged me to look at Second Life in 2005. I paid my dues, downloaded the client and I was taken somewhere. I wasn't really introduced to how it worked and I floundered. I closed it down, uninstalled the client and got on with Real Life (or First Life as Linden Labs call it) for another two years.
A recent change in circumstances has meant I've been left with a lot of free time. Moving to a new town has meant leaving a lot of real friends in inaccessible places. I've never had the most stable of minds and boredom has really bitten hard. After seeing some other online acquaintances talking about improvements to Second Life, I thought I'd give it another go.
Second Life is a hall of mirrors to me. I can look at myself and choose any reflection that I want. I can be anything and I can do so with impunity, so it may seem strange that for the most part I just play myself, albeit with a slightly more foxy appearance. That's not to say there isn't an element of escapism there as well; I have two alter-ego's if you will: A snow leopard and a monochromatic firefox. The skin I wear at any given time bears some resemblance to how I'm feeling, or the state of my mind at that particular moment, although it may be in an exaggerated or slightly distorted way. The combination of their personas makes up the gestalt entity that is me.
Right now, Second Life is a device that offers me some escapism and a chance to meet new people. For the most part it's welcoming and the learning curve isn't so steep. Maybe it'll turn into something else as time goes by, but we'll see. Stay tuned for updates.
" All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape. "
-- Arthur Christopher Benson, poet and author ( 1862-1925)