I don't dance

I've been rethinking my involvement with VRs recently and what I expect to receive from my time inside of them.

And my conclusion is...a whole lot of nothing.  But that is and can be okay.  As long as I know that I'm paying to play.  David Mamet stated about Las Vegas that it only advertises paying to play not playing to win.  He equated it with the Acting school model where this same type of scenario was muddled.  In which aspiring actors were paying schools to feel as if they were winning.  When really they should just be out there...acting where ever they could.   They same type of muddle is inherent in the VRs as well, in that people think they are paying to win not to just play.

The swindle with VRs is that they are giving the illusion that players are gaining accomplishment.  Because due to the way our brains are wired, we can not distinguish the real from the unreal in VR.  I think of avatars as phantom limbs.  Or perhaps that is wrong.  A few years back, I took some lessons in fencing.  What amazed me during training was that it changed the perception of my body boundaries.  I could actually feel my personal space expanding to accommodate the fencing sword, to feel as if I were growing and projecting into a larger sense of self.  The sword became a literal extension of my arm.  Avatars are like the sword that becomes a part of a fencer's body.  But whereas swords are always considered tools, avatars are not.  Our brains look into that upside down VR world and think that they are mirror images.  We think we are seeing ourselves.

Therefore what our illusionary selves accomplish becomes an accomplishment for the real.  It makes us quite willing to jump on the hamster wheel just to feel that few seconds worth of joy through our voodoo dolls.  In the process, we are infantilized.  Its apparent in the very way developers treat their customers (who are keeping them in luxurious lives they are accustomed to), they patronize us.  VR customers are spoken to the way adults speak to toddlers suffering from the terrible twos.  Autonomy is not wanted inside our small children or in game world customers.

So what am I doing if I know its nothing?  Well I'm having fun.  Sometimes too much, which burns me out.  Then I throw tantrums, delete characters and defriend passing acquaintances.  This happened a few times.  And this is what started me thinking.  Even with some fun, why stay?  That was when I decided to wean myself from most of the games I play.  The first and biggest was Warcraft.  I deleted my low level alts and only kept my regulars.  My main has a vanity guild which will be taken care of by a friend while I'm away.  In the back of my mind, I believe that I will go back for the next expansion...Cataclysm.  But that is over 8 to 9 months away and who knows what I'll be doing then.  There is the possibility that my leaving could be permanent.

The next game to go will be Warhammer Online.  I've given myself a few more months with that game then that too will be cancelled.

However, Second Life will be considerably harder to curtail.  Mainly because I do so little inside it except to nest.  The main joy I get out of SL is to own my nicely sized fantasy land plot that I decorate for each season.  I don't really socialize in SL, because I've never really trusted anyone enough in the game.  You see, I never believed that SL was the same as RL.  Its always been a game to me.  And that is a sacrilegious thought to most SL hard core.  But I need boundaries between the real and the fairy tale, it protects me from hazardous addiction.

You see, I don't dance in SL when all is said and done.  I think virtual dancing is ridiculous.  And I've refused to do it which most other players don't understand.  I have the required animations but I don't use them.  Because I love dancing in RL and I'd rather be dancing in RL.  Just the same as I think photo taking in RL gives me more pleasure than celebrating SL screenshots.  My RL photos are mine.  My SL screenshots are jetsam and flotsam which more militant SL players would use to sue me for copyright infringement.

If one can't dance in SL, then they aren't true residents.  And I've discovered that I'm not.  I'm too critical and that gets in my way in-world.  So, I suppose, I should tier down my land to make a smaller monthly payment.  Then go out there and do what makes me happy outside a computer box, to learn that there is more than just paying to play.  When there could be just play.

This blog?  Oh it will continue to exist.  And I will update it with accounts of my travels.  It just won't be as starry eyed as most SL blogs. ;)