The Alphaville Herald

Jaded Wizard Makes Metaverse Spritual Quest

by Pixeleen Mistral on 01/03/07 at 8:53 am

“Our second lives are as empty as our first”

by Superfluous Pharaoh, Wizard of Extraordinary Talents

Ah, Second Life! Repeatedly hailed as the usher of a new era, a land of infinite variability, where the curious can fills their eyes and minds with limitless wonders; where the creative can pour the brimming excess of their souls into vessels without number. For many, however, this noble dream amounts to little more than a melancholy shuffling through an endless maze of consumption: fields of catatonic avatars camping and dancing and gambling their lives away for the hollow promise of the shopping centers- a look for every lust and a device for every vice.

A small group of souls hopelessly immersed in sin

It is no surprise that thousands of our citizens are left hollow; unappeased by even the incalculable vastness of the Second Life market. Polyester Partridge, one fashion-forward young resident, summarized this far-reaching plight for me: “our second lives are as empty as our first”.

Polyester’s testimony moved me- as a Wizard of profound genius, I understood that it was up to me to examine the problems of Second Life’s spiritually unfulfilled. Donning my Wizard’s mantle and giving my wand a cursory application of MagikWax (available at any CostCo), I set out to find what spiritual solace can be had in the world of Second Life.

Almost immediately after beginning my search I came upon a Buddhist shrine in Crazy Devil. A low-impact hip-hop over a bed of droning mantras and cricket-chirping caresses my ears; the Buddha, his facial prims conveying an expression of perfect tranquility, sits underneath a series of scrolls holding all the essential text for any starting Buddhist. Wondrous! I think of the hours that might be spent standing in this very spot, pouring over the ancient and valid texts of Siddhartha and his followers.

But where were the pilgrims? The teeming masses yearning for enlightenment? I spotted a handful of them in the distance, sitting on the slowly rotating prayer-cylinders that decorate the temple. Dressed in snappy black and smoking cigarettes, they seemed more like a struggling British rock group than devout Buddhists.

Despite their ironic appearance, I was eager to get their opinion. I wet my non-existent lips and let my questions fly: “What insights have you gained? Do you enjoy basking in the radiant light of knowledge? Why do you come here?”

One of them looks down at me, his cigarette-smoke curling into the night air with scripted precision.

“Sometimes I like to sit on the spinning things.”

Bafflement spreads across my face as the spinning cylinder presents me his backside. Three solid minutes of revolving silence later and I realize that yes, this is indeed all the wisdom they have to impart.

Your friendly neighborhod Wizard/Bomb/Journalist

Stepping past these wise people, I come across a garter-belted, high-booted redheaded bombshell sitting in the lotus position. This was a curious case- a clear dance club regular; her stiletto heels appeared to be digging painfully into her thighs. Utilizing my superior sense of etiquette I said just the right thing to get me into her social graces, “You, Madame, are the very apex of hotness!” She explained to me that she had spent more than an hour meditating as such, and did so quite frequently.

My hopes were high- clearly this painted up Jezebel was all deeper than she appeared to be. Underneath her impossibly cut leather halter-top and simulated cleavage, there beat the heart of a true philosopher. In that moment as tears welled up in my dinner-plate sized eyes, I felt I could kiss her if I only possessed the appropriate animation. “Yes!” I said, “Yes! You must have the answers! What have you found in this temple?!”

From nowhere I hear the tell-tale clacking of keys; her hands are too busy with tai-chi for the accompanying gesture.

“Quiet,” she says- “It’s an incredibly peaceful sim.”

Even before she spoke I was nodding my head in emphatic praise, absolutely sure that her answer would hold the wisdom of sixteen Confucius’s, but disappointment ceased my cranial oscillations. “Ahhh I see,” I said, twirling my non-existent moustache in nervous frustration. “But is quiet ALL you get here, really? Could you not perhaps achieve this quiet by sitting still and doing nothing in real life? Why come into Second Life to achieve this quiet?”

“True, I could just sit at home,” she said- “but here I have absolute freedom”. With that, she repeated her perfect, unalterable, scripted tai-chi movements for the sixtieth time since the conversation began.

Absolute freedom? Is that truly what Second Life provides? I had certainly heard that argument made before; made by line-dancing anthropomorphic lions and legions of scantily-dressed nine year old vampires. But the irony of someone locked in a scripted sequence of movements, movements tied to a point in digital space, claiming to possess absolute freedom hit me with the force of a Bigby’s Crushing Fist.

Certainly a Resident has great freedom when choosing how to present him or herself, but then is that Resident not confined to a world of thoroughly unbreakable laws? Not to mention the personal whims of other Residents. I will admit that streaking across the skies like a comet was quite liberating until I was stopped dead by a glowing red barrier informing me I was denied entry to “BarryDogg & Honey’s Hot Spot”. This isn’t The Matrix quite yet, my dear mortal friends.

Leaving the part-time stripper/part-time bodhisattva behind, I flew off in search of more persons to pose my query: What is the Meaning of Second Life?

“Escape from the real” said Titterat Semyoaka, resting on a log in a cheery Zen garden. Another oft-repeated argument. Nearby, a lagging image loads to reveal an ad for a L$ 175 leather chair. Somehow, I’m not convinced.

Zen and leather products starting at L$ 175

I teleport within the walls of a Christian church. They give me a free bible- things are looking up! A simply dressed man answers my questions with dignity and clarity, explaining that Second Life is but an extension of the first life. Halfway through his point, he is interrupted by a fellow parishioner sporting purple skin and fairy wings, who argues that her form in this world is more real than her physical body because it is more reflective of “her as a person”. Their debate heats up, and both of their arguments go up in smoke, sacrificed for their own personal flame war. I thank them for the bible and get out of there.

Of course! Trains! How could I have not seen it?!

I try the infamous goon stronghold, Baku. Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth, perhaps the followers of Plastic Duck hold more wisdom than they are credited? A smattering of hideous oddities stuffed into police uniforms greets me. A walking ham roast wearing a monocle is dancing to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme played ad naseum. In the distance, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man looms over the brand-spanking new BakuWood sign.

“The meaning of Second Life is to show us that Jean Paul Sartre was absolutely right about human freedom,” says Samahazai Ikarus, his enormous afro shuddering in the virtual wind.

“The meaning of Second Life is to shoot people with chicken and to grief, as it’s the only fun thing to do.” – I could not get the name of this sage, as an enormous chicken-leg unceremoniously knocks me out of the sim.

The W-Hats had answers, though they were by far the most cynical I had encountered. Things were not going well. Crushed, I indulge in a whirlwind of spiritually harmful activities: drinking, gambling; dancing for pennies an hour at the seediest dives the metaverse has to offer. Occasionally I ask my question to some crazed bystander, but the responses are the worst yet.

“To fuck,” is the simple answer of Jorus Claar, member of the group “Tamed 4 Lust”.

“Meaning? What, are you on drugs?” To be fair, to my shame I was. [you’ll fit right in with the Lindens - Editrix]

Or, by the far the number one answers: “To party!!!” usually followed by some variant of “Wooooo!!!” or “Hell yea!!”.

Thankfully, the universe always has a way of nudging its children back on the road to enlightenment. For me, this nudge came in the realization that I had gambled away my last Linden playing digital three card monte. Then I was faced with a choice: to press on in the name of inner peace, or to submit and join the half a dozen dancing fools behind me, camping for the scraps. I’m confident that with time, my intellect will unravel the mystery of this Second Life as it has with so many other great enigmas. So I joined a digital church or two and read up at the Library of Primitives. Perhaps if I build a 6,000 prim Ziggurat…oh, or if I script God himself! They have that God-mode function, yes?

To think I could sink so low in my wild days – good tips though