Some Thoughts and Ramblings About SL

It's been a long time since I've posted a non-release post on this blog. With the advent of the fashion feeds came upset about those kinds of "non fashion" posts and so I censored my love for rambling, sharing my thoughts and my days with my friends and customers who read this blog. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but my desire to appease the masses of feed readers won out.

Today, I'm breaking that silence with something I feel very strongly about. Does it belong on the fashion feeds? Maybe. Maybe not. But it needs to be thought about and talked about and this is my blog. You're welcome to not read it if you only want the latest release. But if you're concerned about Second Life, and you love or even hate this virtual world we live in, I ask you to humor me and read on.

This morning on the XStreet scrolling "latest post" bar something caught my attention. Often something will, and I'll read it only to find it's a whine party or has turned into a troll feeding. I was happily surprised to find this instead; Reply to M Linden's Blog: An Update on the Linden Dollar posted by Servian Serevi, an obviously thoughtful and passionate resident and creator.

The thread is long, but definitely worth reading. Read it over your coffee, over your lunch break, tonight after dinner, on your iPhone in the bathroom. But, please, read it. The whole thread. As of this morning, (I make no guarantees, it is the SL forums after all) it's a fabulous discussion and one that warrants further thought.

I intended only to comment about how great the thread was, and how good it felt to see some honest and constructive communication happening. Instead, it became a heartfelt plea. It became about the amazing designers and creators that I share my days with. Those who fill my windows with laughs, frustrations, excitement, exhaustion, camaraderie, love and magic that can only happen through this amazing medium we all call our Second Lives. For some of us, it's our real life jobs. It's what feeds our kids, what puts gas in our tanks, pays the rent and the electric bill. Those are the ones I found myself speaking for, and to.

And so I share this with you, in the hope that it brings some kind of passion to the surface for you, that it activates your heart and your mind and your actions in this other world we all share.

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I sincerely hope that someone in a position of authority at the Lab has read this thread and takes it to the powers-that-be. This is, without a doubt, one of the most poignant and constructive threads I've ever seen on these forums. It didn't turn into a gripe-fest but offered honest criticism and suggestions for making "Our World" a better place.

Back in my days as an LL Approved Instructor (yes, I remember the dinosaurs, too) something I used to tell my students was, "If you can dream it, it can happen here." I believed that with all my heart. I brought my brother in, and he created a skateboard/music shop, and a skate park. He brought his real life passions into Second Life and was able to build upon them and share them with others. Last month, I told a friend of mine about Second Life and what I do here. He is a fabulously creative person and does art as his living so he was naturally intrigued. He downloaded Viewer 2.0 and lasted only a few hours before he moved on to a different virtual world where he has started a *very* successful business. We long time residents have screamed from the rooftops the problems with 2.0 only to be ignored. When I asked him why he didn't stick around, he said the EXACT same things that everyone in the many 2.0 threads have said were the problems. All I could do was nod my head and agree with him. It was then that I realized "If you dream it, it can happen" had died somewhere along the way.

As someone previously stated, we are all yelling "WRONG WAY!" only to be ignored. We *are* the heart of Second Life. We know its good, its bad, and we've loved it anyway with the hope of the bad becoming less and the good continuing to grow. Sadly, it has been just the opposite. The negatives are far outweighing the positives at this point. We want things to turn around, or we wouldn't continue to log in, we wouldn't continue to put our hearts and souls into creation, expansion and exploration. As part of a unique creator's group in-world, I hear more and more the heartache of the creators who have made this world the rich and varied place SL has been. Long time residents and staple store owners are giving up, packing it in and heading out. It's disheartening and upsetting to watch this happen day after day.

The heart of Second Life is still beating, but just barely. If nothing else comes from this thread but that M reads it, I'll be satisfied with that, at least we've been heard. I don't expect miraculous changes overnight. But miracles do happen, and with all my heart I want to believe that it's not too late to say "If you can dream it, it can happen."