We sit behind the computer where our real identities, for the most part, are hidden. We can say and do whatever we want and there are few real consequences. We can trash other people, hurt them terribly, lie to them and about them and generally criticize everything and everyone. In fact, we feel justified.
In real life when you run around making comments about what everyone else is doing, how they are doing it, and what they look like when they are doing it .... you eventually face some pretty unpleasant consequences which serve to offer you a super big helping of "STFU." Here in SL, people tend to get more bold after each attack they make. They start to feel very powerful and with a chorus of sheeple to "baaa" their approval ... It can be intoxicating.
In the real world we have started to express our disgust at the people who stand around during the fight screaming "kick her, kick her again" but in SL these people are basically free to carry on without any sense of how cruel they sound just "baaing" their approval. Your chat window pops up and someone posts something that the rest of the group deems wrong/inappropriate/or against the rules. Few ever allow that it may have been an honest mistake or misunderstanding. If they do, they are silent as the hounds circle. Not only will people jump all over the entry, they begin to attack the person and laugh with each other about what should be done to the person ... most of which is far worse than "kick her, kick her again." But then, no-one probably knows that person and they probably aren't even from the same country so no-one is going to be kept awake by someone else crying themselves to sleep, or even jumping out a window for that matter.
As we mature in life, we try out expressions of who we are and what we look like and how we want to define ourselves. Eventually necessity takes over in one form or the other and we are forced to put on the "uniform" of societal acceptance and adopt the general consensus on everything from how we look to how we act. We get little breakthroughs of sunshine ... perhaps we have some creative expression we fit in on Tuesday nights ... but for the most part ... we have been assimilated.
So we show up in SL and suddenly we have the ability to be anything. We can look like anything. We can do anything we want to. AND ... We are not alone in that endeavour. There are a whole group of people who stick to the same norms of real life and try to make their avatars "pretty" or "striking" by RL standards. We have the whole modelling scene where the models must be thin and have a strict body type and that is fine, although they may be surprised to know there are people who think they are sick sick sick to be perpetrating the same garbage as real life. It is like shopping at Walmart your whole life, then being given access to the greatest creations offered by the greatest designers and still insisting on wearing Walmart - because it is what you know and like. Others experiment and choose deviations and abstracts. If we had someone in here analyzing it all they would most likely be able to find all the links to our lives and experiences that allow us to interpret ourselves, or some aspect of ourselves or a character we choose to identify with and play, in the way we do. Everyone is happy with their expression of that. YOU got to choose what you look like. SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH ALLOWING OTHERS TO DO THE SAME??
Somehow we have to find a way to get over this - "I do it this way and this is the only right way and everyone else should think and do as I do and anyone who doesn't is an ass." Not everyone interprets things the same. Not everyone agrees on what is beautiful. It is ok. It is what makes life interesting. To me, one of the greatest lessons SL offers is that we are not our bodies. We are not the sum total of what is visible to the world. We are not better people because of money. We are not more talented because we have had opportunities to hold important jobs. LOOK around you ... Look at the talent, the breadth, the depth, the scope of it. Look at the people who society has forgotten, turned their backs on, ignored ... who have come in here and are now your favourite designer, your best friend, your lover. Just because their life experiences have not been kind does not make them less than anyone. Just because people are poor does not make them poor people. Just because they do not have the surgically altered body of a movie star does not make them incapable of love. And just because you cannot see them, believe me, they still bleed when you cut them.
If you want to continue to limit your experience with life and people to those that match you ... your life may be the saddest of them all because you are choosing bread and water at a banquet table of food waiting to be enjoyed.
But you know what?
You are allowed to choose bread and water.
Just don't tell everyone else that they have to limit themselves to those same two choices.
Ever wonder how my mind works that I come up with all this stuff?? Well ... I have no idea BUT if you enjoy this Blog you might be interested in Bliss/Aria's other blogs - find out more at Intertwingled. Join us on Facebook where there is even more.
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