Identity.... let’s get this straight.

There is an increasingly annoying misuse of the word Identity.

Now, as with most of my blog posts I am not setting myself up as an authority although some people tend to skip over caveats I nearly always pepper an opinionated post with and get hot under the collar because I state my case forcefully in an attempt to stimulate debate.

So...back to identity. There have been more than one reference to people assuming different or multiple identities in SL. NWN, in a terrible post recently gave space to some armchair psychologist talking about post modern thought. Now, the very phrase ‘post modern thought’ is enough to get me ranting, but my distaste of the sort of inane thinking that can lead to, as an example, Wagner James Au saying..”I'm a logical empiricist, scientific triumphalist mofo” will have to be the subject of another post.

This guy, Robert, talks in a video (which is cringe making) of the theory that “an individual may define themselves as any multiple number of identities”.

Now, my argument is NOT with Robert but with the continued misuse of the word Identity. We recently saw a show in SL which fell into the same trap, namely a misunderstanding of Identity as a concept.

[wikipedia: In philosophy, identity, from Latin: identitas (“sameness”), is the exact sameness of things. According to Leibniz's law two things sharing every attribute are not only similar, but are the same thing. The concept of sameness has given rise to the general concept of identity, as in personal identity and social identity.]

Identity is, by definition, something you can only have one of.

[wikipedia...Personal continuity is an important part of identity; this is the process of ensuring that the quality of the mind are consistent from moment to the next, generally regarded to comprise qualities such as self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.]

You cannot assume a different identity by putting on a different frock, or avatar. Your Identity (despite the misnamed “identity theft”) cannot be stolen, traded, changed, or swapped. You are you...even in a coma you have the same identity. Only on death will you cease to be you, although all your previous worldy actions, etc. will still continue to be accredited to the Identity that was you.

So.....Is it Personality? Can you say you assume a different, or multiple, personalities in avatar form. I personally think not. Your basic personality doesn’t change, if you are a nice person in RL, chances are that will shine through whatever avatar you wear..... and a fool will always be a fool, that we know for certain.

Aspects of your personality DO change when you wear different clothes/avatar, your basic personality doesn’t.

So...what of Role Play? Well, an actor doesn’t change his identity when he plays Hamlet, he may try to identify with that role, but he will have the same Identity and personality when the play finishes as he did at the start. He may have had insights into aspects of his psyche through doing so, as we do when assuming an avatar, or a role.

The clothes you wear, the avatars you wear, are a facade you present to the public, a manufactured You which is normally called a Persona....now... personas we have many of. Daughter, wife, mother, employee, party goer, etc, etc. the list, for a healthy person is endless, we adapt to the situation and act in an appropriate manner.

..But....it’s alway Me. It’s never another identity, I don’t become Wizzy...ever....and should I change my name to Wizzy, that still doesn’t change my Identity or my personality.

Now, it could be said...’well, you know what I mean, why be so particular?’ but it’s only when you listen to someone like Robert that you understand how confused people can become when they are not precise in their use of concepts.

The things we discover through living life as avatars are aspects of our selves, we do not discover new selves or new identities.

Your Self and your Identity you are stuck with, and you only ever have one of each.... by definition.

:)))

The Trouble with Balance.

Nightflower has recently posted on NWN the results of her survey of her readers together with her own thoughts on maintaining a balance between RL and SL lives.... and she invites debate and a conversation on this topic... so...

Nightflower’s words are born of her own experience and so are true for her though not necessarily so for all.

The one sentence that jumped out at me was... “my emotional health also requires me to reject romanticization, and embrace the truth that my flesh-and-blood self is inherently more valuable than my digital projection.”

I have a problem with that. It may seem like semantics, me being picky, but my self, or anyone’s self is not flesh and blood, but pure psychic in nature. Similarly I would disagree that my avatar is a straight forward digital projection.

Nightflower also says “I love my avatar Night, and enjoy alternating between talking about her as if she were me, and referring to her as if she were a unique, sentient being. While there are some valuable kernels of truth in that viewpoint for a discussion on identity, that kind of talk is potentially destructive hogwash if we’re talking about balance.”

It would seem to me that some sort of viewpoint on identity would have to be reached before one can make a value judgement about how more or less “valuable” one part of my psyche is as opposed to another part of my psyche.

Is the hour a patient spends with her/his therapist more or less valuable than the 40 hours a week they have to work in order to pay for the therapy?

Her statement is very culturally based, these are the values we were all indoctrinated with from childhood, and may not be viable longer. (previous post, Angst and Addiction)

Though I do not consider myself a Christian there is an example from the bible where Martha complains that she does all the work while Mary just sits at Christ’s feet taking his teaching. So this discussion is not a new one.... and there is no answer.

~~~~~~

Moving on from this particular point about the relative importance of atom-based work vs. digital work, I have a theoretical aversion to the idea that balance is always necessary, or even a good thing.

Does the idea “moderation in all things” also include Moderation as one of the things to be moderate about? Is it not necessary to throw Balance out of the window on occasion?

If Mozart had not been obsessed, if van Gogh had achieved more Balance, who would have gained?

Balanced can just equal Safe, and can be the refuge for those feeling they got their fingers burnt playing with fire.... and I make no apology for re-quoting this piece from one of my previous posts on addiction...

“Talking of the conflict between conscious and unconscious elements of the Self, (like yin and yang, human and avatar)... Dr Jung says....
“When this confrontation is confined to partial aspects of the unconscious the confrontation is limited and the solution simple: the patient, with insight and some resignation or a feeling of resentment, places himself on the side of reason and convention.”

He means that if you can’t stand the heat, you get out of the kitchen. Addiction is then the excuse you have for being in the kitchen in the first place. The unwanted sides of your psyche that have manifested get repressed again, and you go back to “normality”.”

I am of the firm belief that I would rather be Mental than Balanced, but a mixture of the two is probably healthier..

:)))

Elvis, Jung, Hercules and soror Nishi.

I have been interested lately in the Persona ... which could be defined as “the mask of the actor”, the face we show to the world, covering our more intimate, confused self with a deflective surface.... like most peoples Facebook profiles.

To meet Dr. Jones in his consulting rooms is appropriate, being introduced at a party to Dr. Jones, is not. The professional mask here out of place, and sanity is very much about wearing the right mask at the right time.

So..... it is this issue of “real” names that I mentioned previously that has got my brain stirring. There are suggestions in the comments on Massively’s post that “real” names could be displayed above avatars like group tags, like Dr. Jones at the party. Now, while I would be considered mad to wear a soror Nishi 'tag' when I am not inworld, the above suggestion is not considered as the stark-raving madness that it actually is.

[..and here, to be perfectly clear, I am not talking of the thousands of people who link their avatar names to their RL names in some normal manner, but those who use their RL photo on the first page of their profile and/or make their avatar look like their RL persona, make their houses in SL like their "real" homes.....that sort of thing.]

“Possession can be formulated as identity of the ego-personality with a complex.
A common instance of this is identity with the persona, which is the individual’s system of adaptation to, or the manner he assumes in dealing with, the world.” (Jung, The Archetypes..etc. all subsequent quotes, also.)

He goes on to outline those “celebs” who believe and live their own “press”. He links this to greek mythology and the poison-soaked shirt of Nessus which Deianeira gives to Hercules which he cannot remove except by throwing himself on a fire.

“One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.”

Not, being such a greek myth geek, I had to think of the King, Elvis. Being “the King” 24/7 rather than a real person would be enough to kill anyone, being a possession by the persona, (and probably his power-complex).

“In any case, the temptation to to be what one seems to be is great, because the persona is usually rewarded with cash.”

Now the problem that frustrates me in my previous post is the belief, which is wide-spread, that a Facebook Profile (or personna) is “more real” than a SL Profile.

The persona, is a pure work of fiction too.

The main difference is that there are more people on the RL grid than the SL grid. Democracy is a dictatorship by the mass and therefore, what the mass wants/believes is what the minority have to endure, no matter how insane it is.

There is an obvious discomfort (fear) for many in this particular form of role/mask that sends them runnning for their persona to clothe their nakedness.

If it is so difficult to let go of the “real” “self” and enjoy the mask that an avatar provides, like the ‘mother’ mask, ‘daughter’, ‘lover’, ‘entrepreneur’ etc. then the question for me is ... why?

I have, increasingly, the idea that my original (two years ago) assumption may be correct... namely that, like the early colonialists, shaken to find themselves in a totally new culture/world, they superimposed and suppressed the ‘native’ culture and created their own cultural ghetto. This allowed their personas to roam free with no need for the type of change (throwing themselves like Hercules into the rejuvinating fire) necessary to step beyond their small fictional, manufactured “real” world.

RL is for most of us a limiting construct, the rules written by others, and our history.

VWs are a wonderful opportunity to expand our concept of identity.... another mask, or masks, to play with, to enjoy and experiment. Immersion is dependent on a degree of 'suspension of disbelief'.

The secret is surely to enjoy each world for what it has to offer (e.g. Botgirl), rather than trying to make them as similar as possible.



:))

Watering down the wine

Well, the Companion has opened as those reading my last two posts will obviously know. There's a fair few nice shots of it on Flickr....here....

...and, look hard and you'll find my flying goat with an anim by Frigg Ragu that's a freebie, it's in the stall by the wooden castle...

Anyway, the story is about a young man, they always are, on his path to individuation (a Jung word)... and the first part of his journey takes him to the Vintner (wine-maker) who is frozen in ice outside the church, dead but unburied. Anyone who is so mean spirited as to water down wine before selling it to friends and neighbours is gonna be met with the same meanness as he showed others. So, only right that they should be as penny-pinching as he was and not pay for his funeral.

All good morality tale stuff, do unto others and all that. Luckily the young traveller has a different take on it. Justice is one thing and love another....(Brand is my fav. Ibsen drama, a story of the god of righteousness vs the god of love)...and shells out the few Kroner that are needed to get the old sinner interred in Mother Earth. ....and all good things flow from this act of generosity.

Now I couldn't help wondering if I was watering down my wine,.... wine in these contexts often used as an image of the blood, or generally, passion. ...and of course we are all a little guilty of "suppressing the sound of our own breathing', i.e. not living life to the full, being a party-pooper at our own festival. We have as many excuses as the Vintner probably thought he had, and more, probably. ......and our souls can get rather encase in this frozen mass of inhibitions....

Which is why I thought it was a very fitting tale for SL. Obviously if you are a pain in the arse in RL you will be the same in SL, and generally rain on everyone's parade in all worlds, but if you are held back (as we all are) in RL by conventions, norms, taboos, education, culture etc etc...then... SL is such a wonderful opportunity to "let your hair down". .... and there are a few people who have said how much more confident or assertive they feel in SL...and hopefully that seeps out into RL......

So let's make some full-bodied rich wine, and have a ball... bring your RL personna with you if you must but leave your preconceptions at the login page...or you'll never dance with dragons.


:)))

Second Life Healing and Alchemy

The fairly common image of the ailing King in folk tales and the "wounding" of mythology have their equivalent in Alchemy known as the Nigredo. The Nigredo descends into the Mortificatio, often pictured as the king being buried in a coffin, ....so that's pretty ill.

Jung saw this as an archetypal image depicting the meeting with one's shadow as a result of the quest for self knowledge. That means that when you look in the mirror to see who you are, you can see both angel and devil. Seeing the devil looking back at you is a bit rough.
This Chaos situation is brought about by the unconscious (all our buried psychological baggage) rising up and flooding us.

I'm not really surprised that we all suffer from this to some extent as our Christian tradition (which permeates our culture, laws and education) has this nasty habit of branding the unconscious as evil and consciousness as good, unlike an Eastern tradition where Yin and Yang are understood to be equally necessary and no moral values attached to either one.

Jung suggested using a technique called Active Imagination. In this process you take a dream image or a phantasy and develop it, bit by bit, fleshing it out, changing and upgrading, recording it as you go,(or it just turns into day-dreaming).

Why?

Well, Active Imagination is a process of consciously dialoguing with our unconscious "for the production of those contents of the unconscious which lie, as it were, immediately below the threshold of consciousness and, when intensified, are the most likely to erupt spontaneously into the conscious mind."

It's like getting the microscope trained on what is trying to break through into our consciousness.

Everyone in Second Life is doing this.... from day one when you choose an avatar, even if you stay Ruthed forever.... you are involved in this process....
...the choices you make, the people you meet, the places you go...all of these factors are a development of your "virtual psyche". Your Virtual Psyche is a part of your unconscious made visible.

And so..... where does all this lead, and why should I be interested~??

Well, to put it quite simply, in amongst your unconscious baggage is some hidden treasure, and SL will help you find it.

It's a healing environment.

:))

Transgression and Addiction

As you may know if you have read some of my previous posts I am very interested in the psychology of virtual existence and so my ears always prick up when someone says something about SL which I have heard said before, and like Jacob and the angel, I try not to let it go before I have extracted a “blessing” (insight) from the thought process.

Well I have heard, several times now, people leaving SL saying they have to break this “addiction” and get on with their lives. It is a statement that always has a hollow ring to it, and these sort of things I like to get my teeth into.

Good job for example that Beethoven or Mozart didn’t “get over” their addictions to music and scribbling, or the world would be a poorer place.
[But then we know that in our culture Art Is Not A Proper Job, and we are all artists and designers, whether we realise it or not. From Day One decisions have to be taken on what type of Ruth you will start your Second Life with...and so on and so on. Every decision is a partially conscious, partially unconscious decision...and that is Design. (Here is not the time or place to discuss design theory, but my conviction is that it is this process of decision-making towards a final aim that is at the core of all design work.)]

Anyway... Avalon said to me something to the tune of.. addiction is used as a way of excusing behaviour you don’t want to claim as your own. Like when people get drunk and allow themselves to do things they wouldn’t permit when sober....
and bells in my head went off...

Talking of the conflict between conscious and unconscious elements of the Self, (like yin and yang, human and avatar)... Dr Jung says....
“When this confrontation is confined to partial aspects of the unconscious the confrontation is limited and the solution simple: the patient, with insight and some resignation or a feeling of resentment, places himself on the side of reason and convention.”
He means that if you can’t stand the heat, you get out of the kitchen. Addiction is then the excuse you have for being in the kitchen in the first place. The unwanted sides of your psyche that have manifested get repressed again, and you go back to “normality”.

I wrote before about fear and shame, and how these two Guardians stand between us and true self-knowledge. I mean here by ‘self-knowledge’, a deep co-existence of conscious and unconscious sides of our nature rather than a superficial appraisal of the ego.
In my opinion, nothing, absolutely nothing, is as important as the integration of conscious and unconscious parts of our psyche. This process Dr Jung calls Individuation. There is little difference between the monks of old who, locked in small rooms, examined their inner natures and those of us exploring our natures in SL.

Why and how I believe SL to be a truly healing environment is an ongoing project that my thoughts and words try and chip away at like a marble sculpture. More will no doubt follow....


:))

Consciousness and Second Life.

Botgirl, as usual raises the most pertinent questions in her ongoing interest in SL consciousness. I have posted a lengthy reply to her blog ..........
I repeat it here for those who might be interested:

"This post and previous ones have only reinforced my belief that understanding the shift in consciousness that happens as we become a virtual being can only be understood when we go back to the question of how we understand consciousness.

I resisted writing after watching the Ted Talks clip you posted, because, as he said, everyone has their own particular theory on consciousness, and I felt that mine was really just more virtual space junk. Later, I realised that very few people have a theory about consciousness, and those that do, I like to hear.

I think that a major breakthrough has come for the science community now that it has realised that all that black stuff we see in the night sky is not Nothing, it may not be matter as we know it, but it is Stuff. Similarly, consciousness may be better understood when we we start to look at the Unconscious, (and here I am thinking of the individual unconsciousness).

The decisions we take in forming our avatars “ beneath ... conscious awareness” are, like our dreams and inspirations, coming from a place which is outside our conscious control. Because dreams (and, I suspect, inspiration) are uncontrollable Jung called them autonomous, and postulated that the unconscious was both autonomous and older than consciousness.

This, if applied to Second Life, gives this (Virtual) conscious state a very unusual place in our experience, being a sort of waking dream. It is a hitherto unknown mixture of conscious and unconscious words, acts, and decisions. It is populated by Colonials trying to maintain their old culture ( the “real life” brigade) and by those that have “gone native” and become Archetypes, (dragon, elves and the like).

Those of us living in the land between these two extremes are being formed by the people we meet, the experiences we have, the clothes we buy. My human likes to think they make more rational decisions than Soror. But that is delusion.
A dream is a natural phenomenon, it is real. There is nothing unreal about SL either. It is a frontier land for the psyche."

:))