The Kindness of Strangers

I had a rather uncomfortable experience yesterday, I let someone down.

The issue is the new user experience and the title taken from a comment by Yordie Sands on Botgirl's post, a second posting on the issue mentioned above.

It started a couple of days ago with Nightflower (aka Nightfire...:))) posting a blog on NWN about making new users belong by joining them to a group or clan like other games do.

Botgirl made a video showing her 'new user' experience....here..

My experience happened last night at my IBM build where I was sitting playing Hostess With The Mostest as the visitors popped in, spurred mainly by Wizzy cracking the Destination Guide forms and getting me listed.
So, someone said, "where is the quest?"
Me: ermmm...quest?
Other: yes
Me: which quest is that then?
Other: The Quest.
By now the mythical nature of this convo got me to check out their profile, leaving my other IM's flashing. It was a fresh, very fresh noob.
Me: Ah, you have just arrived?
Noob: Yes, how do I get back to where I started?
Me: What was it called?
Noob: It was a big building with lots of windows.
Pause ... as I am actually stumped for what to say, brain in overdrive (it is probably over a year since I 'mentored' a totally fresh noob.
Noob: Never mind I have to go, thanks for talking to me.. [noob poofs]

Now, it is due to the Kindness of Strangers that I and many others are here.... and here I let someone down, quite simply because I was totally unprepared and didn't think on my feet fast enough.

Yesterday is a good example of how good people are generally, both Gianna Borgnine and Indigo Mertel taking the time to teach the slow girl at the back of the room (and benefitting the other 150 people in class) for no other reason than the desire to help people understand. So it has always been, and always will be, I think.

Anyway, now that the Mentors have gone, and you and I can be called upon at any time to fill that role, I was wondering what is the first thing I would say to a Noob. Bearing in mind they may not have mastered Chat even, should I give a Notecard?

I decided that the first thing I should have done was to offer friendship and then teach them to take a landmark (Could I do that, not having used Viewer 2.0?), so that even if they got lost they could speak to someone and find their way back to somewhere they had been.

But I figured that, maybe we could get a few ideas together....

What do you/would you do?

..and how can we get the Mentors back?

Can anyone get a Linden's ear?

Are all lines of communication with the Lindens now cut in their new One-Way transparency drive?

eeeek!

:))

We the Immortals

Jung points out in his writings how the Unconscious is older than consciousness. We start life, both as an individual, and as a species, in a state of unconsciousness unlimited by the constraints of our individuality and, therefore, more 'in tune' with our surroundings and each other. Like an animal lives in harmony with the rest of it's ecosystem we started our species development united rather than separated from the rest of life.

Our Unconscious is older and also 'wiser' than our intellect, a fact that we acknowledge when we talk of the heart being a wiser organ than the brain.

The reason I stated in an NPIRL post last year that Jung would have loved SL is because he saw the main task of a person to work towards a synthesis of their unconscious and conscious selves. He thought that all psychic activity is directed towards that goal whether we are aware of it or not.

A method to enhance this process which he proposed to a few of his clients was that of Active Imagination. Basically you take a glimpse of your psychic content, like an image from one of your dreams, and paint it in RL, going back to it and repainting the painting. If you continue this process the image starts to develop beyond a glimpse into a more substantial 'story'. This, a co-operative effort between your unconscious and conscious mind, will reveal insights into your path which you didn't necessarily understand from your initial glimpse (dream image).

Bear with me...

SL, and your avatar, in particular, fulfils all these requirements. Your work on your avatar is much more than a game, a waste of time or a retreat from RL, it is pure therapy. It is leading you and me on the path of Individuation as Jung calls it.

"Individuation is the process through which a person becomes his/her 'true self'. Hence it is the process whereby the innate elements of personality; the different experiences of a person's life and the different aspects and components of the immature psyche become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. Individuation might thus be summarised as the stabilizing of the personality."..[wikipedia]

Now, Nightflower in her wonderful comment in yesterdays discussion on RL/SL 'conflict' gives voice to a feeling which many people share, namely that her avatar is more than just a cartoon figure but something mythological and supernatural. Jung would love that, for, she is.

She, the avatar, shares in the collective unconscious in the same way that Myths, the I Ching, and fairytales do. She is goddess, muse, oracle, inspiration and intuition, and, as I said yesterday she points out to us, like a guide, repressed content which is forgotten but still growing, unrequited, like a lonely ghost in our psyche.

She is also an Immortal.

The steps we take and the digital imprint we leave will endure, for like any pioneers our journeys will be retold by future generations when our fumbling steps will be retraced and used by the wise as illustration for the young.

We are future myth.

Jung really would love SL.


:))

RL Relationships to SL Addiction

I recently read this post on NWN about Nightflower who has returned to SL after first giving up her avatar in the hope of appeasing her RL partner. The logic, if that is the right word, that was used at the time went something like this... in leaving her second life she would unite the two parts of herself that SL had split.

As I have taken several previous opportunities to denounce the illusory myth of the Integrated Personality, it may be unneccessary to do so here. Suffice it to say that Nightfire's delusion that SL split her personality and therefore leaving SL would make her whole is not an uncommon idea as I heard it several times in the spring of 2009.

The other equally annoying concept of an 'addiction' to SL also drove me to mini rants (e.g. here) where I point out that blaming a medium for your behaviour is like saying " the phone made me act like this"..... nuts.

Now we have all at some time or another experienced, or heard of people who have had their circle of friends criticised by their RL partner. Giving up contact with a group or individual people in order to secure a relationship with another is clearly nonsense ... a slippery slope which only a sickly relationship would demand. If there is not room for a hobby and a circle of friends in your life that is not shared with your partner, then maybe there should be.

For one person to demand that the other give up using, say, the phone as it is destroying their lives is clearly rubbish, why would SL be any different?

One sentence which Nightflower uses needs particular examination.. "I leave to give my husband the secret part of myself that I've been withholding for so long."....The reason this sets off bells ringing in my head is simply because this secret part of ourselves we have been withholding from ourselves all our lives. The repressed content of our psyches becomes manifest through viewing our psyche in the Third Person. Playing out this role is pure therapy, and it is a therapy no-one should ask us to give up, and if they do, we should ask why this is being asked of us, rather than agreeing we have an 'addiction'.

If you find yourself in a dream in bed with a film star or a football team do you wake in the morning full of guilt and vowing never to sleep again?.. Ok... you will say, but I was unconscious and my unconscious is autonomous, therefore I am guiltless.... but an avatar is not fully conscious either (or your RL personna) and for the unconscious to lead you into rubbing pixels with someone points to repressed content which it would be more helpful to examine and question rather than blaming the medium that brought you together. You can't blame a Hotel chain if you exchange bodily fluids in one of their rooms, and you can't blame SL for a much more sanitary interaction online.

Guilt and shame are a part of the process of self discovery ....".. traditionally (in Western esoteric writings at least) fear and shame are the two Guardians. They are known as The Lesser Guardian of the Threshold (shame) and The Greater Guardian of the Threshold (fear) and the Threshold they guard is the one between normal consciousness and "The Spiritual World".... (that is to say in normal language that lack of self respect and anxiety hold us back from achieving our full potential.)
Their job is to allow no-one to enter a higher realm (consciousness for example) until they have been prepared as an acolyte (esoteric student) to such a degree that the revelations that ensue will be understandable/tolerable to the individual. Now this is all allegorical.... but has an archetypal stature which is worth talking about. We all share archetypes, they are the foundation stones of our psyche." (from a post about appearance).

I would like to thank Nightflower for her very personal account, her thinking is not uncommon and it is because of her honest writing that I have used her as an example, not because I think it was incorrect for her to follow her heart as she did. We all do what we think is best at the time.

I wanted simply to expose some very common misunderstandings that exist as virtual world myths.

This is my hobby, these are my friends, and they are a part of me. "Love me, love my dog/avatar".

:))