Second Life

I just heard of a new website/game called "Second Life". It costs the user real money to create an imaginary human form, buy imaginary property and imaginary clothes in imaginary shops. They can also buy imaginary food and imaginary new hair styles. They are, in essence, creating a completely new life for themselves...albeit imaginary. The creators of this website are making a lot of money from the sadly disfunctional human beings who think this is a logical way to escape their unsatisfactory lives.

We all would like a second chance to start over and mend the mistakes of our past but most of us know that's impossible. We just continue with our lives and try to be better people. There is an unmistakable draw to actually recreating ourselves, though, even in an imaginary way. The creators of "Second Life" understand that need all too clearly.

I realized many years ago that it is almost impossible for human beings to be completely honest with themselves and live their lives in a clean, clear-cut way. We learn from birth what works in the society we live in and we pattern our behaviour to fit into that environment. Literally, from birth we are no longer our own person...we are what we have to be to survive. Don't take my word for it...try to be perfectly honest with yourself and you'll see that it's extremely difficult.

I'm a "go with the flow" kind of person because that's the easiest way. Only occasionally do I get my back up and refuse to accept the status quo. If I were to play the "Second Life" game, nobody would recognize the real me. And that's the draw!

Personally, I think that anyone playing the game would become even more unsatisfied with their real lives. It would be traumatic to go from having it all your own way to having to deal with the way things actually are.

Just a thought...in my second life I'd be tall and thin, strong and fearless. Wouldn't we all??