SECOND LIFE

(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, TO BE PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 24, 2007. STYLE WEEKEND IS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY AS A SPECIAL MAGAZINE INSERT IN THE MANILA BULLETIN)


I had a recent invitation to Second Life, a 3-D virtual world, where you can start all over again.
As of press time, there are about 8,953,230 residents in this digital continent. I am one of them. Although I believe I am not even in the infant stage yet, I have chosen a new name and a new look, as represented by my avatar whose image, rather than dictated by genes, is one of my choosing. In the Create Your Avatar phase of the application for residency, it says I can change the way I look as I go along.

BLURB
There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. —Anais Nin

I heard through the style grapevine that global fashion giants are flocking to the site, but on my very, very brief digital tour of this virtual world, I hardly came across any real brands (But I did see H&M in the other just-as-popular online community, Sims 2). My first impulse was to browse through the Second Style magazine, but so far all the brands are as virtual as the avatars behind them. I must check the other magazines. Just like in Manila, there are so many of them cropping up in Second Life, with interesting titles like PixelPlus, Pixel Chic, Voodoo, and .Fur. Maybe, I should start a magazine of my own once I get the hang of this alternative universe, but then it’s going to be the same life as I lead now.
I was thrilled to hear Suzanne Vega was the first major recording artist to perform live in Second Life in August last year. In my meanderings, however, I only came across a sampling of her guitars with Robbie Dingo, as commissioned by Infinite Visions CEO (and Second Life entity) Oliver Oddfellow, building it to match the animation for the Vega avatar. I am a technodinosaur, so I have yet to navigate my way to the concert. After all, I have good memories of Suzanne Vega back when I was young and her “Tom’s Diner” was a hit. I did find her avatar performance of “The Queen and the Soldier” on YouTube and I wonder if it means Linden dollars down the drain for the virtual organizer that there was more space than avatars on the bleachers.
But that’s Second Life. It’s not like The Simpsons or The Grudge or The Titanic, where you can only momentarily escape the realities of life. It’s a whole new life, where you can buy property, own virtual land, and establish a business using Linden dollars, which, according to the Second Life primer, “can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.” I wonder if I could use a second life or if I need it at all when I barely have enough time for one.
The way I understand it, Second Life is real life, except that it exists in a parallel universe and except that it’s in 3-D animation rather than in solid, liquid, or gas and people are avatars rather than flesh and blood.
But then, is it going to be easier to make it in Second Life? With only a little over eight million residents to compete with, maybe, but that also means there is a chance to fail, to have your heart broken, to have your properties stolen, to have your Linden dollar account wiped out due to a failed business venture or extravagance or a swindler of a virtual wife or a compulsion for gambling.
Or maybe it’s a good idea to start over in Second Life and see what it’s like to just do it, to follow our instincts, to eliminate fear and go for broke and make it big, perchance in real-time we discover what it takes to make real life work by undoing what we have done and doing what we have yet to do.

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com