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On Absent Friends
Jun. 26th, 2009 07:16 pmFirst it was Argent.
And now it's Soph.
Two of the strongest advocates for Immersionism I had the pleasure to call friend have both chosen to . . . rise to the surface, I suppose.
It's a strange kind of grief, to wave goodbye to someone who isn't gone irretrievably but has left in a way that makes keeping in touch or visiting sometime rather unlikely.
And I always admired their ability to draw the line, say this is me and this is all I am. It was a trick I could never master--the life and times of the girl behind the keyboard kept bleeding in and I never felt fully comfortable with disconnecting myself completely.
Now I wonder if Immersionism is truly sustainable, or if one will inevitably reach a point where, as Argent said, one is left with this person in the back of my head watching my creativity, energy, and clarity and saying "Why can't I be like that?" Both Argent and Soph mentioned the needs of their physical selves, their humans, their typists, their operators (why isn't there a consistent term for it?) in their decisions and I would not dream of depriving those people of the gifts that Argent and Soph have to provide to them.
Strange, though. It seems the cases you hear of folks getting obsessive and ruining their lives with SL always wind up being more on the Augmentationism end of the spectrum, the tales of those with unhappy marriages who speak at length about those unhappy marriages with an avie in another part of the world, and then throw caution out the window to meet with them in the flesh. Perhaps Immersionists, by dividing the line between self and second self, are able to see more clearly what really matters.
I'm not sure. If I were a little more detached from the situation, I suppose I could do a thoughtful analysis of what this sort of thing means for the whole sense-of-identity-in-SL debate. Instead, I'm just rambling my thoughts, and wiping tears that my digital self cannot shed.
And now it's Soph.
Two of the strongest advocates for Immersionism I had the pleasure to call friend have both chosen to . . . rise to the surface, I suppose.
It's a strange kind of grief, to wave goodbye to someone who isn't gone irretrievably but has left in a way that makes keeping in touch or visiting sometime rather unlikely.
And I always admired their ability to draw the line, say this is me and this is all I am. It was a trick I could never master--the life and times of the girl behind the keyboard kept bleeding in and I never felt fully comfortable with disconnecting myself completely.
Now I wonder if Immersionism is truly sustainable, or if one will inevitably reach a point where, as Argent said, one is left with this person in the back of my head watching my creativity, energy, and clarity and saying "Why can't I be like that?" Both Argent and Soph mentioned the needs of their physical selves, their humans, their typists, their operators (why isn't there a consistent term for it?) in their decisions and I would not dream of depriving those people of the gifts that Argent and Soph have to provide to them.
Strange, though. It seems the cases you hear of folks getting obsessive and ruining their lives with SL always wind up being more on the Augmentationism end of the spectrum, the tales of those with unhappy marriages who speak at length about those unhappy marriages with an avie in another part of the world, and then throw caution out the window to meet with them in the flesh. Perhaps Immersionists, by dividing the line between self and second self, are able to see more clearly what really matters.
I'm not sure. If I were a little more detached from the situation, I suppose I could do a thoughtful analysis of what this sort of thing means for the whole sense-of-identity-in-SL debate. Instead, I'm just rambling my thoughts, and wiping tears that my digital self cannot shed.
