Visitors

Is that you? People say to 5 in Second Life? No that is not me. Yes indeed, this is not me.
Who am I?
Let’s us look at the others, who are they?
5 meets all kinds of…..people.
Rabbits playing drums in the desert.
Soldiers parachuting from the sky in the developers hangout.
Pirates admiring an exhibition about Rotterdam.
A pirate, who speaks English, but his girlfriend pirate only speaks French. Or an Indian who speaks German, while his squaw uses the Babbler-translator? Is somebody a soldier because she is dressed like it? Is somebody a lady because he has just sparsely covered long legs?
What is this clothing anyway, and indeed, what is it covering? Does it matter?
Yesterday 5 was offered a ride on a horse, well the horse was an avatar. The person was a horse. During the ride, with the horse in command, 5 wondered - what (who) is riding who (what) to where?
Do you want to be a horse too? She asked. You can buy me.
Not yet! I’ll give it to you. What does she offer?
Herself, herself as a horse, or just the horse, or an idea?
What is a horse, by the way, in SL?

A Horse can poop, can stoop, you can change the saddle, gallop, even backwards. Luckily it doesn’t attract flies.
Flies are absent in SL. Too many prims for too small a shape. No midgets, no flies, no ticks, wonderful world. If you are an insect, ou are not allowed in. Strange ecosystem without insects!
But you can become a dragon, a cowboy, a cartoon hero, superman, a horse, maybe even slimy things.
No, slimy is too blobby, blobby is too difficult, slimy things are forbidden.


So is that you 5? You’ll never know. One thing is clear, there is a difference between the newbies and the older generations. They even spot it themselves immediately. Whatever you are, a soldier coming down in the sim, and changing immediately in a general, a small rabbit playing a noisy potpourri and having a lot of fun, not riding the horse but being a horse, even appearing in an abstract shape, running around as a very serious Indian, changing into an alien…..we have adapted to this world, whatever we are. We welcome the other shapes, we know we don’t know who we are, and this becomes the reason of our existence.
This not knowing who we are makes us open for everything and everyone. You just see what happens. Actually we are stripped of prejudice about who we are, about gender, age, education.
Maybe we are more nacked then ever, being without illusions about the other. More nacked and more armed too.
Maybe we speak a few languages, but we encounter dozens more. Maybe we have read a few books, but we talk with people who have read totally different libraries. We have a few ideas, but miraculously ideas appear everywhere all the time. All caused by “is that you” ‘s. A horse can program, a rabbit knows the Illias by heart, batman gives citations from the Mahabharata.
5 would like to be a flower. Must be possible, 5 prim petals would do the job.

Victim of Love

Being in the desert sim of Virgin Island, talking in the “Western Style” office with Hanz Eun and Amiryu Hosoi, Five heard somebody shooting outside. Five didn’t dive behind the counter but instead walked immediately to the spot where the shooting came from.

Normally the desert is peaceful and shooters are quickly banned. The desert is for the Gold Game, for Indians and cowboys on horseback. Coming outside, Five saw something very funny.

The person taking an aim at us was really an alien. Five approached him, although he was firing madly. Five looked at him and particularly liked his knees, saying so. He was a bit distracted, had probably expected a very nasty treatment, because of shooting at us, and suddenly he was getting compliments about his knees! And really his knees were worth attention as you can see.



Five kept on talking to him, he was surrounded by now. Five kept on telling him how beautiful his details were, overwhelming him with compliments and every so often again and again giving him other remarks about his knees. It was a kind of shooting back for which he had no defense. He was trying out new weapons, but nothing was helping him to get rid of Five who was constantly following him and making pictures for this blog. So he was changing into a very small avatar. He was shrinking totally and becoming sphere shaped.



Five said, hey guys, now this fellow is egging, he is making small children of his knees, which he didn’t liked at all, so he began to change again, this time a fox was produced, a very strange one, which was so white that it didn’t show much details. A cube was seen in the background so he was playing around with invisibility too, hiding parts of his body.



The transforming went on and on, all changes in appearance were accompanied by cheers from the crowd. But apparently the person wasn’t enjoying the show himself. He was put on the wrong knee by this sudden and unexpected ‘love’ of Five for his special design. Forgetting his weaponry his tried to run, but we were flying at his tail, which was rather long, at last he couldn’t stand all the niceties bestowed upon him and disappeared in a poof………. Another victim of love!