You never walk alone

Five loves to explore, and is a bit of a workaholic. Exploring and working have one thing in common: it is mainly done alone. And since the keyboard of a computer, and the screen of a laptop in particular, is designed for one person only, this being alone with your computer is quite normal. This behavior is partly continued in Second Life. Building is done alone, designing things, programming, it is all done one your own, by yourself.

But there is just that big SL-difference that while building, and while exploring, you meet other people. These people may be total strangers, but also owners or designers of beautiful things, and of course: your friends. You could consider SL as a sort of 3D website, and many people treat is like that, but coming from SL, even the best websites are suddenly terribly flat places, simply absolutely unexciting, in 2D, but even worse: flimsy in the social sense.
Ok, websites serve another goal, being documentary, promotional, blog; and yes, true, this blog is also a website, lol, as is said in SL encountering a paradox.
Five as workaholic always becomes a bit nervous when friends only want to talk a bit. There is always work to do; a blog to write, a flower to create, a script to be written. But every so often Five’s friends, who are very, very patient people, succeed in putting Five down in a chair, or just the back of a chair, and they teach Five to socialize a bit. Because although Five is boasting about the social aspect of SL, and even teaching students the secrets of communication, it is very difficult in this interesting world of Second Life to sit still.

After months of exploration and experiments, Second Life remains new and unexpected.
And be honest: it would be very strange to sit down and socialize too much, when you have chosen to sit alone behind an illuminated screen in a sort of desolate dungeon in real life, isn’t it?
Anyway, the few moments of rest and talking chit-chat’s really are truly marvelous. Small islands of tranquility in a continuous stream of ideas and things Five wants to do or finish.
So this blog is an ode to those friends, who with endless patience and persistence try to curve Five into the social world.

There was DJ Mainakay, quite in the beginning, a lot of friends in the middle, and at the moment Armoe Lipo, Amiryu Hosoi, Amber Ashton, to name the few which are shown in the pictures.
These friends always ask Five during a tête-à-tête, what are you doing Five? Well making pictures for a blog about socializing…..sorry, always doing more than one thing at the same time……..
And aren’t these images nice? Just like people sipping a coffee? Spending an afternoon in a sunny garden, near a pool?

Yes indeed, there are times to explore the sewers of Second Life, times to wonder about the stupidities, the emptiness, fortunately endless more times gazing at the great designs and ideas of all the people walking around in SL, and………tiny bits of warmth…what is it called? Human?

Thx, guys!

Nonetheless, back to work, and fast! (Behind on schedule, talked too much about talking. Sorry, I’m off…)

Five, imagine!

Five March and Contrechoc are getting along fine nowadays, Five is developing in an interesting character. Contrechoc is often amazed by the way Five handles things. Five is no copy of Contrechoc. A character in Second Life is never a copy of the person behind the screen. Just as a book never tells the real life of a writer, even if it is autobiographical, nor a drawing or a painting is a real copy of the artist, even if it is a self portrait. Five thinks lots of people playing the game of Second Life are mistaken in thinking that they, as real people, are walking, talking and doing things in Second Life...

Kees Spermon, artist, showed this in his works, etchings, with titles as “As if -”, or “A Voice...imagine”. Actually he was referring to Samuel Beckett. Becketts piece “Waiting for Godot” could easily be seen forming a great theme for a few sims in Second Life. Really this theater piece, radiating loneliness, is still crowded compared to most islands and places you see in Second Life! Beckett’s piece can be seen here in streaming video.

“A voice.... imagine!”. Five remembered this title of Kees Spermon because of a neighbor, called “Alles Brenner”, a German name, meaning “Burner of all”. (In fact he is called “AllesBeta Brenner”, but always look at the roots of a name if it signifies something, after all we can choose these names in Second Life.)

If you look at it from the side of the Enneagram (based on ideas of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, (see for instance Enneagram of Personality), speaking of 9 different personality types, “Burner of All” is a salesman. Five is the artist, dreamer. These types of this personality circle don’t get along very well. But although simplified this scheme also tells, that when experience grows with time, the types eventually become blurred, and all types can understand and live with the others. (Five is still talking to Burner of All, for him communication on this level is more difficult, but he manages too, we have to stay human don’t we?)

Well, as his type, “Burner of ALL” tries to sell; he has built a giant mall, and offers spaces to rent. He also built a sort of old German town, also consisting only of shops to rent. As could be expected, this neighbor doesn’t like the art experiments carried out on the land of Five. Last week he decided to put a giant screen with the new name of his mall right in front of the land of Five. This name new name for his so called "paradise" is “Imagine!”.

But now, because of this huge sign, it seems to be the billboard of Five’s land. Five was amazed, but quickly realized that this sign will attract more visitors to the Contrechoc land, than to the mall, which seems to belong to something different, because it is so small compared to this sign! And no it becomes clear why Five introduced this blog with the artist Kees Spermon, his title “Imagine… a voice”, coming from Samuel Beckett! It all comes together: the “Imagine” of the superb etching, the main idea of art “imagination”, and the meaning of this character “Burner of All”, which could also mean tabula rasa, the whipping out of the past, just to create the new. And really in these shopping places we encounter the solitude presented in the texts of Beckket, “as if” predicting the emptiness of Second Life. Creativity goes both ways, it destroys as fast as it offers new ideas. New art is making older art pale, before it quickly gets pale itself. All art being put in it’s right place only after a few centuries. Five and AllesBeta Brenner are getting along, they are as ever on speaking terms. Exchanging experiences, learning from each other. And apparently, they are doing an interesting game of ping-pong with titles. That is the central thought of the Enneagramm: learn from the other types of personality to enrich yourself, to become a whole, and to become a large together!