Second Life Isn't "Just A Game"...

According to dictionary definition, the word game means: "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators". Second Life is not a game. Let me say this again. Slower, for those of you who are thick headed: Second. Life. Is. Not. A. Game. Now that doesn't mean people don't play games within Second Life. You can play everything from board games to headgames in-world. But the virtual world itself isn't any more a game than Real Life is. Equally competitive, equally obscure rules we really define for ourselves within the confines of the law (or TOS, lol). In fact, I've put thought into the word virtual as well: "not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so". I can see using that as a definition for something like the Sims game I play on PS2. The characters are just that. Characters. Programmed to say and do things. To "appear to physically exist". But there are real people behind each and every avi in Second Life. Real emotions. Real beings that do exist, that are speaking for, thinking for, and feeling for this representation of themselves. So then though not in a literal form, the avi does exist physically. Just not in the same place at the same time.

I didn't realize this about SL at first. I mean, I did realize that there were people behind the avi's, yes. But I came into SL curious, and more a spectator. As I have met more and more people, created a space of land that is my own little cozy haven, and developed relationships in-world that walk with me long after the computer is off... I have learned that SL and RL are not as distinctly separate as I thought. Running parallel to each other, almost.

SL, as in RL, gets more interesting... and challenging... as time passes. I wonder what tomorrow will bring...

Forever Love,
Chloe