Rare Occasions

My latest entries have been a bit... heavy on the mind, so I thought, I will pick up something I enjoyed very much during the last week. I would say we all, but I have the sad feeling, what I am going to say now, doesn’t counts for everyone. So I rather say >I< have this special someone, everybody else has no chance against. And I am talking here about my attention. My sister Dakota, is that person for me. If she is online, and has the time, I am all hers, no matter who else is online. She is, has been and always will be my priority number one – sorry boys.

As she is my number one and soulmate, I enjoyed my last week a lot, since she had the time, to spend it with me. We both don’t like to just sit around, well… we do if we got someone to talk about – hehe. But since we like to do some things, we had some nice adventures together.

Her rezday wasn’t that long ago, so I decided to gift her a horse. But not just some horse, no one of the amazing Bento Waterhorse Riding Horses. (If you don’t have one yet, go and get one!) So we went to the stables, and had a nice long trail ride, all over the Calas Galadhon-Park. You can imagine, two girls like us, we had a lot to talk and laugh about, not to mention, how much we loved that afternoon.

A few days later, I don’t want to bother you with every detail, we managed to go out sailing. But not just sailing, no! But flying and foiling with the Flying Shadow all across the Blake Sea. I love almost all sailing boats, provided by the great designers living in Dutch Harbour, but the FS is and has been always my absolute favourite. And while I was managing the main sail, the jib, the spinnaker and the daggers, she managed to flawlessly skid from one side to the other, if necessary.

Great outcome, we didn’t keel over once! YAY! Not as if that would happen to me anyhow, but still YAY! Our destination was Sires Isle, where we stopped, and switched to her Bandit IF. We both love it but seriously, it is not just a great boat, but hers, probably the one with the best overall paintjob in Second Life! Or that is me talking, as her sister and probably biggest fan and supporter.

Someone was playing something nice on the guitar, but when he left, Dakota thought, dang, I want music, so she picked her guitar, and serenaded us, until our time ran out. Probably one of my loveliest afternoons ever. I am still humming ….

Communication or Commu-NO-cation

For me something weird happened. I don’t know who can relate, but I've heard several times, that I would be dominant. One time, someone even asked me directly, if I was a dominatrix. Thought that was hilarious, since I wore a white silk dress, with lace and my hair open. But that wasn’t what I was aiming at.

No, my question is, how get people the impression someone might be ‘dominant’ I will use that word a bit freely, as they did, to keep it easy. Can we say, a person is dominant, just because they are competent or have a certain grade of authority? Can we call a person dominant, just because they are confident and know what they want?

I have always struggled with labelling people like that, maybe one of the reasons why I struggle with people labelling me. From a psychologic point of view, it makes sense to label people, because we need those labels to understand the world, without getting crazy. It is a way our brains use to process information.

No how do I get to my headline? My question is, why so many people avoid so called ‘dominant’ persons. Why are they afraid of them? Do they feel insecure or weak next to them, to us?

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a rather new friend of mine, about exactly that subject. He brought up the thesis, that if someone has trouble to talk to people freely in Real Life, they will have the same issues in their Second Life. I was so bold to spin it a bit further and I think, that is gets even worse in SL. But why is that so?

This is me asking you, asking for your opinions and comments. Why are people afraid to talk to someone in Second Life. Dominant or not, why all that fear? One can look as hot as one wants. One sits in the safety of one’s own living room, bed room, or wherever else the PC or Mac is placed.

I do understand, we all take our fears with us, in one way or another. For me I can say, I am afraid of heights, of people in general, of insects and just about everything else one can imagine. But I have those fears irl. In Second Life I love skydiving, absolutely nothing would get me to jump out of a plane, well maybe if it’s crashing, and jumping would save my life… . Since I have my dog I am better with people, because I have to talk to strangers all the time. I love looking at spiders in game, don’t put one for real next to me.

And I don’t consider myself as special, I think I am pretty common. So what is it, making people not talk to others? Laziness? Weird situated shyness? Please fill me in, I am in deadly need of answers! But to end on a high note, without leaving you up high and dry in irons. Now and then, once in a while, I get lucky, and meet someone, who isn’t afraid of talking, and those people, make up for great conversations.

- A "disturbing" look into Xsenia’s thoughts

Ignorance, obscurantism and their fruits...

What can I say, I had lots to do in my real life, so the second life was cut a bit short, and with it all the friends I made there. It is sad, but it happens. What I want to write about today, is as old as the time, but still surprises me, whenever I am confronted with it.

Just to mention some points, people still seem to know nothing about. Persons who play PC-games are all nerds, have no real life, and never see the daylight. Persons who play games like Second Life have no real life, and no real friends…

I don’t understand those stigmata. Nerds in general are simply people who are great with PCs and who do “nerdy” stuff like playing Pen and Paper games, doing roleplay and all sorts of those things. The Big Bang Theory is a perfect show off for that “stigmata”.

The second one is the stigmata Second Life. I for once have friends all over the world. I can’t jump on a plane every weekend and fly to Australia to meet one of my dearest friends. Hence, we can use Second Life to get some sort of feeling to be close with each other and to spent our time together. The same goes for my best friend in real life. She lives in Ulm while I live close to Berlin. We have met several times over the years, and we are simply soulmates, we have known it from the first moment, and we managed it through all the easy and rough waters, a relationship can offer.

But with the distance it becomes hard to feel close, and again, Second Life helps with that. Who hasn’t felt lonely, and better, once another avatar hugs yours? Sitting with her at my place, chatting on the couch and snuggling as friends, sweetens up my weekends, since we both have less and less time with our busy real lifes.

What I am aiming at with this article, is not pointing fingers, but hoping to spread the word, and to educate those, who might not know it yet, or who have troubles to understand. Because just being a nerd, or playing SL, doesn’t mean one has no life… it actually can mean one has a very rich life, with more friends, as time on our hands.