Week 5
Yes, Eureka, there is a Santa Claus! But he might show up at your house uninvited, wearing nothing but leather chaps and a disaffected stare...
After a month in Second Life, I have a fully furnished waterfront home that glows with the burnished gold of perpetual sunset. Even the rocks in my zen garden are luminous with virtual shimmer. A hot tub bubbles in my living room and ubiquitous fire pits pose no hazard despite the embers that rise up and trace ancient symbols in the air before fading against the faux brick. I've even decked the halls for the holidays.
How is that I feel so at home here in Second Life, a virtual world that I didn't even know existed six weeks ago? You can be anything you want in Second Life, as long as you can figure out a way to execute your plan. In this way, it is just like real life, except centered on the mind and not the body. When I interviewed Arianna Huffington and Second Life CEO Philip Linden (the avatar of Philip Rosedale) at home in SL recently, the place was barely furnished. Now I'm learning how to acquire clutter. I even have a Rottweiler in my inventory. He cost $500 Linden. He isn't trained yet, although a notecard that came with him assures me that he can learn a wide variety of impressive tricks. I can even upload a bark for him. Instead, I'll train him instead to say, "Back off, sucka!" in an intimidating manner while he shows off his virtually enhanced fangs.
You might wonder why I need a Rottweiler, since I don't have an actual body in Second Life to protect. My neighbor, who lives on a farm, wears overalls and apparently smokes virtual cigarettes, told me that she's been having problem with peeping toms. Myself, I've been having a problem with curious strangers wandering into my house. I searched for watch dogs and came across my new pet, Marquez. I don't plan to unleash the beast until I can find out more about how to keep him in line and, most importantly, perhaps, avoid losing him during a teleport. The last thing Second Life needs is a problem with proliferating strays.
I have a Christmas tree strung with white lights, a long leather sofa covered in animal-print throw pillows and my own original art on the walls in my Second Life home, as well as a photograph by a veteran who served in Iraq and is now running her own shop in Second Life. The image is of a barren tree, which would make me more than a little melancholy in real life. In Second Life it reminds me of the inevitability of the cycles of nature, which seem so far removed from this parallel world.
Did I mention that I have a hot tub in my Second Life living room? My hair is always perfect, regardless of the humidity (except on those rare occasions when I can't figure out why I'm bald). A glistening bangle on my virtual wrist matches the one I wear in real life, which once belonged to a 22-year-old Reuters photojournalist named Dan Eldon who was stoned to death along with three of his colleagues while covering the crisis in Somalia in 1993. His mother gave me the bracelet, and I keep it on in this life and the next. Habits are habits, which was clear when I spotted an ashtray at a virtual yard sale.
Symbolic holiday gestures have been stamped all over Second Life. Avatars need Christmas trees and menorahs. And yes, there is a Santa Claus! I saw him and his reindeer flying across a sky filled with unfamiliar constellations, the zodiac of some other realm's astronomy. Are fortunetellers in Second Life charging Linden to spell out the path of those new stars at the exact moment when an avatar is born?
Rudolph, you'll be happy to know, still has a glowing red nose.
In real life, my beloved little niece makes a Christmas list each year, divided into three parts: things she knows she'll get, things she may or may not be able to acquire, and total long shots. For three years in a row, her most coveted long-shot is a magic carpet.
"I don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't ask for things just because it seems impossible," she told me last year, when she taped a note to her window urging Santa to forgive her if she stops believing in him as much. "We'll always have our special bond," she concluded in looping letters.
In Second Life, there are magic carpets, and all I want for Christmas is to show her--but I can only just imagine how her parents would react if a guy in a Santa hat wearing nothing but leather chaps and a disaffected stare ambled in and started chatting.
A new era in human history has been hatched, and the good news is: you'll have great hair when you get there. Every curve of your body will be customized. Your clothes will rock and your silence will be golden. You will not age unless you want to. You will never get sick. You can't die. You are colorblind. Though every avatar's gender is a mystery, this ends up not mattering at all. Second Life is pure mind. It is Santa Claus and magic carpets...and the occasional potty-mouthed stranger in fetishistic garb. 'Tis the season!
Read more about Eureka Dejavu's virtual life at eurekadejavu.com