What is it?

Is life a game or a play or a poem or just a gift?

Sometimes it is all of those things blended together at once to me; at other times it is just one of those, but it is all I have -- this life (first or virtual).

Carla just lost her Dad and will likely lose her Mom soon, too. And she is trying to make lists now to be sure she doesn't forget anything while she sits a bit numb trying to look normal and competent. She wants to go home and take her two boys and be supported by her dear husband, but the costs are so high for them to fly together and they were, thankfully home just less than a year ago. So she will go alone and walk alone and she will survive this with others of her large and warm family.

Recently she grew concerned when I did not waken as usual -- at like 3AM -- to start my day, and did not answer my phone (had left it in another room). She sent me an email to me finally and I called her right away to thank her for her concern and to let her know I was simply exhausted. Our conversation was a rare one (nowadays everyone seems too busy for family, even for our meals together in the evening); and it was a very precious one because, for me it was the first time in ages I realised she would miss me as much as I would miss her if we weren't friends. And the big thought for me was: this is life and I will lose it one day.

All we have are those we love and who love us and ... how precious is that! And if we are wise we will make lists, and bustle about ticking things off. We will kiss and hug those we love as if we may never see them again -- each time.

For me, I will try to build into the lives of others and leave my legacy of words in their keeping. And perhaps, just perhaps some will miss me. Many won't remember me. But in this way I will have had a rich life from those who have touched me with their ideas and their energy and their faith and their love.

You know who you are!

Friends Forever

To Carla

You will not see this, Carla, because you don't even know about this part of my life. But I am so blessed by who you are in my life. And I will always be grateful for your wonderful and undeserved friendship.

I hold you so tightly now as you face the loss of your father and perhaps your mom too.

You are my hero and I wish I could be stronger for you now, but all I have to give you now is a Sheridanne long hug, my sincere tears of sympathy and all the love I have ever had for a true friend.

True Friends

“A friend,” said John Milton, “is a person with whom I may be myself.” When I first heard that I got all choked up inside because in any world whether real or virtual there are few we find like that in our lifetimes.

My Dad used to tell me (who was reasonably popular in all my endeavours) that I would be rich if I had just five, real, true friends in my lifetime. Funny, he was so old to me when he shared that his wisdom seemed to be discounted by the number of wrinkles he had on his face.

Now that I have a couple of well-earned wrinkles (just a very few, very tiny laugh lines mind you) around my eyes….I can see how he was right. Wish he was still around for me to tell him thank you for sharing his wisdom with such a contrary daughter.

Carla

Today, my best friend, Carla, returned to the house after taking the boys to school to tell me her Dad had passed away last night (too late to wake the rest of the household). I was in the middle of five virtual conversations at the time. I sent quick messages to everyone and just closed them all down without waiting for a reply.

Real life ALWAYS comes first.

I went downstairs to hug her and just be with her in the kitchen as she lovingly, and like always, chose to make breakfast for us. I made the toast.

As I buttered each warm piece of the toasted rye bread, I thought of how difficult things have been for me lately in the virtual world and how sad it has been for me to lose friends I thought of as close family. Yet, here in our kitchen stood one of the best friends I have EVER had in my ENTIRE life and we hadn’t shared much in weeks -- as we both rushed around with out respective duties.

We live in Sydney and her family is almost all still living in Jamaica, so going home for her has been pretty much not even considered. Her Dad had had his stroke about five months ago and her Mom just had a stroke a few weeks ago and has been back in the hospital for the last week trying to stabilise. I am hoping she will go home, but we will see.

In the meantime it got me to thinking of how close I felt and had grown to a few specific people in the virtual world too; and how amazingly grateful we can be for good and authentic friendships wherever we find them.

My Dad never lived to imagine a virtual world, but if he had he would likely have to change his maxim to say something like: “If you can find five special friends in both the real world and in the virtual world in your lifetime, you are doubly blessed.”

In my profile one of the words I live by says: Live today as if you knew it was the last day of the rest of your life. If you do that, you will probably want to call or write or IM or hug a friend wherever you may find one. Because, you may never get another chance to do this – life just passes too quickly.

A Meal

All hills and gullies
Mounds and little mountains
You rise up early
In the night
In dreams so real
That sleep and waking
Meet, dissolve and blur

A sacrament you are
Made of salt
And tasting not unlike
cinnamon or soda water
As I pull you to me.

A meal you are
A meal you make of me.

We devour one the other
As though we were
some hungry giants
having fasted
all the winter
hungry now for spring

I see no end
To this stored-up appetite
This emptiness
That only loving
Up and down a lifetime
Will fill up

But I have wished too much
Or just enough
To bring you here
Almost to the final step


One meter gone
Or one mile away
You are
Just out of reach now
Or too near
To make perspective work

Right to Privacy, Peace & Ownership In A Virtual World

Do you ever feel like someone is watching you, recording every word you say or “borrowing” your great ideas? Well in the real world there are lots of ways you are protected from these kinds of things happening. It all falls under your human rights. In the Western World, human rights are insisted upon and in other parts of the world, they are dreamed about.

Wars have been fought throughout the ages about personal rights. Kings and rulers have either tried to be repressive or balanced in their rule, but all know that there is a limit to caging a person and trying to rob them of these rights. Viktor Frankl wrote about this specific issue in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

In a virtual world many of these issues can be explored in a “contained” way, but the effect on individuals can be enormous when rights and basic privileges are removed or withdrawn. A virtual world is a dynamic and powerful social experiment with many times, real world consequences and effects.

Ao, if you live or visit a virtual world remember this. It’s a tremendous privilege to live and have fun in a virtual world. Those of you who live in one, remember when you joined? There was wonder and awe and FUN?

Well some realms and lands in some virtual worlds have grown to be less fun. In fact, in some lands and realms, personal rights are being abused regularly. To help ensure we all remain safe and within the Terms of Service Agreement of a particular virtual world (that most of us would have simply clicked on and not read) here are some critical points to always keep in mind.

Terms of Service Agreements guarantee all residents in a virtual world with the right to privacy. There are three forms of disclosure that violate the Terms of Service of the virtual world I inhabit sometimes. To violate these may mean you receive a warning, a ban or suspension from the virtual world altogether.

The three types of disclosure that are not allowed in my virtual world are:

Right to Privacy

Disclosure: First Life This form of disclosure is defined as sharing personal information about a fellow Resident -- including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location -– beyond what is provided by in their First Life page of their Resident profile. Disclosure of something that no reasonable person would believe ("Daniel Linden is from Mars") isn't a violation.

Remote Monitoring

Disclosure: Remote Monitoring Remotely monitoring inworld conversations without the knowledge or consent of all parties involved is a violation of the Terms of Service. If you feel recording a conversation is necessary, we recommend that you post a clearly visible sign in the recording location so that all Residents who enter can see it. Please note: the abuse team will need to determine if sufficient information was provided to the Residents who are being recorded. We recommend that you proceed with caution, provide documentation on your efforts to inform all parties they are being monitored, and find a secure area before recording begins.

Cutting & Pasting & Distributing Attributable "Conversations"

Disclosure: Sharing or posting a conversation inworld or in the virtual world Forums without consent of all involved Residents is a violation of the Terms of Service. Please note: this does not include posting of chat to MySpace, or external websites; those things might be illegal in real life, but those laws must be enforced by the proper real life enforcement agencies. "Conversation" means text that originally came from the virtual world chat or the virtual world instant messages. If it's totally unattributed, then it isn't considered disclosure.
Additionally, Residents will not be punished for sharing or posting a comment such as "Bob Resident said, 'You're the greatest

Intellectual Property Ownership

In my virtual world, subject to certain licenses in the terms of service, you retain the intellectual property rights you may have in your content, including copyrights. "Intellectual property rights" are completely separate to the rights of ownership of data -- the bits and bytes that reside on our servers. In order for us to provide the service of the virtual world at a reasonable cost, we must retain the right to own what we physically own or control -- the server infrastructure, including the data on it.

But ownership of bits and bytes of data does NOT by itself give the owner of the virtual world the right to publish or distribute your copyrighted material.

An Example

Think of the analogy of hosted email services, like the webmail services provided by many Internet portals. If you write an email on those services, you own the copyright to the content of that email. If you attach your copyrighted image to your email, you still own the copyright to that image.

In providing the service of sending that email, the service provider hosts data that represents that email and the attached image. The service provider owns the server infrastructure, including the data on it, and stores that data for your email and attachment in the "Sent" mail folder. But they can and will delete that data anytime they need to, for service and scalability reasons.

The email service is more valuable to the extent they can store more of your content, but for cost reasons they cannot guarantee that nothing will ever happen to that data. However, regardless of what happens to that data, under most terms of service for webmail that I've seen, you will still own the copyright to the content represented by that data.

It Is Meant To Be Fun!

Because of the creative tools and the un-real-worldly tools and capabilities of a virtual world, many violations of personal rights to privacy and monitoring of lives can take place. Many of us who inhabit these virtual worlds also know of realms that have become more like a “police state” where emphasis is put on spying on everyone around, territorialism, competition (even to the killing of races or individuals for sport). Again, as a social experiment, a virtual world will show the same flaws as the real world but six times more impactful and six times more quickly.

To quote a friend, SL should be “Fun! Fun! Fun! Let’s get back to our real purpose of being in a virtual world.

The Killing of Sheri

If you are reading this, you may be in danger too.

Many will be now that this has happened to Sheri. Many have already perished before her.

I hope what Antony speaks of Caesar is not true -- that the perceived evil someone does is oft remembered long after they are interred – that the good they do is soon forgotten.

But there will be a few who remember and wonder at the inconsistencies in the stories that swirled around Sheri.

How could Sheri have worked so hard, so many hours, met all requirements she was given, volunteered and supported others, encouraged, befriended, wrote and stood willing to add to the kingdom? Does it make sense she would have wished anyone evil or would have been busy planning mischief for the land she loved so very, very much?

Brutus

My Brutus was someone I watched over and protected in another realm. I gave him honour and helped him. I performed the ceremony to wed him to his beloved. I was one of only two people, other than him to attend the birth of their little girl. I introduced him to new worlds and supported him always (would today but he continues to work to drive me from other lands for some reason I cannot even fathom). I hid his secret identities, even on the day of my wedding when my Queen was furious at me for his attendance.

But he has honour and power now. I have only my friends – well my real friends.

Strange, I have heard that this "Brutus" now thinks I hate him and would wish or do him harm. Perhaps I should, but I cannot. I do not have time nor the energy for hate or harm, I never have had -- only grief and pain as I cannot imagine his knife to my heart.

He Who May Not Be Named

I started this blog because of one man who touched my heart and who grew to be my muse. Someone who helped inspire me and ignite my writing as no one else ever has. We courted. We grew to be colleagues even in the real world. We partnered in the virtual world in one of the most heavily attended weddings in this virtual world. We never had time for a honeymoon though.

And then there was the tragedy of his banishment and mine too. The painful and public lynching of him with no evidence – not one shred of the promised damning evidence – was a tragedy on the same level as Julius Caesar.

Like a broken and collared slave I could only re-enter the world he and I so loved if I was seen to not cause any trouble or drama. I was never to see “he who may not be named” or speak with him. In fact this blog and his blog was regularly monitored to ensure we did not “speak” with one another even here.

Sadly, I took these restrictions on, hoping somehow I could clear his name and he would be restored to a kingdom he had worked so hard for and loved so dearly. But he would no longer speak with me for he saw my choice of the kingdom over him as unforgivable. He defriended me, muted me and made me remove every remembrance of him.

I sat in shock until I was finally found by a wonderful man who became my role-play husband and who has grown to become a good friend in real life. He has given me so much over the months while I worked to heal. The kingdom has stayed in various stages of completion and together we worked tirelessly to help see things come together, including offering significant sums of real world money as well as untold numbers of hours of work.

But “the one who may not be named” somehow always seemed to stay somewhere in the King’s shadow or in his mind. Sightings and new identities filled so many waking hours for the King, it was disconcerting. What was it about “the one who cannot be named” that was so dangerous? What did “the one who may not be named” know that was such a worry?

Yes, I really missed this wonderful man ("the one who may not be named”), we really did enjoy playing (and not that kind of play either! Pay attention, we never even had a honeymoon.). But he returned to his real life, his family, work and his horse, not even completing work he had promised to me that was so important to the re-editing of my book.

The Final Blow

When I was pressed to the wall and knew there was little hope I sent “the one who may not be named” an email to say I could fight no longer. That most of all I was wrong for leaving him -- for having betrayed him for this land. Instead of hating me or telling me “I told you so!” he simply picked up his shied to stand over my broken body and picked up his sword (pen) to protect me from the final blow. And when he relaxed but for one moment, without cause or even the courtesy of a reason, I was finally killed.

((Note: When I am strong enough again to there will be a series of articles on privacy and the right to peace and a real life when you are engaged in a virtual world. One thing Sheri has been recently reminded of is how this virtual world is a game and for fun. Yet it can strangely become more than a 9-5 job with KPIs and reports and meetings all. All that is missing is the married, barefoot and pregnant, cooking dinner every night after work and ensuring there is sufficient toilet paper in the house!))