What happened to my Second Life?

When I started Second Life back in 2004, it was a small unstable 3d world populated by people with diverse interests and skills. Now, in 2009 it’s a large unstable 3d world populated by people with diverse interests and skills, but it also bores me to snores. For a long time I would spend easily 6 hours a day or more in world, making things, talking to people and bopping around the grid. I embraced my avatar and registered all over the place with her name and likeness. I enjoyed the process of slapping blocks together to make stuff and I liked to hang out in pretty places with fun people.

Now I’m just – whatever.  I can’t even muster up the interest to log in for 5 minutes. Messing around with blocks to make stuff, which was a time sink in the past, is now a tedious chore.  I recall when I started it was totally overwhelming. Even then the help files were out of date and so much of my learning was cobbled together from forum posts and experimentation.  For a while there, it was pretty much smooth. I wasn’t a famouse designer, but I was doing okay with teddy bears and various other random things I’d hack together for fun. Now? God it’s not even a world I know.

Drama wore me down of course, like it does most people who don’t thrive on it. Having opinions in world that differ from the mainstream is a surefire way to get yourself abused and harrassed. Yeah I reported them, but that became something I just couldn’t do for a while. Log in and hear how someone wanted to shit on my head or wanderoff and read a book? I’ll take the book thanks.

I also found that spending all my creative energy in a virtual world was sapping my will to be creative in the real world. Since I stopped logging in as much, I’m crocheting, sewing, writing, sketching. Making pretty messes and enjoying every second (even the stupid skirts that won’t hem. Bastards).  I find the SL creative process incredibly frustrating. Partly because of the bugs and poor tools, partly because it’s dangerous to look outside your own back yard without getting discouraged.  In the real world you can draw the worst thing ever, and it doesn’t matter so long as it was fun. The emphasis on money making in SL was tiring, and the feeling of never measuring up depressing.

I’m not saying I’ll quit SL. I have too many friends in world. I currently keep up with them on Plurk, and as Faery will tell you it’s about the ONLY way to get me anymore. I do think however it’s time to accept that I won’t be running a store/rentals/making/creating. Ziggy isn’t ready to die just yet, but she IS ready for a long nap. Saying I’ll be back to making things at any point is frankly a lie. I don’t enjoy the process anymore, and therefore it’s time to stop.

If you need me, I’ll be in at the sewing machine making tangible things to play with.