Warning: whinging ahead.

Man, I am so tired of Second Life right now. I’ve not logged on for any appreciable amount of time lately, and certainly not enough to explore some of the really interesting things people are doing with the tools available, or learn about some of the lectures going on. And as my social crew in the world is fracturing (“Drama?? On *my* internets?!?”), the hooks to pull me in aren’t working like they did. This is fine and all, since it means that I’m working with my various offline projects and getting some appreciable work done. Still, I’m feeling like something’s missing. I’m just not being engaged, nor am I putting forth the effort to be so. (Aside: and hiding from various parts of the internet for fear of being confronted with the latest Harry Potter spoiler isn’t helping either. one more day… *twitch*)

I’ve been trying to figure it out. Somewhere in my little reptilian brain there is an avid computer gamer clamoring for release. What is it that causes me to get so terribly blasé about something I really do find exciting and feel is the next evolution of information sharing platforms? Well, I think part of it is the fact that I know how to build and generate content, but my skills are now such that I either know exactly how something is created, or it’s way above my level of knowledge. I stopped creating ceramics for much that reason as well; when I would look at a glaze and automatically break down its chemical composition, it held no glamour for me anymore. Same with being able to look at a 3D virtual structure and automatically understand which shapes are used to create the piece.

So when I was thinking about this Thursday afternoon, I was reflecting on this. BoingBoing had linked to a machinima of the creation of a virtual representation of van Gogh’s Starry Night (below). By watching the video, I was hoping to be reminded of the amazing things users can do within the world. The first few minutes show the building and creation of Starry Night, which didn’t help my feelings of “yeah, I could do that.” But when, for a brief moment, I saw it in its entirety, without the dissection of building processes, I was excited to visit it. Alas, however, it was meant as a brief in-game installation and it no longer exists.

Well… foo. One of these days – soon, no doubt – I’m going to have to hunt down one of the many websites which talk about some of the very beautiful things some users are building within the world. AND I’m going to have to join a core group of ALM-interested folks to wander around with and listen to their ideas and thoughts. In the meantime, real-life project #27 calls my name. But I’ll be back in the metaverse soon enough!