Not quite zombies but...

I am sure the skilled and experienced denizens of Second Life (SL) have finely honed personalities, styles, persona, and behaviors... For me the newbie, while not quite zombies, the avatars I have run into are awkward, mechanistic, edgy and flighty... Of course, I am one of these creatures. It really is a second life in this sense... all the persona and personality one has developed in the first life gets left behind, on this, the wrong - the keyboard - side of the screen. There seems ahead a formidable challenge of shaping avatars who could have some semblance to the First Life of the individual.. or to some imagined, superhero-like multi-skilled, talented, high-powered persona... Otherwise, the neophyte SL creature created seems to be ... well... just a couple of step above a neanderthal zombie!

Like a stroke victim relearning...

With a small group of co-researchers, I have started researching the general topic area of "Consuming the Unreal." I signed on to Second Life (SL) with a free basic account and created my avatar-persona. So, there I was, on the very first visit to SL, plonked down in the middle of this piazza with gates and bridges on various sides. Other SL characters were ambling by and some were flying. Trying to make my way around - walking, stooping, turning and ... flying - these acts were somewhat laborious, a bit painful. Like running into walls or glass panels inside a building. I felt like a stroke victim who is partially paralyzed, and is having to relearn the use of limbs, gross and fine motor skills, all anew. The brain was sending the commands but the limbs are not responding exactly the way I wanted... Frustrating, now I am beginning to get a feel for how recovering stroke or trauma victims might feel when they have to go through physiotherapy to relearn and do things - in much inferior ways than they could in their First Life! Sure, I could fly in Second Life, but not like an adept eagle...!! Ah, well... welcome to Second Life...