28 - Happiness and other states

There were only four logs in this scribing period (yay for February!) so I will quote from each.

SL or "Life's a mystery and its ways are long and twisty" 

Adelene Dawner: It seems like this practice can be pretty powerful, too - the first few months I was living in the quad lion av, it felt *weird* to be walking on two feet when I wasn't here. ^.^
Udge Watanabe: mmhmm :)
Tarmel Udimo: grins
Scathach Rhiadra: :)
Fael Illyar: Yes, it can have all kinds of effects
Fael Illyar: better choose carefully what you become here :)
Adelene Dawner does ^.^
Tarmel Udimo: yes sometimes switching back to speech after using chat is weird
Udge Watanabe: do you find yurself really missing IM in RL? being able to hold two levels of conversations at once?
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Scathach Rhiadra: yes:)
Fael Illyar: oh, interesting, I haven't noticed missing IM in RL :)
Adelene Dawner: It's happened ^.^
Scathach Rhiadra recently signed up for yahoo messenger, but it is not the same:)
Fael Illyar: yes, using yahoo messenger doesn't conjure up your avatar in SL :)
Udge Watanabe: no, not at all. I tried several flavours of chat before SL, none held my interset for more than a few days or even hours
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Fael Illyar: which affects you even if you just IM
Tarmel Udimo: also wander if it mainly attarcts a lot of singles:-)
Fael Illyar: Before, I've used different chats for primarily practical purposes.
Tarmel Udimo: otherwise how could we spend so much time here:-)
Fael Illyar: none of them can be really compared to what SL does
Fael Illyar: and my first idea of SL, when I heard of it was "Just a chat with 3d candy, what's the big deal?" :P
Scathach Rhiadra: :)
Udge Watanabe: we are a distinct subset of hte world population. We have computers and a lot of spare time, and a fluency in reading and writing, and would rather read than watch TV. That makes us quite odd.
Tarmel Udimo: little did you know fael^.^
Fael Illyar: Yes, you have to experience it to get it
Adelene Dawner grins at Udge.
Scathach Rhiadra nods at Udge
Udge Watanabe nods. that was my impression too. It took _years_ between SL first crossing my radar and my thinking "I might try that"
Tarmel Udimo: love DVD's
Fael Illyar: well, if it was just reading, the chats would do just fine ;)
Udge Watanabe: yes, that was about us rather than about SL
Scathach Rhiadra: we need to be in each others presence too
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Fael Illyar: the feeling of persence took my by surprise.
Fael Illyar: presence
Tarmel Udimo: my little friends:-)

roots of unhappiness 

Lia Rikugun: i have a question
Lia Rikugun: why are people so unhappy?
Lia Rikugun: is it because they are so afraid to change things
Lia Rikugun: they think in specific structures
Susi Alcott: people have different needs
Scathach Rhiadra: or of changes happening to them, outside their control maybe
Lia Rikugun: and labels
Susi Alcott: not at all can get them fullfilled

[...] 

Pema Pera: An interesting challenge is to remain happy while working to improve terribly unhappy circumstances, like the Dalai Lama does . . . .
Fael Illyar: yes, being sad is not the same as being unhappy.
Europe Alchemi: Agree Pema
quen Oh: I was amazed to see how many people outside US were closely watching that I raised to hear the acceptance speech
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Pema Pera: there can be deeply underlying happiness, beyond personal or impersonal, yet acknowledgment of unhappiness that needs to be confronted

Pema Pera: on a more relative level 

Multiple chemical sensitivity 

Zen Arado: I find I come back to myself more and more often the more I practice
Zen Arado: especially if I have strong emotions
Pema Pera: can you give an example?
Zen Arado: I am noticing my jealousies and working with them at the moment
Zen Arado: no one else here ever gets jealous ?
Udge Watanabe: heh
Aurora Kitaj: Yes for me :(
Zen Arado: it is a form of anger I thnk
Zen Arado: and resistance to what just is
Auroras Graves: trying to spent more time with friends in the RL, the winter is getting everyone down around here
Pema Pera: where is "here" Auroras?
Zen Arado: why does winter get us down?
slack7639 Gigamon: i have no jealousy
Zen Arado: it is just a season?
Auroras Graves: Switzerland, almost no sun for ages
Zen Arado: maybe you don't notice it though ?
Aurora Kitaj: seasonal affective disorder?
Udge Watanabe: well, no, it is also a physiological response to changes in sunlight and temperature and humidity
Zen Arado: slack?
Zen Arado: that is my experience
Zen Arado: as I meditate more
Udge Watanabe: at laest in many parts of the world :)
slack7639 Gigamon: um
Auroras Graves: we are lacking Vitamin D and the hormones that our brains built when we are seeing light
Udge Watanabe nods
slack7639 Gigamon: can u give me an example? what are you jealous of?
Auroras Graves: even a Buddist friend is at edge (and that is saying something)
Zen Arado: so people in Norway are more depressed than people in Southern zones?
Auroras Graves: they are using light therapy to simulate the natural spectrum of the sunlight
Zen Arado: I lived in Australia for a long time and got depressed there too :)

   

Exemplifying we don't get set in our ways 

Pema Pera: Hi everyone! We're very spread out today :)
Pila Mulligan: maybe we are prepared for additional arrivals :)
Eliza Madrigal: We're scattered around today :)
Pila Mulligan: indeed :)
Pema Pera: yes, I was surprised too
Myna Maven: :)
Pema Pera: we don't get set in our way, clearly!
Pila Mulligan: Pema Pera: Hi everyone! We're very spread out today :) == great minds follow the same paths
Eliza Madrigal: Clearly :)
Eliza Madrigal: hah
Pila Mulligan: :)
Susi Alcott: maybe our ego has grown up so much that we need more space around :)
Eliza Madrigal: hahah collective ego...we're bouncing around in it?
Pila Mulligan: or, as Daniel Boone said, elbow room
Pema Pera: :)
Susi Alcott: (made the lovline triangel after his arrival)
Pila Mulligan: the studies of the sensory distinctions between urban and rural dwellers can be interesting
Pila Mulligan: urban dwellers are much more sensitive to object proximity it seems
Myna Maven: Hmm, I'm an urban dweller for decades. But spent childhood years split between the city and the desert.

[... ]

Threedee Shepherd: hiya, there is wireless where I am. A bit slow,but adequate
Adelene Dawner: Hi, Buddha ^.^
Squee: What have I always believed?
Pila Mulligan: welcome to the slow wireless club 3D
buddha Nirvana: Hi threedee :
Eliza Madrigal: A delay can add breath to a conversation, right ? :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Pila Mulligan: the soul thrives in stillness :)
Pema Pera: as opposed to being all wired up!
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Myna Maven: :)
Pema Pera: wireless . . . off the leash?
Threedee Shepherd: or temporal breadth, as the case may be ;>
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: 'temporal breadth' ... since techological metaphors are popular, 3D, I wonder if different moments of time can have different bandwidths? so to speak ...
Threedee Shepherd: I am reading the book "coming of age in SL" he makes the point that the ability to be in open chat and multiple IMs at the same time is unique
Pila Mulligan: a new human skill?
Eliza Madrigal: I find it difficult still...
Susi Alcott: _/!\_ > if different moments of time can have different bandwidths? so to speak ...
Pema Pera: What I found more difficult to learn was to use chat and voice at the same time
Pema Pera: but by now I am quite used to that too
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Eliza Madrigal: Not ready to think about that one... :)
Eliza Madrigal: hah
Pema Pera: in our astronomy meetings we frequently mix voice and text, and then of course there are the IMs coming in (for me some of them in Japanese, so I have to switch fonts frequently)
Adelene Dawner: That's no surprise, Pem - text and voice use two different parts of the brain - it's not common to be used to juggling those two. (Yet? ^.^)
Susi Alcott: 'back then' some could have several phones online at the same time
Eliza Madrigal: I suppose this does take multitasking to a new level..need more compartments
Eliza Madrigal: Maybe dealing with diff. people and diff. subjects are diff. kinds of time also...different paces..all at once
Threedee Shepherd: A point about simultaneous chat and IM is that you can be participating in the same conversation topic at entirely different levels
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: yes, I've had that happen, Three
Threedee Shepherd: In terms of thought that kind of parallel processing is close to how the brain actually works
Pila Mulligan: body language is missing in SL, maybe IM helps fill that void
Pila Mulligan: not with the same information, just as filling a vacant space :)
Susi Alcott: there's also many animations to be much body language :)
Eliza Madrigal: Would make sense. In day to day life, I've been trying to notice when I am multitasking to an extreme and slow it down
Threedee Shepherd: The lack of body language--much of which is not intentional--makes the use of words more potent, I think.
Eliza Madrigal: But here is required in order to flow even slightely naturally
Adelene Dawner nods at Three.
Eliza Madrigal: yes, agree Three
Squee: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.