C. Month of October

Play as Being was one half year old on the first of October 1.

Kira Cafe

At the beginning of the month, Storm was busy putting the finishing touches to the Kira Cafe. It was to use 3000 prims. The Cafe had two main areas: Bar, Fireside and Lounge (to the north) and Restaurant and Gallery (to the south). The rest of the Kira board were busy with preparations for the events that would take place soon. The Kira Cafe opened on October 7 with a happy hour and also language sessions: Japanese, French, German, Dutch and Finnnish. The Cafe also brought together Kira alumni. It was to be a place open 24 hours at which peiople would meet and socialize and talk about science and ways of knowing.

PaB Fest in Princeton

The first PaB Fest was held at Princeton on the weekend of October 17-19. Much of the attention of the group was focused on the event both before and after. In the days preceding those of us, who would be able to attend, anticipated what it would feel like. Two of us visited the area in the preceding weeks and could feel the energy. Many of the attendees were scheduled for guardian sessions over the weekend. In a wonderful gesture, guardians who were not atending voolunteered to fill every one of those sessions.

A third of the group, thirteen real life avatars met for a series in discussions, walks and meals. It was the first time many of us had met each other and the general feeling was that there were no real surprises. On Sunday morning the RL typists and their avatars joined SL avataras at the two morning meetings (October 19 07:00, 08:00). After the gathering was over there was much interest from the others about what it felt like to meet each other in real life. here are some answers:

Maxine Walden: in some cases I was not too surprised, in other cases very surprised...realizing then that I had made assumptions based on my fantasy of course about the SL av
genesis Zhangsun: I felt very comfortable and at the same time surprised by it because many people "appeared" quite different from what I imagined

doug Sosa: Was there both a sense of loss (of the idealized) and gain (of the richness and complexity of the person)?
Pema Pera: I didn't feel any sense of loss

Maxine Walden: guess I am most impacted by being made aware how much my own expectation plays in most surprises

Pema Pera: but some of us noticed quite clearly the different dynamic in using voice vs using text -- that difference would have shown up if we had stayed in SL using voice instead, something we've never done
genesis Zhangsun: it doesn't really change my connection

Maxine Walden: right, we got to thinking that the avs are just another aspect of the RL person, not to be deflated or thrown away when the RL image differs from our expectation

Pema Pera: My experience was one of being enriched: meeting the RL person and the SL persona, I feel I got to know a lot more about the same person than through one of the two channels
Adams Rubble: I am one of those who felt that voice chat made more of a difference than appearance

Genesis wrote a warm recollection of the weekend which is posted at http://playasbeing.wik.is/PaB_Events/PaB_Fest_2008.10.18_@_IAS_by_Genesis_Zhangsun

Moving Logs to Wiki

Pia, Solobill, Sylectra and Adams moved the chat logs from the blog to the Wiki so all the logs would be at one site. It is easier to go to individual logs and also to search all the logs on the Wiki.

Voices of October:

On October 3 07:00 Quen sat alone at the pavilion and penned this poetical passage about time:

Time flies lately, it seems slowly speeding up every day an unnoticeable little bit to gradually complicate life more. When I was young, an hour was endless, you could play all day, you had all the time in the world. Waiting for nice things, birthdays, the first day of the opening of the municipal swimming pool… it took ages. But advancing to new levels in life, time speeded up. It is like a videogame, every level gets more complicated and time becomes more pressuring. Life like Tetris… Only what is the purpose of the game and what are all the rules? Need to work on 'skills', so the pressure of time is relatively less prominent. Most games you always loose in the end, you cannot play it forever, at some point you loose all your lifes and you get a score. And you try again. Though there are some adventure games which can be played till the end, if you try over and over. So you will discover everything it has to offer. I am not a gamer, I found that I don't really like it. But maybe I am…

Love and Energy (October 11 07:00)

stevenaia Michinaga: there are people who have difficulty with love and the energy it transmit within and without an individual and within a group
stevenaia Michinaga: yet, love of art, people, things is very directed and intense
Maxine Walden: yes, different relationships or perceptions about 'love' perhaps, feeling threatened or imposed upon by it
Pia Iger ponders why people have difficulty with love and the energy?
stevenaia Michinaga: I find it compounds itself, more love creates more love, a chain reaction of intensity
Maxine Walden: But it feels that we all are 'in relation' in some way, whether we accept it or not, feel nourished or bothered by it. How we relate to that 'relatedness' seems important
Maxine Walden: Oh, I can see why some people are bothered by 'love': they feel that their independence and autonomy are being intruded upon...something like that
Pia Iger: then what can help us to accept the relatedness better?
Maxine Walden: When I feel very tired or pre-occupied I can feel that way, 'just want to be left alone'. I think that recognizing the vulnerability to 'wishing to be left alone' is very helpful re accepting the relatedness, and seeing that it is one's own difficulty at the moment and not that of the love/relatedness

What happens in the Nine Seconds? (October 14 19:00)

Threedee Shepherd: I have developed an unexpected physical coreaction in the 9-sec (and meditation, lately
Adelene Dawner: ?
Threedee Shepherd: As a neuroscientist, I know the brain itself has no pain or feeling sensors.
Threedee Shepherd: However, the membranes around the brain (the pia-arachnoid) have blood vessels and sensation that accompanies them.
Threedee Shepherd: During meditation, I feel changes in that blood flow over my right hemisphere.
Threedee Shepherd: actually pia-arachnoid-dura, to be exact

While some of us were meeting in Princeton, others were having parallel meetings in SL, keeping the fires burning at the pavilion (October 18 13:00)

Geo Netizen: That’s what I find most exciting about this group … you are, in a deep way exploring that very issue.
Storm Nordwind nods
Wol Euler: RL-we are to our SL-avs as Being is to RL-us?
Storm Nordwind: There are several levels too. The exercises - for there are several - can be taken lightly, or they can be undergone in great depth and intensity
Storm Nordwind: It is largely a matter of personal choice, need and motivation
Geo Netizen: I do not know of another way to discern what is core to reality and what is superficial
Wol Euler finally understands APAPB!

New Guardians:

Geo Netizen accepted a guardianship in October bringing the number of guardians to 37.