2018.04.21 - Day 38

The red monk is gone. The Second Life avatar I spent so much time in - basically the same shape and skin as the monk but with blond hair, black jeans and off-white drawstring top - he’s gone too.

Apart from a brief sojourn as a whirling pile of trash avatar for an art exhibit, and one or two characters in Molecule Theater performances, Storm Nordwind has had the same avatar with the same height, skin and shape, since 2006. No more.

If you’ll excuse the pun, this was just habit. And laziness. I paid as much attention to my SL appearance as I do to my RL one - in other words, very little.

My Imagined Future Self is taking shape in Real Life, but I thought I’d bring the SL one into line. I started by spring-cleaning my SL profile. But I’ve continued by changing the avatar itself. And in keeping with feeling no barrier between SL and RL, the new avatar looks pretty much like I do in real life: an old man with long curly grey hair. My wife helped me choose the hair. She likes it. Sometimes we need a little help with the transformation process! :)

Storm reminds me I don't worry much about appearance RL or SL. Who cares how well dressed an old git in a wheelchair is anyway? Had 2 dreams but too personal to share in dream session. Seems I need more general dreams for that, hmm. Watched a Robert Salzman video of his last zoom session last Sat. Liked his book 'The Ten Thousand Things' but he is so rude ! He told one guy to F*** of if he didn't like what he was saying. Remember biblical quote and wonder: 'Doth a fountain show forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
Can the fig tree bear olive berries, either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield both salt water and fresh.'

Zen - I think James was a pragmatist who hated hypocrisy, and I have to admire that. But I think he used a false analogy here, or - and maybe this is much more the case - people in later years, who have elevated his epistle beyond its original context, have applied his analogy to things beyond his original intent.

Individuals are very often multi-faceted. Very few people I know are homogeneous. Yes, there are times when I feel the need to purge or transform old aspects of me - and I'm attempting it during this 99 days project - but I do accept the multiplicity and variegation, which I feel often adds a wonderful richness to people's characters.

And a richness to their ideas. I love F. Scott Fitzgerald's line from The Crack-Up: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

"Sometimes we need a little help with the transformation process." Indeed we do!

Savoring.
Tears.

It had been a long time since I cried as deeply as I did this morning. It wasn't because of something that happened, but several things happened that eventually turned me into a crumpled mess. It started with stabbing myself in the finger with a kitchen knife, first thing in the morning, because I was trying to remove plastic from something the dog wanted to play with. Then, I myself became someone else's chew toy. Ultimately, it was Open Office that tipped the scale, wiping out 3 hours of creative work that I'd set aside to focus on over the weekend, when there was nowhere to be...

You get the idea. I was a mess. Yet, in the midst of the mess, what happened? I noticed that I hadn't felt that intensely juicily emotionally raw in a long time.

...is still blogging after all these days and caring about the misfortunes, fortunes and writings of my fellow 50 days project practitioners.

Still stumbling along with my ill-formed project, day by day. I think I am getting a better sense of what I am trying to do: To choose one thing to do, and to hold in mind that "THIS is what I am doing now." Doing it deliberately with the feeling that I am present as the one who is doing it, rather than having it just go on automatically in the background while I think about or do something else.

Yesterday it was driving my car while out running an errand.

Today it was listening to a live music performance in SL. I put on headphones and closed my eyes so I could not see the chat window and the visual distractions that are part of any SL music event. Then, rather than the music being in the background, it was like I found myself inside the music. I noticed that when I am really listening to music, my body gets involved, gently swaying and moving with the music as if in a subtle dance. I don't listen to music that way very often any more.

Slept well, had a dream too.
Dream -In a gift shop at a large prestigious institution.
I ask the sales person if we can be
friends. Not sure if there was an answer. I then begin driving around the city with the intention of returning to the building. I drive with a calm feeling that I will find my way.I enter an escalator that shrinks in size,I fear I will not fit through. My phone is displaying a video of my daughter as a baby. Some one comments....oh yes she had children. edited 05:05, 22 Apr 2018

Writing 2-4 pieces for here that are not coming out with satisfied words yet.

Comments:
A couple years ago, got tired of the humanoid avatar's looks. Put much effort into it. Have an almost RL look of 20 years ago. Free form sculpted by a bad artist without looking at an old photo. The eyes are still very wrong. Finding a Hawaiian shirt like RL is very pleasing. It is illuminating to have an almost RL av.
Flip-side: All the Alts have new bodies, skin, shape, cloths and personalities. Have edited their back stories, attitudes, goals, desires. Sounds too simple to write it off as role play.

Giggling at Zen's old git comment.

Emotional roller coasters: Couple days ago, heard a distracting noise outside. Got comfortable to watch 2 (then 3) Tom Turkeys express their manhood. The ladies went down the block unnoticed. Got laughing, laughing harder, deeper, freer, hysterical, tears. Why so deep?
Mostly settled, went back to a tab on browser on the Virtual Choir. Made it full screen, put on headphones and was crying again.

Dreams: details and stories not as important:
1.Can not remember ever having heard a person on the phone before last night.
2.If we bring people a certain character into the dream for the particular character trait, Why would a person last night be acting in a completely different way out of character?

Riddle,
About number 1 and 2 really, when these dream thoughts happen to me I imagine that I might be picking up on someone elses thought.When having feelings of resonance with the consciousness of others "a virtual choir"...I think of a universal access. If rested enough to play in a dream maybe I create new possibilities for characters as well, in exploration. Creating contrast in the story.

"Why so deep?" mhm. That's exactly it. :)

I find my dreams to be like paper dolls at times. There is a situation I play out this way and that, and reach for characters, usually from recent memory, to dress them for it. Not until recently have political people started figuring in these scenarios, like, a few well-known (bad television) news commentators, who appeared at a friend's apartment, dressed in highest end clothing and immaculately groomed. There was this whole long scenario that included hidden compartments in walls, but the gist of the dream was to see that these figures were pretending/dressing to relate to those watching their show. I was just seeing the show behind the show, and went through a lot of detailed imaginary trouble to encapsulate that so clearly.