Time to Think …
The absence of something is rarely noticed. We are hardly ever grateful for the pebble we don’t have in our shoe, or the sinus headache that hasn’t slam dunked our head in the last month. Our attention is drawn instead to that which is up close and personal. The annoying yelps of an over excited pup when Fedex comes to the door, or the helps and pleas of an overly hormonal off spring who isn’t getting enough face time because you seem to be buried in facebook.
Unless you are punching a time-clock at work when nonattendance becomes a matter of bean counting, absence takes on a whole different Zen if your daily activity consists of moving from one warm window to the next as the sun makes its way around the house. So when I decided to take a two day hiatus from a 3D social networking game (game in this case being aptly grouped with other four letter words as IMVU is truly a mind fuck) it was an excellent opportunity to go deeper into the practice of self-inquiry.
In Zen we ask ourselves the question … Is it True? Or “Who” is having this experience. When enmeshed in a 3D gaming app the inquiry becomes that much clearer … as well as that much more difficult to decipher. During my two days (more aptly described a daze) when I was committed to not logging into the virtual world, I was able to step back and give myself a bit of distance to see what it is that draws me into the Lila. With my youngest now in high school the drama of teenage angst is a clear and present danger and the parallel with what I have seen with mid-life crisis in the middle of a virtual world of sex and rock n’ roll is striking.
If FarmTown is click therapy, IMVU is regression therapy as it takes us back to a time when the sting of bio-chemical meat market mayhem rules. From the Pavlovian triggers of invitation door bell alerts to the developers’ shrewd business practices that manipulate your retail therapy habits … the “game” draws you in to the web of lies, spies and the ultimate disguise of a sexy svelte avatar who can bend and twist her top heavy frame into the most amazing poses.
For those who would ask HOW could we get so caught up in a silly game, I would point out that the water cooler gossip, rush hour traffic jam, ex-spouse sparring match or the over cooked rice that ruined the meal on the one day you wanted everything to be perfect … are also just as pointless to cry over as the virtual world’s disco floor dynamics that on some nights leave you bleeding love.
While my family seemed thrilled that Mom was logging off of the drama for a few days (not seeing that it was really only exchanging one virtual drama for one nuclear family fallout “what cell phone plan are we going to choose”). My IMVU family was missing me at the hot tubs, cuddle couches and dance hall sambas that have now come to define a normal night in this parallel world.
During my brief hiatus, I wrote to a few of my gaming friends to let them know I would not be logged in. Because let’s face it when a sick chick goes MIA everyone thinks she’s dead. I told folks that I needed time to “think” — which if the English language was consistent would also be a four letter word.
Time away to think. I’ve learned since that phrase carries with it several assumptions, because of course in the absence of information we all make up stories. First that there must be a problem. Second that you need to fix something once you figure out what said problem is. Third I suppose is that you will in some way, shape or form, return as a “new and improved” avatar.
But what if in all the thought, analysis and monkey mind that you come up against … you see only that there is nothing to fix (despite the angst), nowhere to go (even though it seems like you are running away) and no one needed to put the eggshell back together Sir Humpty because all of it is proper compost and fodder for the new sprouts that are beginning to see the Light even though it feels like you are under a ton of dung.
In this case it is the absence of malice that was perhaps most clear during my self-imposed 3D interruption. In a Life that is at once both intimate and isolated, to be able to see that there is no one to blame and no one needed to hold a candle to our Light is the gift of presence. And as I log back in to play with my friends and dance the night away I am grateful for not having a pebble in my shoe (or in this case my virtual stiletto heels.)
