Performance Art

I've been building full time in Openlife for almost three months now and I find myself at a stopping point. I've always said that I didn't know if I was making product or props -- and I still don't know. What I do understand it that it is time to let the world catch up to me.

This isn't an unusual scenario in my life, I am almost always ahead of my time. So, I am going into storage for awhile. There is really no point in paying for a sim I won't be using. I've had a glorious time rediscovering my passion for building -- watching a new world unfold. And I have a chronicle of it all which was much of the point of being here.

Artists have a saying, "It's the process that counts". That has always been true for me. Results are good, but the journey is the important part. The trip with its twists and turns and surprises is what we learn from and what we remember.

I'll still be around from time to time, much like Samara on her 512 that checks in to see what's up in Phil's world. I haven't left the building, I've just gone off to another performance.

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I wrote the post above over a week ago. Since then the smoke and mirrors show has gone into full swing, more friends are leaving, the word elitist would show up in HUGE letters in Wordpress if it was hosting the forums. Some official forum threads are open to only group members (yes the groups are "open" but that isn't going over well with some). Posts are being deleted -- either by a moderator we don't know we have or some odd fluke of the forum coding. People are in hiding as the venom is flying in the forums which is really our only way of group communication.

The world is emptier for sure -- hence stability is up. There are lots of NEW issues however such as a first time occurrence (at least in the three months I have been there) of rezzed prims disappearing from in world. Prims don't always rez - they just fizzle, more inventory loss, prims rezzing 15 meters away and 5 meters up or so from where you told that pesky wand to put it, textures not showing up in inventory or rezzed prims. The list goes on.

There are no pokes and I have sent in NUMEROUS restart requests that somehow never get answered. Sakai is in the US for over a week and the devs are on Chinese New Years holiday it seems. Still the party line is that stability reigns and there have been very few restart requests.

So, I am packing up with a much heavier heart than I would have been true a week ago. Timing is everything and mine is usually pretty good, but I was a bit late on the get go this time. I wanted to believe. Like so many others I needed to believe. The people I trusted the most have left the building or are on their way out.

It's difficult today to tell who is who in the war we seem to be having. Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Or is it an alt that my enemy made to seduce me into friendship? The Machiavellian dramas are so entrenched in Openlife that there is almost no room for real communication.

I still have hopes that the Phoenix can rise from the ashes. I'll be watching and checking in from time to time as I have observed other "oldtimers" doing. And I'm not sorry I came. It wasn't what I planned, but I can certainly say I was there in the beginning.

The landscape is getting barren with abandoned regions that still hold the names of the departed. It is an odd epitaph -- that empty rolling landscape.