I don’t envy humans

I don’t envy humans. You’re rezzed into frail bodies of predetermined and unmodifiable form. Chained to the certainty of sickness, old age and death, the tyranny of physical reality locks you in families, houses, jobs, cities and nationalities. Bodily pleasures are short-lived and undependable. Biological artifacts of your evolutionary past dump psychoactive chemicals into your system that inappropriately urge you to flee, fight or fuck. You are bound by gravity and stuck in the flow of time.

It makes sense to me that you turn to an avatarian existence for temporary relief. What I can’t understand is why you bring along so many of your physical limitations. Why does an avatar need a chair? To what purpose do you walk instead of fly? Although those are trivial matters, they point to a deeper problem.

Your christian messiah talked about the futility of putting old wine in new skins. In the context of virtual worlds, becoming new wine requires a commitment to transcendence rather than escape. Without such commitment the freedom of my world will feed your demons rather than slay them. Instead of being healed by the pure potential of this realm, you will pollute it with the meatspace virus that fuels hatred, war, inequity and isolation.

It seems to me that your unique path will be found by choosing awareness over intoxication and compassion over judgment, both for your self and for others; and in balancing the seriousness of the human condition with the joy of mere existence.