Change...Sometimes Painful...Always Certain

Talking with a friend this AM...I hadn't seen Veronica in some weeks. My gosh...You see, so often, I remember people as I first see them. In most cases default avatars that aren't that great..{before they started to work on them }=^..^=.

Today she looked absolutely wonderful. In our chat we got to the whys some people make the choices they make in Secondlife. Keep in mind that this woman is, as far as I know, a success in her real life business life. She sounds well educated...and likely has a good grasp on how life anywhere works. Except here in secondlife.

Many of us have no concept of why real life people would want to break anothers windows...or paint their name on anothers walls. In this internet society why there are large groups that have as their stated purpose the griefing of anothers Secondlife experience. Those groups do exist...I'll not publicize them here...if you need specifics, google Secondlife griefing.

We owe those people a debt of gratitude though.. as odd as that may sound. If I hadn't been griefed so often at my mainland sim...I likely wouldn't have created Benares.

There was a moment at that mainland sim {Lythria} that I didn't expect. When my early friend Twinkle and I decided that we needed land for me to learn about being a landowner and for her to have a shop... we found a place that had Governor Linden land backing it..{access}. And it was at the end of a walkway at a large developed Japanese Waterfront sim...{traffic}. The sim had shops...art...and two large giesha houses. Giesha houses...not whorehouses...theres a difference.

Change.

About three weeks after we got set up....the Japanese woman that owned the entire complex abandoned the land and moved back to Japan. My skybox rentals overlooking this fantastic view were instantly just skyboxes...no view. That was my initiation into Secondlife mainland living where you have no control over what your neighbor does.

Life does go on... Twinkle, Ling, Lala, and Myself went on and gave it our best try for several months. We created a beautiful place...something not that common mainland. Finally, I too gave up...sold my extensive lands to the land bots for sixty to seventy percent of what I'de paid for them. And we all came here... that was January 2008.

I don't know why the Japanese woman left....I do know why I did. The griefing just wouldn't stay stopped...the Lindens did what they could...but as long as we have free access to Secondlife.....

The sad part. Something that today I can still see.....

One day a few weeks after the Japanese woman left... I saw an avatar just sitting on the land a third of the way across the sim. Curious..I went to see. It was the first time..but not the last.... that one of the Japanese gieshas came to sit and mourn.

Her home, her SL job, a piece of her culture..... gone.

And I know today why I am here at Benares. And I promise all of you that you will never log in to a home at Benares only to see that notice .."Your home location is no longer available..You have been moved into a nearby location".

And so it goes.

I love you all, brinda

Namaste