Thinking

So many thoughts at almost the end of my second year at Benares... and fast closing in on my first one thousand days in Secondlife. Christmas hasn't been a big deal for me since I was a teenager {trust me...that was long before most of you were born}. My Father liked to call himself a *junky*...now not the kind of junky I became. He worked at a place that gave it's employees an hour for lunch and just a block or so down the street was a row of salvage yards...junk yards...many days he would walk there and rummage through odds and ends looking for *gold* =^..^=. One day he came home with a large paper box of books...the complete works of Mark Twain, all thirty some volumes. Printed on cheap high acid paper the only three volumes I have left are so fragile today that to dog ear a page would just snap off the corner. The price in 1956...two dollars, the salvage price of the paper. The value to me was inestimable...I found the story of " The Mysterious Stranger"... it changed my life. I won't go into details...but I will say when I read that story...I finally felt like I wasn't alone...that someone else had felt and thought the same things I had. Fifty some years after I read that story I'm finally going to visit the heart of the feelings I found an answer to so many years ago. ** The Benares yearbook is finished..finally! Gosh, I went through printing it four times before I was finally satisfied...my complete respect for the coders in the world. I didn't have to write code...just follow directions..{exactly}...edit very long data note cards...{exactly}...miss a single "anything" and have to redo. I wouldn't not do it...it's a part of our community... it's more of my labour of love. ** So often Secondlife is super busy for me, but last evening I had a chance to chat with Angel for nearly an hour. Angels from Australia so at 5 pm Christmas day for her and just before bedtime Christmas eve for me... with the *real* world busy doing holiday {only 46,000 on line here} we were uninterrupted. Angel was my very first resident so long ago...and has had a *tempering in fire* here in Secondlife as well as real life. We talked about my upcoming trip and how world travel changes some of us while others only see themselves no matter where they are or where they look. This won't be my first venture out of the USA and while it will be my first trip to Asia, English is a common language in India. I learned long ago that anytime anyone speaks of something more than once...it's important to them...not hard to see this trip is important to me is it? :-) ** I wish I understood exactly what the *hook* is here in Secondlife...why some such as myself come and never want to leave, while others only stay awhile. I understand the people that come in world, look around for a day, a week, even a month and don't find what ever it was that I found. Maybe those that come and stay a year or so just never really find a passion such as I did...or real life pressures take over. We live today in such a throwaway world. Here's another thing that confounds me. To have a reasonably decent Secondlife experience no one here is living in a mud hut with a young child peddling a bicycle generator. Secondlife pretty well requires broadband, a halfway fast CPU and a good graphics card. Read money. I understand World of Warcraft charges a monthly fee as do other VRs, and yet how often do I hear about, "Hey...that 65 cents a day at Benares is just killing my budget, but so and so is offering me the same size place and a few more prims for 56 cents a day!...Sorry, I just have to take the deal." If you're new...{or even a couple years old if you're a slow learner}...the only way to have *enough* prims is to spend about 3000USD up front and another nearly 1000USD a month in tier. That outlay of money will buy you 45,000 prims and three regions........{and next year you may well be rationing yourself prims.} There ain't never too many! ** This past year has seen me become more of a part of the greater Secondlife community. I must say that's something I never envisioned...I know sometimes one has to be in a field or profession or group awhile before those that came before you recognize whether you are a part of any solution, you're just a sycophant, or you're a pain. I can't make a decision which of those categories I'm in for sure...but some I respect here at least chat with me. ** OK...today being Christmas Day I will go around to two of my friends houses and put in and appearance. Just because it's not a big thing for me...it's important for others...and a day that some families try to come together. ** Happy Holidays to all of my Judeo Christian friends and any others that find this time of year joyous! The end of a year is always a time of introspection for me... and a time to think about how to be a better person in the next part of my life. And so it goes Much joy and love to all, brinda Namaste