“Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.”

Benjamin Franklin

Folxs, I’m going to get deep on you today. Why? ‘Cause I feel like it. ‘Cause I’ve been ill lately and illness deepens the man: in his pajamas, he circles the world lightning-fast, setting fire to unbuilt houses, tearing down edifices held high in everybody’s mind. My topic today: identity. actually, let’s spell this with a capital for extra attention: Identity.

This is what contemplating fashion in-world, virtual brocade vests, jackets, prim hair and not-so-prim hair has lead me to, because how we dress is how we want to appear and how we want to appear spells out I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y the way we would like it to sound to anyone else’s ears … and look to their eyes.

Witness my excitement and surprise when this week, within the sheltered realm of Milk Wood, I came upon Rhiannon Dragoone who professes to be a staunch supporter of nudity – something she can quite likely only live with consequence in-world. Rhiannon proved to be a prolific writer of erotic horror fiction stories looking to place a recent novel in this genre for publication. At the meeting, a couple of attendees (with male avatars – we must assume they are males pulling their strings in the real world, though who knows for sure?) kicked ideas and contacts around. We all behaved like perfectly civilised animals. Professionals, even. Her appearence, I hesitate to call it her identity, was not in the way – as it probably had been, given her curvaceous presence, in the real world.

I’m not a philosopher. I can’t even afford an armchair with my current prim count in one of Milk Wood’s cottages (not if I insist on having a hot tub and a 32-pose four-poster bed, which are indispensable to my virtual happiness). I’m just a man with a little bit of life under his swollen belly, and with loud shoes. But I recognise authentic identity when I see it. And I bet most of you, especially if you write, are the same. It doesn’t matter how “constructed” this identity seems to be – at the heart of an onion there is always an onion.

I’m not a journalist – I can’t hold my words for one, I’m verbally incontinent since I swallowed a fly who swallowed a horse, which upset my stomach. Journalism (excuse me, you professionals out there) thrives on assumed, not on authentic identity. Because assumed identity can be glamorous, while authentic identity is pure Hemingway when he wrote well, it’s simple power. That makes journals readable, I guess (the one journal/mag I read – and recommend, if only for the real-life glizz on its electronic pages, is Sinatra Style Magazine (now on display in Milk Wood Library) … because my friend Jaen Wirefly writes for it). Assumed identity makes interesting stories. Authentic identity makes true stories.

No news here then – the question of identity leads to the question of truth. And truth leads straight into fiction, paradoxically. Tons of literature seeks truth, or rather, its creators seek truth and its readers seek truth and both work together while turning (out) page after page. Few find it, but the search is ever so sweet. The better ones, in my book of great books anyway, seek truth and find heart along the way. They seem surprised by that, ravished even (”to ravish” – one of my favourite words lately) and their readers, too, because so much fiction lacks heart, sacrifices heart perhaps in search of truth and/or effect.

Coming back to the virtual writers and readers I’ve met so far in Second Life^® – most of them seem to use the experience not merely to shine and flaunt themselves: they show heart, they wear it on their ephemeral skins. It’s heartening to watch and see and hear. That’s all for today. I even shed a tear on account of my own thought, which I will pour into a balloon glass tonight, cover it with exquisite wine, and have it while hugging my real life sweetheart, whispering nothing much into her ear. Poetic really, Second Life is poetic – caveat cor!

Virtually yours,
Flawnt Alchemi