Entering one's Second Life is like becoming young again in more ways than one. The new perpetual disoveries, the new relationships (including very RL-like complications) and the new methods of communication are one thing. Survival is another. Upon embarking into the new world, I decided to start from scratch and that the adventure had to be self-financing or otherwise sustainable if it was to be anything other than an illusiory future. After all, if one is goig to emigrate - doing so with an empty pocket and an open perspective is really the only way of doing it. The feeling of being young started with the rapidity with which I found a personal partner, a creative partner and endless contacts. We then had what seems to have been very lucky breaks with both property and a forum for experimenting with and in this fresh new life. Yet the old world still lurks behind the scenes. All the new horizons are subtly governed by an ethic of "commerce" despite the perception of community. It is not like the colonisation of RL places like America or Australia - it is more an invitation to help shape a land that the old world has already claimed as its own colony. It is as if the "rulebook" on the digital frontier has somehow almost been written already. Yet the charade is all important. This world, or something very like it will also certainly become the human-information interface that dominates our lives within the bext decade. That's RL time of course. That fact that I and others are part of a population that still only numbers around 5 million creates the feeling that we remain able to influence the environment of the frontier itself. What the early residents do will, of course, have a profound effect on how future immigrants will adapt. Mayday will be crunch time for me and our group. The affordability of maintaining our new presence and new lifestyle will become paramount. And that suddenly seems like an odd experience because it means compromise of a very "old-world" fashion. Financing ourselves means doing things we never expected or particularly wanted - and is surprisingly hard work. Some of it rather "goes against the grain" too. Maybe that is the real reason I feel young again. It is the end of complacancy!
