If you aren’t familiar with the poem by Robert Frost I suggest reading it. It’s really one of my favorite poems. When I first logged in to SL, SL was the road not taken and as the last line in the poem says, *And I took the one less traveled by and it has made all the difference.* For me SL was an unknown. I saw it on TV and thought it looked cool so I logged in. I picked up the basics of movement, flying, talking and changing my appearance fairly quickly. I didn’t though know anything about this place, where I could go, what I could do. I met some great people in the Welcome area who took me out shopping or dancing or just out for a wander but no one told me or even showed me that I could *DO* anything. I had no idea that everything I saw was created by residents. I had no idea that I had the same tools at my disposal that they did. Perhaps I was just not paying attention. Perhaps I wasn’t interested. When I think back to those first few months, my focus was on people. Meeting people. People from all over the world that I would never have had a chance to meet or speak to otherwise.
Aribeth, my first and dearest friend, introduced me to a whole different world within this crazy world. We crashed a wedding. The after party was at the Three Lions Pub. That one event sparked a year of making new friends, learning new things, exploring, love, loss, laughter, sadness, heartbreak, anger and above it all a sense of happiness and belonging. These people came to be my family. Many of them are gone or have wandered off on to other things but the ones I grew the closest too I still see and speak to every day. They are family.
The Three Lions is gone but not forgotten. In it’s place grew several pubs/bars/clubs. A few remain and are still going strong. New friends are made. New memories made. New experiences, trying new things. We change, we grow, we learn and we are better for it.
I get IMs from people many times in world saying *I’m bored*. Usually when I get these I’m at my busiest. Either building something or DJing or talking to a resident. Now there are times I log in and either don’t know what to do with myself or no one is around to talk to and I’ll feel *bored*. That’s when I’ll either go look for places to take pictures, go shopping or just wander or even log back into RL. What I use to entertain myself may not work for everyone but I learned long ago that SL is what you make of it. If you don’t venture out of your comfort zone and try something new, you will eventually get bored. Everytime I’ve started to get bored in SL i’ve learned something new. Photoshop, making animations, torturing prims, and learning new building techniques and perfecting the ones I have.
I own 3 sims, a bar, a club, a Homeowner’s group that is growing every day, a fairly successful blog, I’m a decent photographer ;) and I’m planning all kinds of new stuff for the coming year.
*Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by, …*
I plan to take the less traveled paths. To forge my own path.
Tags: boredom, building, photography, photoshop, robert frost, SecondLife, sl