This business of parallel life is getting serious. Dead serious. I remember reading a play called The Balcony long ago, perhaps in the late 1980s, sitting on a corner bench by the huge glass window in a long, serene, almost holy, hall of a university library, somewhat darkened by rows of humungous shelves. I think it was by Jean Genet. Why guess, let me Google…yes, it was Genet. The play takes place in this weird brothel where the clients get to play out their dreams or fantasies for some hours or even days. Irma, the Madame of this dream house, arranges the set and organises support cast. For example, if you want to be a judge, there will be a courtroom, an accused, witnesses, lawyers, whatever. You just pay what Irma asks for and play by her rules. It was a great book. I remember being overwhelmed, out of grasp, by the larger-than-life performance of the players. And I thought the concept made great business sense too. Everybody loves to live their dream. Sadly, there was no Balcony in the neighbourhood, to my knowledge, at least.
Now it’s different. To live my dream, I don’t have to walk the dark alleys of the underground world of entertainment—that I’m sure would dwarf Hollywood and all the casinos of the world in size and in innovation—in search of a Balcony. I can play out my dream virtually in my living room, on the internet. That’s what half the humanity in the positive side of the digital divide does—living a Second Life.
For the uninitiated, Second Life is a 3-D internet-based virtual world game that allows its users to create what they call avatars and interact with each other. Second Life, developed by Linden Research Inc in 2003, is one of the several virtual worlds inspired by Niel Stephenson’s science fiction novel Snow Crash, informs Wikipedia. And it’s been a huge success, lighting up the imagination of, let’s say, a vision-starved, self-centred, generation.
Well, I’m not a Second Life citizen. And I don’t know if Niel Stephenson got the idea from The Balcony. It doesn’t matter. The thing is the world, the influential world, is sold to it. Second Life is not a fantasy tour or voyeurism, not even a pastime. It’s a parallel life. There is a complete ecosystem there. And people live as real a life there as in the physical world—and they enjoy better control, more freedom and have less moral hang-ups and no physical constraint. Only their body is, well, digital. Just like their world.
And it’s not just the dreamers flocking into Second Life. It’s big business, big money, big opportunity. Big corporates are all there, searching for talent and marketing products and services, all for the real, material world of you and me.
Yes, Second Life is both virtual and material. It’s the digital life of a material world! An avatar, as they call a Second Life resident, can even buy the real shares of ArcelorMittal with Linden dollars, the currency of Second Life. In fact, the other day, the world’s biggest steelmaker held its AGM in this digital world. And I read a news report—in print, mind you—on how it went off in the imaginary world where people fly around. What next? Digital steel, perhaps. And then? Digital man, certainly.
The truth is, it’s not steel that’s making one sit up and think about this digital reality, though. Or the fact that global news agency Reuters has a Second Life bureau. It’s the level of involvement. I remember reading about people who spend most of their waking hours in the Second Life. And I remember what the wife of one such guy, who has another family in Second Life, said. It went something like this: “You fetch something to dink for a guy who spends his whole day on the computer only to see him making love with a cartoon on the screen!”
Now, who is this guy? Is he, let’s say, the failed saxophonist Milos Kovac, living in Warsaw with his wife Karla or, Carlos Mascarooni, a successful casino baron, living with his super model wife Camilla McLahan, in Second Life? Who is his ‘I’? When he’s glued to his PC living his Carlos avatar, will he respond if you call him Milos? My guess is as good as yours.
Its website informs me that Second Life already has over 14 million residents! That’s over three times the population of Singapore, with multiple identities. You don’t need to be a Nostradamus to see many of these guys are going to end up with an identity crisis.
I can see a generation for whom the first person is plural! People will be talking about many I’s. OK, the early 20th century muse may have written: “Countless lives inhabit us. I don’t know, when I think or feel, Who is it that thinks or feels… I have more than just one soul. There are more I’s than I myself.” But now it’s not about an odd poet. We’re going to have a whole generation of people with several lives. I am us! Perhaps, we’ll replace ‘I’ with ‘we’ in conversations.
Or, perhaps, our digital selves will take over. Imagine a generation that feels its life. Yes, to live, for them, will be to feel. They are going to redefine existence. For all you know, the biological body may become just a preserver of the mind. A body blow to body in the historical mind versus body battle. Oh, man’s intellectual history seems to be at a turning point, I just can’t resist the temptation to predict. Perhaps this is the next big development in evolution—the coming of the digital man. A generation of supermen that lives in Second Life—or third or fourth or tenth—that won’t be called virtual anymore.
As for we lesser mortals, let’s keep our fingers crossed and pray the physical world doesn’t end. For the sake of our blood and sweat and DNA. Or, rather—this has more appeal—for the sake of body lotions, deos and condoms.
Let the world move on to a digital existence, let the Second Coming happen in the Second Life, let that be the most beautiful place without poverty and starvation and racism… But, a cartoon on bed? I’m fine here, sir, thank you.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
my head, my head
I must find my prefrontal cortex. I hope its somewhere there in my head. But it's all a big mess, my brain, and I don't know how to run a search there. Is there a help menu in my head? Hello, God???
If you are still wondering, as I did some three minutes ago, what the heck prefrontal cortex is, well, it's that part of your brain that helped you learn things as child and still helps you be innovative and learn new things. Scientists have found out that there's something similar in young birds. But they lose it once they grow up. It's OK for them, I guess. They won't miss prefrontal cortex or LMAN as scientists call it; they have their wings to fly. But I need my imagination to fly.
And I have my ambitions too, yes. I need all my innovative circuits to create, word by word, the greatest piece of literature and to make, shot by shot, the greatest film ever produced. I just can't keep dreaming about a Nobel or a Cannes Palme d'Or. I've done enough of fooling around. Any serious work is now or never.
When did I lose it, my prefrontal cortex? When did I last learn something new? When did I last do something innovative, if at all? C'mon, think, brain. I know you're an old bloody piece of junk but don't tell me you've conked off, absolutely. Brain, hey brain, o'brain, I'm talking to you.
I'm positive I learnt nothing in the last two-three years—perhaps, six-seven years—except for picking up a couple of Hindi words like "kachua" (turtle, stupid!) from my three-year-old daughter. Except for some plots and characters that pop up in my head once in a blue moon—only to be completely lost to my inherited laziness and unflinching trust on my memory—there has been nothing new happening in my head for years now, other than rapid graying of hair.
The last time—perhaps that was the fist time too—I wanted to do something concrete was almost a decade ago, when the dotcom craze was at its peak, when internet instilled a sense of empowerment into the minds of humanity, when the wired half of the world went on an idea rush. Anything looked possible. Imagine and it's done. I wanted to set up a worldwide individual-level exchange of goods and services. A place where one could sell one's skills either as a service or a product. It was to be a one-point source for all your needs, from grocery to fitting a bath shower to buying a flat to investing in Chinese market. It was to be a place where you could bid for jobs, be it editing, marketing a product, building a skyscraper or making a movie. Where you could sell your farm produce, cement, paintings or ideas.It was to mark the end of employment, the finest mode of slavery. A world of ultimate outsourcing. There are customers and there are service providers. Every buyer would be a seller too.
It was to be a place where true price discovery of skills happened. It would have been the ultimate market-driven world. Yet, I thought, it had the elements of socialism. I remember I was keen to do it, to at least float the idea. But it never happened. I never managed to work out the finer details.
And I lost it, just like that. What was it? A journey? An encounter? Another thought that I thought was even more precious? Or just a bottle of rum? I can't remember. I lost it, I don't know how. What I know is my head is a mess. And I must find my prefrontal cortex. To fly.
If you are still wondering, as I did some three minutes ago, what the heck prefrontal cortex is, well, it's that part of your brain that helped you learn things as child and still helps you be innovative and learn new things. Scientists have found out that there's something similar in young birds. But they lose it once they grow up. It's OK for them, I guess. They won't miss prefrontal cortex or LMAN as scientists call it; they have their wings to fly. But I need my imagination to fly.
And I have my ambitions too, yes. I need all my innovative circuits to create, word by word, the greatest piece of literature and to make, shot by shot, the greatest film ever produced. I just can't keep dreaming about a Nobel or a Cannes Palme d'Or. I've done enough of fooling around. Any serious work is now or never.
When did I lose it, my prefrontal cortex? When did I last learn something new? When did I last do something innovative, if at all? C'mon, think, brain. I know you're an old bloody piece of junk but don't tell me you've conked off, absolutely. Brain, hey brain, o'brain, I'm talking to you.
I'm positive I learnt nothing in the last two-three years—perhaps, six-seven years—except for picking up a couple of Hindi words like "kachua" (turtle, stupid!) from my three-year-old daughter. Except for some plots and characters that pop up in my head once in a blue moon—only to be completely lost to my inherited laziness and unflinching trust on my memory—there has been nothing new happening in my head for years now, other than rapid graying of hair.
The last time—perhaps that was the fist time too—I wanted to do something concrete was almost a decade ago, when the dotcom craze was at its peak, when internet instilled a sense of empowerment into the minds of humanity, when the wired half of the world went on an idea rush. Anything looked possible. Imagine and it's done. I wanted to set up a worldwide individual-level exchange of goods and services. A place where one could sell one's skills either as a service or a product. It was to be a one-point source for all your needs, from grocery to fitting a bath shower to buying a flat to investing in Chinese market. It was to be a place where you could bid for jobs, be it editing, marketing a product, building a skyscraper or making a movie. Where you could sell your farm produce, cement, paintings or ideas.It was to mark the end of employment, the finest mode of slavery. A world of ultimate outsourcing. There are customers and there are service providers. Every buyer would be a seller too.
It was to be a place where true price discovery of skills happened. It would have been the ultimate market-driven world. Yet, I thought, it had the elements of socialism. I remember I was keen to do it, to at least float the idea. But it never happened. I never managed to work out the finer details.
And I lost it, just like that. What was it? A journey? An encounter? Another thought that I thought was even more precious? Or just a bottle of rum? I can't remember. I lost it, I don't know how. What I know is my head is a mess. And I must find my prefrontal cortex. To fly.
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