(no subject)
Jan. 30th, 2003 04:13 pmStolen from
ardaniel and
ijikeru.
On to more relevant things.
I spent most of my Digital Aesthetics class thinking about Sajid. It was....depressing.
The topic came up about links between "digital" and "real" worlds, and one classmate's opinion that the "digital" world often had no concept or way of handling death.
On the one hand? I can understand her point. After all, as far as a MUSH is concerned, a character falls idle, and no more connections are registered (assumedly) from that particular address and port.
And yet, the MUSH was hit severely by his death, because these digital worlds are not simply textual interactions of character objects in the grid. I half wish I had related the story of his death and how we were affected by learning of it, but I was not given the opportunity...and to be honest, I'm also glad I did not. Those people probably would have not understood the full impact of his life on the community, or at worst thought I was trying to grandstand. (I say this not to be totally uncharitable, but when quite a few people in the class have stated that they don't understand how MUSHers or MUCKers can generate any kinds of emotional connections to their fellow players, I don't think I'm being unreasonable in that assessment.)
By the end of the class, strangely enough, the only think I could think about it was once again wishing I'd known him better in the time I had with him before he was taken. (Yes. Taken. Not passed away. Taken. And it may be poor of me, but I wish nothing but oblivion for Sajid's killer, considering he murdered in cold blood.)
So now...now I try to write. And I let the music play as loud as I can take it, and try to cleanse the pain out with the beat.
And then there is
yetanotherbob, who is trying to coax me out to M3 to do some GMing.
Strange how I turn from discussing virtual communities, to reflecting on the lost members of same, to serving the virutal community again.
Serve others.
Leave the memories behind, and serve others.
Funny how it all comes back to that.
| This is my little bit of the Mandelbrot set. I got it from the mandelbit generator. You can get one there too. |
On to more relevant things.
I spent most of my Digital Aesthetics class thinking about Sajid. It was....depressing.
The topic came up about links between "digital" and "real" worlds, and one classmate's opinion that the "digital" world often had no concept or way of handling death.
On the one hand? I can understand her point. After all, as far as a MUSH is concerned, a character falls idle, and no more connections are registered (assumedly) from that particular address and port.
And yet, the MUSH was hit severely by his death, because these digital worlds are not simply textual interactions of character objects in the grid. I half wish I had related the story of his death and how we were affected by learning of it, but I was not given the opportunity...and to be honest, I'm also glad I did not. Those people probably would have not understood the full impact of his life on the community, or at worst thought I was trying to grandstand. (I say this not to be totally uncharitable, but when quite a few people in the class have stated that they don't understand how MUSHers or MUCKers can generate any kinds of emotional connections to their fellow players, I don't think I'm being unreasonable in that assessment.)
By the end of the class, strangely enough, the only think I could think about it was once again wishing I'd known him better in the time I had with him before he was taken. (Yes. Taken. Not passed away. Taken. And it may be poor of me, but I wish nothing but oblivion for Sajid's killer, considering he murdered in cold blood.)
So now...now I try to write. And I let the music play as loud as I can take it, and try to cleanse the pain out with the beat.
And then there is
Strange how I turn from discussing virtual communities, to reflecting on the lost members of same, to serving the virutal community again.
Serve others.
Leave the memories behind, and serve others.
Funny how it all comes back to that.