A Different Perspective

I was watching a news report the other day on Second Life, an online game thing that is basically just that, a second world that shares few of the downsides of this one. People log in and do the same sorts of things that they would in real life. They go shopping, eating out, drinking, dancing. Some even go to virtual jobs. People get as seriously into this as other online addictions, dropping hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year on virtual clothing and accessories for their avatars. I, having wasted a good portion of my childhood playing various video games amd (shudder) MUDing, am generally inclined to frown on sugh things. At best they are a waste of time, one of the myriad petty excesses that distract and pacify people into oblivion.

At the end of the segment, however, there was a bit about a Second Life club for the physically disabled. In the game the club closely resembled any other club, except that many of the patrons were in wheelchairs. In the game, this did not hamper their grooving on the dance floor or their mobility in other parts of the game.

After showing in game pictures of the club, they showed its founder in the real world. A man disfigured by severe cerebral palsy, living in a small London flat. He wore a helmet for his own safety and couldn't leave his wheelchair. His speech was so garbled that subtitles elucidated averything he said. This man used Second Life to gain access to life and social interaction that he probably never experiences in the real world. In this life his body is an obstacle to relating to others; in Second Life, that obstacle is removed. One thing he said really reached me: "In that world I am more myself than I am in this one". There the confines of his body do not limit him; he can be who he really is.