Confession: I’m big on Jung, universal archetypes, lucid dreaming, dream interpretation. I’ve seen a Jungian for a bit not because I’ve got a dislocated psyche (OK, true, maybe I just need to keep digging), but because through analysis of dreams and the sub-conscious I get to understand my “story” better, the masks I wear, my place in this bigger scheme of things.

I’m also big on Joseph Campbell. Universal narratives. The power of storytelling.

So I run across Second Life, quite by accident, and the power to assume whatever identity we wish. To join whatever community we feel comfortable in, to build whatever dream we wish to build. And it strikes me that there might be a new language here for learning about ourselves, and perhaps even new source material for universal archetypes (or new expressions of old ones).

The other night I’m at Glass Earth and someone approaches me and asks to take my photo. It came out something like the one above.

I let them, we get talking about why she wants the photo, and she says she’s collecting photos for a blog on interesting fashion and modes of identity. She asks me, as polite as can be, “um and what are you exactly”.

Well, I’m not quite sure how to answer. I mean, a friend said that I looked like a tweaked out meth addict with a bad dye job. Not that I disagree. I mean, judge for yourself:

We got into a discussion about identity. About “Neko-ism” which I can’t say I understand so much as relate to the aesthetic, and I ended with a vague reply that the visual appearance of my avatar (the way I appeared at the time in any case, as I was looking more extreme than usual) worked for me on several levels:

- It’s anti-social in most social situations. Go to a bar dressed like this and you don’t get many messages, which suits me just fine. People in bars tend to all look the same anyways and have about as varied a world view.
- It’s a tribute to creativity – not to me, maybe, but to the people who make such cool stuff. If I saw a weird back pack or belt I can’t help it, I buy it – I don’t think I’ve been in a “normal mall” on months. Why buy something you can get at Sears? I’d rather be wearing something you’d get arrested for in RL.
- It’s my Jungian “other”. What I want right now, consciously and sub-consciously, whether in a partner or in coming to terms with myself, is to let the creative, rule breaking, norm-defying, adventurer/hero have permission to go a bit wild and carve out some new terrain.

We explore Jung’s “other”  in our avatars, in the houses we build, the places we hang out. Right now, it seems, the other i’m trying to find communion with is in serious needs of a bath, a hair cut, and a clean pair of underwear.