I’m particularly struck by the line “You will see the view; please bring your nest”.

Thank you for your poem. I’m glad we can gather here and ignore the shaky logic of the reviewer (as Beyers points out) and remember that we’re on a journey that he might never be able to fully grasp…and which I hope I never can, because I’m less interested in the destination than the journey.

As long as I have cognition,
my tears will flow
of the sorrow, and the missing
inside her soul.

The bird will sing
as long as she will listen,
even when she’s not there,
even as the soft water glistens.

Singing of love, beckoning for love;
a tree where you may rest.
You will see the view;
please bring your nest

Let go your grasp,
spread your wings and fall;
flying will be natural,
as love cannot thrall.

Messrs. Cacioppo and Patrick are too optimistic in believing that their three modes of connection are “highly correlated”: that if you are “happy in one (marriage, say) you tend to be happy in the others.” As E.M. Forster reminded us in “Two Cheers for Democracy,” we may have to betray our country if we are to stay loyal to our friends. Or conversely, as any number of characters in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” discover, we may have to attenuate our relations with a lover or intimate friend if we are to serve our country fully. And as innumerable postcolonial novels emphasize, we may be shunned by our friends and family if we pursue a “forbidden” love outside our community or ethnic group.

OK, so here are some researchers who go to pains to collect empirical evidence convincing them that those who have strong connections of one type have strong connections of another type.

The reviewer’s counterargument? Anecdotes that support his own ideology. And from fiction, no less!

Arrrrgggghh!

In the first part of your comment you’ve touched on something that I think is really critical and deserves a novel let alone a blog post. The concept of acceptance or the almost Buddhist concept of living ‘in’ loneliness in order to simply be…and second, the idea of getting out of the way of our ego, ‘give and ye shall receive’. But regardless, what’s important about it, and why artists are my heroes, is that I resist the temptation to ‘cure’ what is part of our humanity.

A few of my own touch points, since you mention Moore, include Rollo May’s the Courage to Create and Matthew Fox’s Creativity.

And finally I’ll sign off for now with a favorite poem:

We must become ignorant
Of all we’ve been taught,
And be, instead, bewildered.

I have tried prudent planning
Long enough, from now
On, I’ll live mad.

- Rumi

First, is to choose NOT to do anything about one’s loneliness, or rather to accept it, even if momentary. Inside that acceptance it can be a cause to its ending. Or another way of putting it, is to just BE with it, which may eventually reveal the source of ‘it’. Albeit, intimately, in friendships or collectively.

Furthermore, having to find a reason for it is not necessary. To be what you aren’t is to be what you wish. In other words, to not be lonely means to do things that are a cause to others not being lonely. For it’s when we step outside ourselves we become or enter into the collective. After all we are one; essentially, our ego gets in the way of this sense. Offering up ourselves to others brings it back, the trick is to do it in such a way as to not have any expectation of its return.

Moreover, on the subject of artists, and to address your last comment on your post; You are obviously very perceptive. Maybe more than you realize, but I wholeheartedly agree with your comment
“I’m actually proposing, I suppose, two things: one, that virtual worlds are a platform on which you can form community, often geared towards specific tasks or functions, events, or settings. Warcraft, even, and guild raids, say. Or in-world dances, music shows, events. And second, that it can be a site of expression which helps to give us the tools for articulating our sense of self and place.”

To fishtail on this, and take it perhaps deeper, one can relate it to our soul. From an artists perspective, mostly unconscious, and by nature, a true expression of creativity doesn’t follow analysis of who we are or whatever. What does or is a primary cause to expressing something artistically, is almost always from the point of view of suffering. Some refer to this as “A Dark Night of the Soul” (Thomas Moore’s book “Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals) is probably my personal second best book I’ve ever read. In it he relates how even some artists choose to stay inside that suffering, whether it be loneliness or whatever. The point is, an artist wants to be recognized for his/her ability to express what we/they have felt or are feeling. It’s inside this need of recognition, where being social, and relating to others, that has the artist step out of their norm. This is all well and good, and no matter what our profession in life is, everything is a choice in this respect. Our plights in life might seem unfair, not our fault..etc., etc.. But, they happen, and can send us down deep into what feels dark, alone, even depressing or even hopeless.

What I’ve discovered, inside of Second Life, is the commonality of our ordeals in RL. This has helped me understand that I’m not alone; not to confuse this with loneliness. Even when there are many of us in SL that choose, request, disallow a relationship of RL into SL; this is fine from an artistic point of view, but is ultimately impossible. We have to function in RL, to give us the wherewithal to even be in SL. I could go on and on about this, but I don’t want my comments to take on a full post.

Anyway, again great post! I’d like someday to participate in a conversation between you, AM Radio, LightWaves, Eshi Otawara, Bettina Tizzy, Pavig Lok, Vint Falken and some others, and share our varying perspectives on this matter. In closing, I would say we do our best, creatively, when we are alone, and loneliness is only one factor that “might” be a source of that inspiration.

I’m actually proposing, I suppose, two things: one, that virtual worlds are a platform on which you can form community, often geared towards specific tasks or functions, events, or settings. Warcraft, even, and guild raids, say. Or in-world dances, music shows, events. And second, that it can be a site of expression which helps to give us the tools for articulating our sense of self and place.

For me, Second Life is most useful for cultivating a lot of “thin” relationships with several people, similar to online social networks in general. You can quickly get exposed and connected to lots of people around a shared interest or passion.

But for deeper connections to people, I find Second Life to be mostly unsatisfying. I’ve certainly become good friends with people that I have met through SL, but this has been spurred by offline real world interactions over time, not just in-world.

I find that when I am feeling lonely, that being in Second Life can make me feel worse, not better. YMMV.