50 reasons why you should quit your real life and stick to Second Life

Here's me and my big mouth. Last week Prad Prathivi shared some thoughts of why bloggers blog and how they shape the perception of SL, as well as about his own motivation:

"When I start talking about the joys of Mono over LSL, I’ve run out of things to say and you can declare this blog dead."

In the comments I mentioned that I disagree with this statement, and that I look forward to an article on his view of LSL vs. Mono. And I was careless enough to challenge him:

"What about a challenge, our own personal Mix’n'Match? You write an article about Mono vs. LSL, and you assign me a topic too."

Well, here I am, with a topic assigned by Mr. Prathivi himself. Being an immersionist myself, and using Second Life as escapeism to get an hour of peace a day from a stressful and challenging RL situation, that should not be too hard actually....

"The problem is all inside your head" she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to ...."

1. You can live your goddamn dream and be whatever you want to be, any shape, size, color, gender, race, species, any occupation, morale, ethics
2. You are as young, old, athletic, fat, tall, short, etc. as you like
3. All clothes fit, there are no annoying and over eager store clerks trying to talk you into ill fitting overprices items that need to be cleared
4. You can cam around, and don't need mirrors to see the back of your head
5. You don't need to eat, drink or dispose of your bodily wastes (unless you want to do all of this)
6. That was 10% already - that's not too bad
7. Number 6 was cheating, so I should come up with 52 :-(
8. SL money gets you farther than RL money (at least in my case)
9. You can die and ressurrect (and even reincarnate) at will
10. No communicable diseases (unless you count treasure-hunt-fever), in fact no diseases at all (unless you count inventory loss)
    
11. You can fly
    
12. You can be an architect, clothing designer, photographer, engineer, photomodel or any other high profile occupation and gather worldwide audience - while theoretically this is possible in RL as well, it usually is hard for people at the age of typical SL residents
13. You don't have to pay taxes (tier is in fact more a rent)
14. Your government has no stoopid ideas of invading other countries for dubious reasons, or helping other countries to do the same, or generally stoopid ideas regarding other governments/countries/religious or social beliefs/etc.
15. Your government has no smart ideas either, now that I think about it
16. We have a government? I thought it was a dictatorship, or maybe a monarchy...
17. Your penis is detachable, and you can exchange it for the latest model easily. In case you are of the female persuasion, replace "penis" with skin/hair/pubic hair/pussy/nipples/tail/ears/whiskers/wings ... or keep the penis
18. Getting tattooed out of a whim did not necessarily involve having been to a shady bar near the harbor, is less painful (except for your wallet) and can be reverted easily
19. You can walk through walls: on purpose using a non-phys vehicle, or for the fun challenge called "sim crossing"
20. You can ski, snowboard, paraglide, parachute, scuba dive, etc. without risking your physical health, spending a fortune or train for many years sacrificing your youth to over ambitious parents
21. You can do business with half naked demonesses, catpeople, aliens, robots, faeries, etc. and nobody is surprised or questions your mental health
22. Photographing is cheaper than in RL (yes, do the math)
23. This one is courtesy of Rika Watanabe: Making SL shopping eat you out of house and home takes some real determination.
24. Nobody worth mentioning cares if you are gay, lesbian, polyamorous, into BDSM or all of it together - in fact being plain vanilla seems rather the exception
25. You can have friendships and partnerships (business and intimate) with people from all over the world. While this is technicaly possible in RL as well, it is much harder to pull off.
26. Sunshine and beaches 365 days a year, even without living in the Carribean (not coutning the Christmas craze) - in fact do your own wheather
27. Teleporting - how could I forget that
28. You can have cheap entertainment by going to places with advanced newbies and switching transparencies on to see what attachments they "proudly" wear
29. You can do swordfights, firefights and all other type of combat with your best friend without having to answer embarrasing questions to their weeping SO afterwards
30. Shameless publicity plug while I think of better answers: jewellery is much more affordable
31. Having breasts bigger than your head, or having shoulders broader than a quarterback's in full armor, supported by a waist thin as your wrist doesn't hurt anywhere as much as it should.
32. For men: your erection stands tall as long as you wish, and you can climax as many times in a row as you want
33. For women: you can have sex while being on the phone with one of the girls.... erm...
34. Most shops give you a free sample of their merchandise, to keep and use as long as you wish
35. Banks and stock exchanges are greedy, dubious at best, and game with your money - while this stands true in RL as well, there is no need to keep up the facade in SL
36. Marriage and divorce are significantly cheaper, and do not involve a bureaucratic nightmare
37. Also no bureaucratic nightmares for building your house, boat, plane, prison, temple, weaponry, shop or any other abonimation you might come up with
38. Mute/Eject/Ban gets you effective peace from stalkers and other annoying creatures without the need to hire hitmen or lawyers
39. Vampires ask politely and "no" is an answer
    
40. You can talk to n people simultaneously with each of them assuming they have your full attention (where n determines on your stack depth and multitaksing capacities - n=2 for me, your milage may vary)
41. Nobody can force you to do anything! (Except land owners can force you to leave, and Lindens can force you to probably everything)
42. You can have your breakfast in a space station, your lunch in Barcelona, and your dinner in Middle Earth without wondering all the time how to get out of the straight jacket.
43. You can sit on a crocodile, ride a bird, stand in a lava stream and shop in the clouds
44. You can BUILD a crocodile, a bird, a lava stream or open a shop in the clouds
45. You can have a lot of fun having little or no money - if you are smart and ressourceful nobody will even notice
46. There are no insurance agents and used car salespeople
47. There are no elections that really change things - just fashion/design/business related elections. However one can doubt if elections in RL really change things either...
48. Courtesy of Trinity Dechou: you don't need to move when getting a coffee
49. Courtesy of Rika again: This is a world that can be saved, which, for the other one, is not certain.
50. You can directly speak to SLebrities - they still can chose to ignore you, but there are no layers of agents/secretaries/managers/etc. between you and them
51. You can BECOME a SLebrity, and all it takes is skills and communication talent (skip the skills for some SLebrities)
52. Don't dream it - be it!

On a personal note: My first life is subject to many challenges, including a special condition of a person close to me, which makes the daily life very hard. My second life gives me a lot of things that my first life does not provide, among others respect, appreciation and wealth. Leading my second life is an act of escapeism for me. An hour or two of peace a day, an hour or two of life how I wish it to be . Naturally more than once I have thought how it would be to fully live in SL. There were moments where I would have happily sacrificed my atomic existence had a scientist offered me to transfer my mind into SL. But in fact my second life helps me with coping with my first life better. It helps me with my self esteem issues, it helps me with my shyness, it helps me with discovering my strenghts. I consider myself an immersionist, but the effect Second Life has on me is an augmentistic one. Leading a second life has a therapeutic and positive effect on my first life. Use Second Life as a tool. Live your goddamn dream!