Clearly, Rissa is beautiful. Otherwise, who would want to publish a coffee table book of her pictures? But there's no end to the number of gorgeous, sexy avatars in Second Life, so her beauty isn't what sets Rissa apart, what makes people want to spend time with her, want to photograph her and publish books about her.SETTING RISSA APART
Rissa is special because through the medium of Second Life – in other words, a handicapped text chat interface – she projects extraordinarily human qualities of warmth, intellect, helpfulness, and humor. Well, I guess SL is more than text chat – I'm thinking now of the time I was stumbling around Dobbs Island in the dark showing it to my 16-year-old triplets, who were looking over my shoulder. I bumped into Rissa while she was working, preparing for some upcoming client presentation. No sooner had she heard my kids were watching than she whipped a dragon out of her inventory and offered me a ride. "Oh my God Dad, you have the coolest friends!" Tony (the middle child) said, as we flapped along high above the landscape. (Rissa's blog is on the Dobbs Life 2.0 Web site.)
Rissa will help anyone with anything; I couldn't have survived in SL without her help, which continued unabated even after I left the employ of CMP, the company that pays her to bring her special brand of magic to their SL endeavors. But she's no pushover – her weapons arsenal makes short work of any griefers (SL terrorists) who show up at Dobbs Island. Her "unofficial" title is DDI Security Officer. Rissa was the second avatar I met in Second Life. Lindying with her on the Dobbs beach to the tune of "In The Mood" is something I will never forget (in RL I couldn't Lindy, not even at gunpoint).
THE IDENTITY DISCUSSION
Notice I haven't mentioned Kim Smith, the human life force behind Rissa Maidstone. That's because I didn't even know her name for months after I met Rissa, and I still think of Rissa only as Rissa, and I'm barely aware of a human named Kim and I'm always a little surprised and weirded out when someone mentions this Kim person I've never met (though I wonder how that makes Kim feel!).
But the fascinating part of last Tuesday's discussion centered around the interaction between Kim and Rissa – the humanity that Kim brings to Rissa and the life lessons that Rissa has brought to Kim. What follows are excerpts from the text chat interview between Kim-Rissa and Rita King, whose SL avatar name is Eureka Dejavu. It's verbatim, but I have distilled it so you don't have to put up with the choppiness and chaos of SL text chat. A bit of background you should know is that an IBMer named Grady Booch commissioned Rita to take one photograph of Rissa for a book he was writing about Second Life, and that commission took on a life of its own to become the forthcoming book.
Eureka Dejavu: The concept of identity and self is the theme of the book. [It's about] building a life across worlds, and capturing the fleeting process of turning one's life into art. I believe we create ourselves as much as circumstance does.
Rissa Maidstone: Rita asked me to put together a list of ideas for themes for the photoshoot. I had to spend some time thinking about things like "What IS Rissa?" What have I created here? Is she part of me in my 1L? Or is she a fantasy? I thought about that for a long time. Rissa is my inner child, my parent, and my adult, all mixed into one. So, the persona she represents truly is me... and more, in a way.
Eureka Dejavu: Has your real life changed as a result?
Rissa Maidstone: Yes my 1L has changed a great deal. I'm becoming a better person in regard to my listening skills, which I value a great deal. In business, if you don't "listen" to your clients, your peers and associates, your success rate tends to be rather low. The other thing that's happened that correlates directly to 1L and into 2L is that, for the last 19 years I've spent my time as a business development or marketing director for engineering and architectural firms. Great industry, but...19 years?
I took a big gamble switching careers and coming to Second Life. I was *not* in the high tech industry, although I'd been intertwined in one way or another – you sort of have to be if you're a marketer or business development person. When I came here, I had no clue what this was all about. I've been a gamer since I was a kid – Zelda ultimately hooked me and it progressed from there. In RL, I had a 2-hour plus commute on a daily basis. It took time away from my personal time, left me no time to be myself, nor to indulge in many of the things I missed out on in my effort to climb the career ladder. And the stress was amazing. You had an 8 a.m. meeting with your officers . . . traffic was bad, raining, you were still 30 minutes out from the City and you *knew* you were going to be late, again. Despite having left 90 minutes ago to travel 17 miles. That's gone now, and I'm loving it.
One of the neat things about SL is that you *can* use your imagination for a much lesser cost than in 1L and try a number of different ideas, before you select. In Second Life, with this ability to "create" a persona, I find that I am able to take time to think before I speak (most of the time) and it's teaching me to keep my mouth shut when normally I'd blurt out exactly what's on my mind.
I also started a fairly strenuous exercise program to get myself as fit as Rissa is. Mind you, I'm not going to achieve that for probably another six months or so, but she's very inspirational. I have time to get myself physically fit again, I've an inspiration in looking at Rissa, my ideas and creativity are once again being fully challenged and darn, if it doesn't work, we delete it, right?
Eureka Dejavu: To me that's one of the most intriguing aspects of virtual worlds, they are training grounds for developing authenticity in our lives. Philip Rosedale [CEO of SL's creators, Linden Labs] told me once that he gets letters from people who have done the same thing; because once you realize that it's possible to create your reality in a virtual world, it seems apparent that the physical world is also an art project. As are our lives.
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