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Jul 15, 2011

Absence due to RL

Some people wonder why I haven't been in SL for so long, and when I was, why it was only for a short time. And why I only post one or two posts in forums approximately per day and forum while it was about a dozen each in the past.
It has a very good reason: my prolonged use of the computer (and I've done nearly everything with on the computer for way more than a decade now: writing, watching TV and videos, listening to music or spoken word, editing pictures, writing, reading, discussing in forums, translating, GIMP, writing, ordering things on the internet, online banking, (did I mention I use to write a lot?), and now SL and the things I do in and about this virtual world) - together with a weakened health  which I haven't realized until I got my blood checked --- finally led to the dreaded RSI.
 To avoid pain despite prescribed meds against it, I'm damned to work as slow as a snail on the computer, considering all the breaks inbetween: so slow that even this short post took me a half hour so far. Can you imagine what this means for SL where your mouse and your keyboard is (usually) in nearly constant usage? Where you can't even walk without using the keyboard, or build without using the mouse? Where you can't even look around or talk or teleport or whatever without  using keyboard and/or mouse?
The last time when I was online, I said "I come back later, when I feel like being up to it".…
… but when you are a writer and illustrator and translator like me, when all your work and creativity is related to WRITING and/or using the computer, AND then you get RSI and in the evening or after your work's done you just want to rest your wrists and do nothing at all for a while, but still reply to posts in forums and have some rest again,  then even this beautiful great even more interactive virtual world Second Life you miss so very much becomes a place you avoid. you avoid it simply to avoid the pain that comes by interacting.
I will be back again, but I can't say yet when that will be exactly. Currently I'm glad to just so manage my RL tasks, I even rejected translation jobs because they would have demanded even more typing.
So, being a writer, what do I do without typing? Well, I learned that writing by hand (pen on paper) does not inflict that much pain, so I still can work on my stories or draw illustrations for them, so there is progress (though this progress is very slow, and my waste paper bucket gets full very fast).

kueperpunk: Sich mit virtuellen Welten zu beschäftigen ist ja so uncool...

kueperpunk: Sich mit virtuellen Welten zu beschäftigen ist ja so uncool...