A Sojourner Passes

We are all sojourners merely passing through this planet, but there are some people who leave the world a better place than how they found it. The Sojourner (Karen Derk Gans in real life) was one of those special people. Soj (as she was called by friends) passed from real life suddenly on May 25th of cardiac arrest, leaving behind a husband and son. Aside from her real-life achievements, she left a wonderful virtual world of accomplishments within Second Life you can see on the "Dreams" sim, a learning community for new residents to get help on building and other SL features, and a support community for victims of stroke. Herself a stroke victim, The Sojourner was able to muster the energy and the positivity to build something to help many others, and there was an outpouring of informal memorials and several organized events to mark her second life.

I first met The Sojourner years ago in an earlier Second Life, when private islands were rare, and when I had posted an offer for land for a non-profit community. The Sojourner was the first person in Second Life to present very visually to me both the great possibilities of SL, but also its limitations. She had been involved in Brigadoon, I believe, a very early sim that was a support community, but creating a protective space had been far easier in the earliest days of more likeminded creative people. By late 2004 and 2005, lots more griefing began to happen and just lots more curious flying newbs. The Sojourner explained to me that with vulnerable people recovering from stroke, they could not have a situation where there would be griefing, intrusions, randomness, etc. So on the one hand, the beauty of the mainland was that you could have serendipity, chance meetings, educating people who fly by, but you would have less control. I had never thought about any of these things until I perceived the virtual world through her eyes.

On her island, I believe Soj sought to combine the best of both the openness of SL and control to make the experience more optimal for everyone who came.

She once took part in a very contentious "events" group formed by Robin Linden to address changes to the events calendar, and was also well-known for putting on building contests and of course the annual fair for non-profits in SL. I took part in them at first, but then we parted ways. I simply disagreed with the way she was doing some things, but didn't care to press it. I respect that when someone is driven, and has to muster all their energy and time to accomplish something, they cannot be compromising, and have to simply ignore or tune out things that don't fit, or don't work for them and the people they chose to work with. That's often how people get things done in SL -- it has its pluses and minuses. The fact is, the very openness and collaborative possibility of SL and all its variations impose their own necessity of having to chose, and sometimes chose rigidly -- this group of people, not that. This way, not that. This concept, not that -- or else you are overwhelmed, and don't accomplish something. It's a curious paradox. Everybody has to pursue the path that works for them, to find the fine line between possibility and chaos.

The death of a real person behind an avatar is always a jarring experience in SL. Someone mounted a screenshot that sums up the eeriness -- that line that you see when you try to IM someone -- "The Sojourner is Offline." And now, sadly, offline for good. Back in Second Life, her work is vibrant, rich, interactive, as if she is everywhere, in the round, alive still in her sim.

In real life, when someone dies, you are often left with a disaster scene -- a sick room, oxygen cannisters, an emergency room in the hospital, a car wreck, an empty chair where someone blown away in Baghdad used to sit. There is destruction, a gap, a loss. It takes awhile for those surviving to pick up the pieces, to show the life of the person who died, to find the pictures that best display their achievements, to find their writings or hand-made items or snapshots of their grandchildren. It can often take the month's mind or even a year to assemble a memorial, not only due to grief, but because it can take awhile to look back and compose a portrait of a life.

Not so in Second Life. In Second Life, your life is constant, visible, engaging -- even after you die. It's not only your builds or your terraforming or your art work or your help manuals -- all of which The Sojourner left behind as visible testimonies -- but the bustle of a sim and a community, bulletin boards about contests, prizes given to past winners, direction posts, notecard givers and takers -- traffic. Instantly, flying around someone's sims and their Second Life's work, you can see everything about the world they created out of pixels, out of nothing -- yet making everything for many people who spend time online, enriching them to the fullest.

These are the questions that a life lived such as Soj lived her Second Life:

What kind of life will you lead? Will you leave a lot of empty or facile memorials?

Or will you touch thousands of lives, so that people leave a rainstorm of comments about what you meant to them?

A lot will depend as much as what you chose not to do, as much as what you chose to do.

Comments

[ichabod Antfarm]

I did not know The Sojourner. Your words made me wish I had.

It isn't "just a game", is it?

Thank you, Prokofy.

[Skylark Thibedeau]

Its far from a game. Since I started I've met 3 people behind the avi's who were dying in real life and indeed one just passed on May 28th. Indeed one of the Vulcan's in a Trek sim I frequent suffered a stroke in real life out of the blue and like Tim Russert today passed on to the Third Life unexpectedly.

Second Life is a great way to have one more chance to live a 'normal' life before passing out of first life. A very good way to say "Goodbye".

I'm currently writing a story where a multiverse philanthropist who is dying tries to keep her work alive by training a noob to take over her life. I hope to explore issues of life and death if only for my own enjoyment.

[Vulcan Viper]

I can only echo the words of ichabod Antfarm. Do you, Prokofy, remember where the first picture was taken? If not, then does any reader recognize the location?

Sojourner,
I offer you a Vulcan Prayer:
May your death bring you the peace you never found in life.

[Prokofy Neva]

The first picture was taken on the sim Sojourner used to run. I don't know if this is still kept up. For awhile the group did keep running it.