Unmasking Reality in Virtual Worlds

I was thinking this morning about the connecton between cyberspace and theatre again. It's amazing how much of my life is spent in relationship to these intangible realities. Both are virtual worlds, mirroring what actually exists before disappearing when the stage or monitor lights are turned off. Sometimes I chastize myself for getting lost in these illuminated reflections. Acting on the stage or designing interactions in cyberspace can be an escape from experiencing the joy and tribulations of the ordinary world And yet, without the virtual, I canot see. It is the power of reflection in virtuality that awakens my ability to see reality.

I want to peer into the depths of existence - to know the real world hidden underneath the ordinary world. I am particularly curious to understand how I buffer myself against directly experiencing that reality. I wear so many masks, that I am often only the shell of a person, engaged with another shell. But when I step onto the stage or drop into cyberspace, my delusions and ideals collide with each other. The false constructs that defend against anything real are actually undone by my flight into the virtual. The virtual doesn't support the fantasy, it breaks it. As the light of the real pierces through the cracks in my mask, it dissovles the surface and I contact the real world.

Strange, this interplay. The ordinary world is so clouded that I have to enter into the virtual worlds to find the real world. That is why I love them. They help me to see the real world so often obscured by the ordinary. Each awakening of the real changes me. It allows me to see the real in the ordinary more clearly. This constant interplay between the imagined and the real in the virtual mirrors our own condition as human beings. They arise and dissappear as quickly as the impermanence of our lives.