Virtual Garden?

Today in the virtual world of email, I was called a ‘racist’ and accused of supporting the right wing. Today in the real world of daily living I was thanked and smiled at by a number of persons.

I have noticed that people in the virtual world more readily and vehemently agree or disagree than they do in the real world of face to face conversation. There is more gray in the real world. Everything seems more black or white in the virtual world.

Today in the real world I made a commitment to a friend of a friend to have him build a stone wall around the raised garden in front, a financial step that further commits me to the project. This was not as simple as ordering something in the virtual world, but I purchased something, time and labor and materials that could not be bought (at least not easily) in the virtual world.

This commitment to the front lawn garden will mean physical work and sweat on my behalf, unlike commitments I have made to help friends create wiki web pages in the virtual world of web.

Actually the real world and virtual world are not so far apart. Often I move from the computer to the garden and back to the computer. However, in the real world of everyday life it is tough to escape from harsh realities, while in the virtual world it is easy, just open up a joke, play a game or cruise the net.

I feel myself more called to the real world of nature and imagination, working in the garden or reading a book. But I am more seduced by the virtual world. The virtual world is here to stay, and can really enhance the real world in so many ways when we use it and are not used by it.

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