Generosity and the Common Good

Second Life's Namav Abramovic (The physical world's Nick Dupree), with friends. His Second Life efforts and friends have helped to raise awareness of his condition and struggles.


Editor's Note: We're pleased to post this guest blog by SL's Widget Whiteberry about generosity and the common good in the virtual world of Second Life. Widget's first post was the popular report about the Heron Sanctuary.

Generosity and the Common Good

By Widget Whiteberry

A notecard from an contact in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) caught my head and my heart with it's combination of openness and the linking of personal journey, generosity and the recognition of a larger, community good. My first response was delight and reciprocating generosity. I paid out a third of my stash of Linden Dollars (the Second Life currency). Then, I got to thinking about individual acts of kindness and generosity in virtual worlds. These three stand out.

Dear SL Friends,

On Saturday, September 13th, Hung Runningbear's wet machine will be joining 500 other riders and bicycling 100 miles around Lake Cayuga in upstate New York, USA, as a participant in the Southern Tier AIDS Program (STAP) 2008 AIDS Ride for Life. This is an annual fund raising event for STAP's programs, which provide HIV and AIDS support services to people living throughout New York State's Southern Tier.

I am writing to you to ask for your support.

This Summer I've ridden further than since I was 16, and this is my first 100 mile ride ever. Deciding to ride was a goal I set as part of my wish to take responsibility for my own health and well being, but it has grown into a deeper sense of connection with my neighbors and with the community in which we all live. I'm riding as a member of a team and have received so much encouragement and sense of shared purpose through that team's spirit of common determination and joy. My original personal goal has been greatly enriched by the reality that our efforts will help many people whose own health and well being have become daily challenges.

Please support this exciting and life affirming event by giving as much as you can. No amount is too small.

Our team of 12 riders is called the Fall Creek Cats and you can make your tax deductible gift on-line at our giving page at http://www.firstgiving.com/erinmarteal. With just two weeks left before the ride, a swift response would also be greatly appreciated.

If you would rather pay in Lindens, you can pay me directly and I will transfer the funds directly to the ride organizers.

To learn more about the event, visit http://www.aidsrideforlife.org/

Thank you in advance for your help, and please wish us sunny skies and a strong tail wind!

After the ride, I look forward to seeing more of you all.

HRB

From the beginning, SL has been all about generosity; gifts of time and talent. From the first person who walked me through Second Life on the the phone, the second who took me shopping for shoes and hair, to the people who held my virtual hand while I quietly freaked out about continually losing hair in transit, to the friend of nearly a year who is teaching me to stream in audio, or the artist who has painstakingly tutored me on the the ways the user-created environment sets the stage for our SL experiences, SL is full of people who pay it forward. They teach what they know and share what they have. And if their motivations are complex, the results are more people able to use the platform, create content worth experiencing and a growing set of inter-related communities.

But this was something of a different order. This was a call to use SL to improve the common good in our first life worlds. To touch the lives of people we may not know, but whose well being speaks to our own. And it was hardly the first. As an act of not so random kindness, it links in my mind with others:

Jonas Lunasea is a talented vocalist - with a love of jazz and swing - and music teacher. In Second Life he wows a growing audience with his playful versatility and growing repertoire. In his first life, Jonas, two and fellow teachers work with 50+ students from 9 - 80 years. Guest artists come to New Hampshire a couple times a month to do master classes and workshops. While the school makes enough to cover month to month and the minimal cost of teachers, the withdrawal of key patrons created sudden expenses of $3500 US to keep them in their facility.

Hearing about this, fans morphed into patrons and producers, quickly organizing a series of benefit concerts in improbable venues: strip clubs to vampire dens to back yards to a texas roadhouse to a theatre to a live music venue. Jonas emceed, sang and streamed in the live voices of several of his students, bringing cheers of appreciation and ultimately raising 912,000 lindens. Just the needed amount.

Jonas Lunasea: I heard from so many people this past week who had dreams of performing or arts of any kind and gave them up for family or jobs ... they wanted to help out so these kids dont give up on their dreams.
Widget Whiteberry: Do you know any* of these people in rl?
Jonas Lunasea: my sl friends?
Widget Whiteberry: yes
Jonas Lunasea: not one of them....yet they are better friends to me than i have ever known... sl is rl......real emotions real connections ... that's what lifes about... I've never shaken their hands but we are connecting. We are sharing love and connection.

Stay in touch with Jonas and All Access Productions at www.allaccessnh.com and through the Jonas Lunasea Fan Club in Second Life.

Namav Abramovic is the avatar for Nick Dupree, a young man with a boundless desire to contribute to the healing of the world and crippling Muscular Distrophy. At 26, a largely self educated and nationally known disabilities rights activist, he is perhaps best known for preventing the state of Alabama from denying he and his brother the care they required to stay alive when they aged out of the state's care system. In Second Life, he is the founder of Open Gates Peer Support Network, which provides a 24/7 chat and private support channel to people with disabilities. Possibilities in Grassroots Activism Nothing if not enterprising, he DJs in Second Life. And now he is determined to see the reform of Medicaid.

Nick needed to get out of Alabama.

... though his campaign was officially successful, services and supports in Alabama remain abysmal. He receives 16-hours of nursing care per day, and his elderly grandmother covers the remaining hours. The nursing care has been so unreliable, that beginning in 2005 he was unable to continue attending college classes. There is no way to reach his goals of safe independent living in AL, despite his past role as a national advocate.

With his primary caregivers facing age and serious illness, and a brother with nearly identical medical needs, there just isn't enough help to go around. It's become more and more difficult and dangerous for Nick to remain at home. As his support network weakens, he faces institutionalization (or worse) unless he can live in a state with better services.

To that end, Nick launched a broad effort to relocate, and his network of friends and associates have helped him plan and execute a transition to the state of New York. By the end of August, Nick Dupree will enter a rehabilitation hospital, where he can finally begin to receive much-needed services. He can also begin to plan a transition to independent living in New York City, where services are more readily available to people with significant physical disabilities.

Nick's interlocking circles of communities pitched in to 'Help Nick Help Himself,' raising more than $3000 (US) to pay this first round of expenses. His SL friend Aleja Asturias tells me that Nick is settling in at the Coler-Goldwater rehab hospital in NY and doing well. In between periods of intense therapy, life in a hospital is, well, it's a hospital. Aleja visits him nearly every day and is looking for people who can visit often enough to learn to understand language impeded by the vent and the Muscular Dystrophy. Can you be part of that? Contact Aleja at friendsofnick@gmail.com

Follow Nick's story here.

Surely these are more than random acts of kindness. In the 12th century, the Spanish rabbi and philosopher Moses Maimonides described an 8-step hierarchy of giving. Concerned with issues of intention and identity within a community, he defined the least virtuous as giving with reluctance or regret and worked his way up to actions taken to prevent the conditions that would make philanthropy necessary. Number seven is to give in such a way that neither the benefactor nor the recipient know the name of the other. What, I wonder, would he have made of Second Life, which, despite the option of decoupling identify, enhances our ability to overcome despair and anxiety, experience community, connection and a deep sense of kind regard for people we may never see face to face.