AlisonJamesArt
Explorer of physical and virtual environments, an adventurer of the mind and a creator of fantastical things
Every Great Dream Begins with a Dreamer
“Soul, I Hear You Calling.”
Mangrovejane Resident
Digital Online Photography
6016px x 3316px
Some days I sit at my desk and I dream. Sometimes I dream of a new beginning, new people, new adventures. Sometimes I dream of lines and shapes and colours. Sometimes I walk forest paths or sit quietly on beaches. Sometimes I sit in libraries surrounded by the great repository of knowledge accumulated from the minds of people who can write much better than I. I once dreamed of a life filled with the practice of art and music and adventuring in worlds I could not even imagine…That was a great dream.
Mostly I dream of a peace so overwhelmingly thorough in its tender regard that I long wholeheartedly to sink into the rest it promises me in whispers. These dreams are wistful yearnings for a gentler existence perhaps. Or for just a moment to cease the hectic rush of the everyday. It is precious, that moment. Rare. Cherished for its infrequent visitations and beloved for its lingering embrace.
That, I think, is what is found in Chouchou. Horizons that stretch out endlessly and a minimalist aesthetic combined with beautifully produced and soulful music returning me to that space where I am for a moment at rest. A moment where as a dreamer, I can dream freely, thoughts wandering uninhibited and uninterrupted. It is also a moment where a dreamer DID dream and that vision is what we are privileged enough to experience here.
I read in a Oema’s Blog post, “Chouchou will be closed soon…unless…” , that as the title suggests, the Sim will soon be closed. It is the way of online worlds that the places within it are fleeting and ephemeral. They are the dreams and thoughts and visions of people brought for a moment into existence. Appearing, they wonder and delight us, and disappear again leaving their presence embedded within the reality that we hold within us.
We can see the vision within other people. Comments on social media, forums and Oema’s blog post attest to the many moments people have spent within this place, the memories and also to the grief people feel at the loss of the Sim. This place has been REAL. It has lived. It has had an existence and the possibility of its loss reminds us that the realities built within online worlds are tenuous and impermanent on a much quicker time scale than in the physical world. It conjures up an existential dread that we don’t want to acknowledge because if we acknowledge it, it breaks into the immersion we want from online worlds.
There may also be a chance that Chouchou stays for a little longer should the processes of the world be in its favour as we can see from this post in New World Notes. Or the cycle will rumble on and this dream will fade but somewhere, someone is dreaming of a new dream, a new reality, a new place with new moments…
But either way, we will be reminded that Every Great Dream Begins with a Dreamer…
“Every Great Dream Begins With a Dreamer.”
Mangrovejane Resident
Digital Online Photography
6016px x 3316px
AlisonJamesArt 
Gorgeous photos!
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