We are going to talk about rejection. There is a lot of popular thought that would play rejection off as having no real meaning or consequence, but both personal experience and recent scientific research suggests otherwise.

To get to the point, our body-mind, such as it is, has evolved to include in its sense of well-being a sensitivity to others of our own kind, and even by extension, other creatures that we have emotional affinity for. No matter how tough you think you are, or how independent, your root level instincts will automatically trigger when you are confronted with social or romantic rejection. But what is rejection really?

Something that makes us feel we’re not good enough.

Something we use to make choices.

Both are true.

I think it can mean several things. Rejection as in neglect, or rejection as in taking one option over another option. It can also mean active exclusion of something or someone. Human beings have a remarkable capacity for rejection. Other species show the ability to practice rejection, but to a less obsessive degree.

Like when your body rejects a transplanted organ. Indeed, and to run with that image…

Your body doesn’t ask you if you mind, it just does it. Exactly, and in fact, rejection on a social level can work the same way. It often does, really. Recent research has explored the flexibility of not only the self-image, but the more concrete body image as well. On a subconscious level, you come to incorporate what we would consider illogical associations into our body image. This is why you can dream about having strange inclusions in your body like bugs under your skin or some such. Ever have a dream like that?

Like having really big hands? Yes, or even having parts of your body stolen with the notion that you could get them back. Often times the stranger dreams tend to be more difficult to recall when we wake in the morning. But there is a reason we often describe physical intimacy as almost a literal joining of bodies, as well as separation from our intimate partner as if it were the loss of some vital organ, oh, say your heart. We come to identify parts of ourselves with people or events that make that part of ourselves respond. There is a reason for it, and there are real physical consequences to these strange almost metaphysical relationships.

I guess that is why it feels like the end of the world when you are young. Yes. Suffer some cuts and bruises in your life, and given time, you come to stop fearing them.

I think we all have such connections here in the virtual world of Second Life. Even if they aren’t romantic, they are certainly intimate. Yes, social rejection has a comparable impact, and Second Life is almost synonymous with social life as are many social networking programs and on-line sites these days.

I often laugh at how much like high school it can be with groups and exclusive places. Newbies, for instance, still get flack just for being new. We don’t mature as much as people delude themselves they have.

Some people won’t even talk to a new avatar as if they had some deadly disease. Like being foreign, treated like they are human viruses, some go on to act like that.

I love newbies so I guess I have newbie cooties and proud of it. They allow Second Life increased genetic diversity, if you will. Perhaps its primary source of growth and novelty.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~