I’ll Never Be a Builder

If Crap Mariner is correct, I am constitutionally unable to be a builder. Oh, I may indeed build and enjoy it. But Crap froze my soul today in his “Prim Waste” post:

The Law Of Building: Each prim has to carry its own weight or it’s GONE.

There is NO way that I can follow that maxim the way I think Crap means it.   If he means that each prim must be functional, I’m jumping off that bandwagon.   I am motivated by appearances, not functionality.  (Oh my, does that make me sound totally shallow or what?)   I have been playing with my office in SL.  I was given a maximum prim count and then told it would be best if I kept way below that. I keep adding things.  They aren’t things that I NEED. They are things that LOOK good to me. I added an armillary. It seemed appropriate somehow. I’ve added flowers to my desk and credenza. They don’t DO anything but please me. I like to have flowers in my RL office too. I suppose you could argue that their function is to lighten my spirits and to provide a pleasant and therefore productive work environment. Is that carrying “its own weight”?

I still mourn the loss of my gardens. I know, they weren’t that good. But to me – they were beautiful. They were really the first thing that I felt I created, that were “mine”, that were “me”. I lavished so much time and effort on planting each flower just so. A tree here, some rocks. I spent so much time arranging the pile of rocks at the base of the bridge. Placing the reeds and the grasses. Building trellises to climb the wall. For no reason other than to make it pleasing to the eye. I understood why they had to go. I felt the lag. But. /me shakes head – frustrated. I want a world where I DON’T have to count prims!!!!! I want as many flowers and shrubs and rocks and ducks in my virtual world as I have in my RL. (Okay, I don’t have ducks in my RL, but you KNOW what I mean.)

I have a friend who is recreating a lighthouse in opensim. He COULD do this faster with prims that are textured to LOOK like many prims. But he is actually using individual prims for each piece of siding, each link in the fence. Using individual prims changes how the build looks – how light reflects, the feel of the build. I’ll be taking pictures and posting more about the lighthouse. In his case, I suspect that every prim DOES pull its weight. But for me – well, my RL garden is crammed full of flowers too. (cuts down on the weeds! *grin*) Thank goodness there is no prim limit in RL.