Will Self: PsychoGeography

A ghost in the machine

I wonder, can you read this? By which I mean to say: am I being heard? Because that's what we all really care about, isn't it, being heard, our words having value through their being understood by another? A few months ago, I probably would've said "another human being"; however, I'm not so sure whether I know what that means anymore, or indeed, if I'm one myself.

Let me explain. We all know that 2006 has been the year for user-generated web content: all those snapshots of gurning teenagers, all those belligerent bloggers' opinions. The internet is a worldwide corkboard, on to which are tacked the reminder notes of millions. How can the common hack stand his ground in such a deluge of self-publishing? I began to feel exiguous: a ghost in the machine of my own literary production. Worse than that, I also started to feel insubstantial in the domestic sphere: my children looked through me, my wife - on one, chilling occasion - reached for the salt and was surprised to find my torso in the way.

Depressed, I took to spending more and more time shut up in my room, surfing the web. I bought more books than anyone could read - even in a lifetime. I sold my toenail clippings on eBay. I hung out in chat rooms. None of it worked; I was, if anything, more insignificant than ever. Then I discovered Second Life, a virtual world. Second Life - for those of you who are pig-ignorant Neanderthals - is an online, three-dimensional society, created by its own residents. To play, you log on and create your own "avatar", an idealised version of yourself, who can act out your fantasies in this shiny, pixellated realm.

Second Life's creator, Philip Linden, has said that he wanted to create a world "better than reality, but without political or religious issues". I say, why the qualifier, Phil? Because a world without political and religious issues is, ipso facto, far better than a miserable, hate-fuelled dirt ball, with spit-streaked pavements and rubbish-strewn hospital wards. And while we're at it, why not a world without real sexual issues either? For, certainly, Second Life conforms to this ideal. I mean, you could try and get it on with your fellow avatars; but why bother, when the experience offers all the sensory delights of caressing a microwave oven with an oven glove.

I took to Second Life like a duck to clay shooting. I bought a bundle of "Linden dollars" (the local currency), leased a condo and set about establishing my avatar (Dirk Bignib) as a writer. I discovered, joyously, that shorn of the complicating factors - such as sex, religion and politics - which in the "real" world rendered my fiction off-putting to the majority of book-buyers, I was able to churn out highly successful novels. Of course, Dirk Bignib is altogether without the feeble, left-wing scruples that made earning a lot of money from trash seem vulgar to "Will Self"; and Second Life, being a defiantly capitalistic sort of place, gave me plenty of opportunities to spend my money on covetable major brands such as Sony and Nike.

Within six months of joining Second Life, I was earning more money from my writing there than I was on Earth. Better still, I'd given up smoking. (By this, I mean Dirk Bignib didn't smoke; "Will Self" was still puffing away like a trooper, and becoming increasingly emaciated, since he couldn't leave his keyboard to eat, or wash, or even shit.) Staggering downstairs from another 87-hour session in Second Life, I encountered my wife (at least, I think it was her, she seemed so unreal); she looked at the skinny, hairy travesty of my "body", and whispered: "I do not know you".

I took this as a green flag to carry on. By last month, I was spending almost my entire time in Second Life, only coming back to the dull, old first world to grab the occasional bowl of Alpen. Then, horror of horrors, tragedy struck. One morning, leaving my beautifully appointed condo, and about to step into my bright red BMW, I, Dirk Bignib, chanced to look up at the sky, and saw hanging there a terrifying apparition, with a long beard and wreathed in cloudy vapours. Religion had entered Second Life! I sank to my knees, only to realise that far from being a sky god, this was none other than my discarded "human" visage, looking into my virtual world.

Still screaming, I drove to the nearest cyber-café, slung the clerk a couple of Lindens and logged on to my server. I've no idea whether it's possible to send an e-mail from a virtual world to a real one, but it has to be worth a try. You see, I'm trapped in here, a pathetic victim of my own search for significance. But then you understand that, don't you...? Don't you...? Don't ...