All my life I'd always had a fear of ending up on the streets, of becoming a bag lady - you know the old lady who trundles around the streets with all her belongings in plastic bags and wearing all her clothes at once; a homeless old soul, sad and mad.
When I was doing my PhD at university I discovered an interesting fact that many of my single (female) colleagues shared this fear. It drove us to take as much teaching work as we could manage, while still working on our various projects. Our male colleagues didn't have that fear, interestingly. I'd wondered about this fear so often that when I joined the computer generated virtual environment that is Second Life I thought I'd examine it more closely, examine my repulsion, attraction (for that was in "there" as well) and the nitty gritty of the anxieties that drove it. So I found a disgusting old skin and shape (not easy to locate in this virtual space because most people like beautiful bodies and that's what are in the marketplace) and clothed her in unmatching rags and took her to fashionable places where she'd sit or just get in people's way. Every avatar avoided her. I could barely stand being her, but I stuck with my discomfort (through upwelling nausea) and after 3 consecutive evenings I completely lost my fear.
Part of my bag-lady fear was a money anxiety so profound that I couldn't invest money, but had to have it available - at hand - in short term deposits (a bank equivalent of money under the mattress). I'd been to a financial adviser a year or so previously, but couldn't go ahead with the plan she drew up. After the bag-lady experiment I felt able to return to the financial adviser, draw up another plan, and invest my money properly.
The bag lady experiment was a success and alerted me to other useful experiments. I intend to use this blog to write about some of these.
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