Looking for Gold

When I'm greeting newbies, and answering questions, chatting with them, and teaching them things, I'm looking for gold. I don't mean that I'm looking for that one golden newbie in a hundred who comes in, and turns out to be choice-pickings from the outset. They're easy to find. They shine bright from the outset, and they will do well, whatever happens.

I mean I'm looking for gold inside each and every one of them. Everyone's different, everyone's an individual, everyone has worthy (and unworthy) qualities. Generally that gold is hidden away. Hidden beneath a layer of unfamiliarity with online environments, unfamiliarity with SL's interface, with SL's slang and it's subcultures, mores and manners.

Sometimes it's hidden behind silence. Sometimes it's hidden behind jokes or boisterousness. Whatever it is, and whatever conceals it, every new person who rezzes in brings something unique to SL. Not every one of them will become a resident. SL is not to everyone's tastes.

When you see a newbie; When you answer their questions; When you give them advice; When you just see them stumbling around, trapped in a box, or accidentally naked, or lagged and walking into people; remember that you were once them. Everything you know about SL is more than they know about SL. Remember that there's a real person at a keyboard somewhere in the world. Someone worth knowing. Someone who might change your world. Someone who has something that we have not had in SL yet...their own self.