I'm not a big fan of schools, but the first lecture I received at school, aged 12 and knowing not one person in the whole 1800 pupils, stuck in my terrified mind. The headmaster told us all that we had the choice in life of being drivers, or being passengers in the train of life. I've always been headed for the front of the train, not due to any particular ambition or application controlled by me, but by an eldest child's natural leaning towards taking responsibility ... something I really don't feel I can take the credit for.

I was reminded of that lecture when I saw Erbo Evan's blog, called Evans Avenue Exit, in which he talks about SL culture. His motto at the top of the page reads: "On the road of Second Life there are passengers and there are drivers. Erbo Evans has a Chrysler that's as big as a whale and it is about to set sail...Welcome to your Second Life." This is all a bit blog-cannibalistic as he in turn refers to Tateru's article on New World Notes. Over there she writes, and Erbo quotes:

"You and me, we had a culture. Maybe it was a good one, maybe it wasn't. But it's gone now, for better or worse. By sheer numbers, these new women and men are Second Life. They outnumber us, and they will be the ones to make or break the world. They don't know who Aimee Weber is, or Anshe Chung, or Starax Statosky or Prokofy Neva or Torley Linden. They'll likely never even hear the word "FIC" during the rest of their second lives. The tax protests will probably not even register as a curiosity."

I think she has it exactly wrong. I'm not saying that those names or events or concepts will have any relevance to the people joining SL -- but nor did they ever, for a vast proportion of the SL citizenship. The point about SL is that it is different for everyone, just like real life. There has been a huge influx of people over the last couple of months, but those people are the same as you and me. They have their own reasons for being here, and their own reasons for wanting a Second Life, just like you and me.

I'm pretty shocked that someone who is famous for her work as a mentor, should have these attitudes to new people, as though they are a threat to the Second Life that the old-timers have had. I think that SL is in a constant state of change, with new experiences and new places being added all the time -- and that's a good thing, not a bad one.

As a Brit of a certain age, reading Erbo Evans's blog made me feel undereducated in e-culture. There are all sorts of references I don't understand, it makes me feel lost in a foreign land, totally. Possibly this is the way Americans feel when we Europeans refer to Agincourt or the Hundred Years War or the defenestration of Prague.

At the core of how our Second Life pans out, is how we are, at heart, in Second Life. I was helped enormously by people in my first few weeks of being in-world, probably more than most because I had entered and won a place in the first Game Developers contest within a couple of weeks of joining.

I have always tried to pass on that help and encouragement to the people who follow on behind, and when they ask what they can do in return for me, I have always asked them to pass it on -- not to repay me, but to give a helping hand to those who come after them. In this way there is an unbroken chain of caring and assistance which stretches from the first people I met, who helped me, to the very newest one, who is helped by someone who was helped by someone who was helped by someone I helped.

Second Life restored my faith in human nature. The people I have met who have been greedy or dishonest are far, far, far outweighed by those who are generous with their time and expertise, or who will share with you what they make, where they live, and what they have learned in the world of Second Life.

Those things are what I consider to be the culture of Second Life, and those won't change if we don't change them. I spent part of last night dancing with people who have come into Second Life in the last month, and they're no different from the people I have helped over the past two and half years. They're friendly, curious, creative, a bit stunned by the possibilities, and looking for their place in Second Life.

There has always been commerce in Second Life, from the moment that those Linden Lab employees started playing with snowmen and everyone began to realize that this was something that might sell to people. The difference in SL is that it's a level playing field: there's no reason why my flexi-prim skirt shouldn't be as successful as clothes by a big in-world name, or a big commercial name that moves in on SL, because there are no factories to be built, no materials to be bought, and no advertising that works on people who are determined to ignore it.

Thinking of culture in a more specific sense, of the art and history of SL, those things can't be cast in stone in SL any more than they can in real life. They are dynamic and ever-changing things, no matter whether you have a fairly steady population or a massively changing one. Anything else is death.

Should those of us who have been around longer expect that our names should mean anything to new people? No. Because you can be sure that among the million or so who have joined since the beginning of the year, there will be people who can outshine us all -- even Starax, my hero. What I love about Second Life includes the people I get the chance to meet, and the egalitarian nature of SL. I don't want any special treatment because I am three years old in February, and I wouldn't like anyone who thought they deserved special treatment from me because they're older.

The things we have done in the annals of SL will become part of the warp and weft -- as my proteges gain proteges of their own, things will change and adapt, we shall change and adapt, and the history, the names, the creations will be woven into the ever-growing patchwork of our Second Lives. And as you recount your stories of the FIC, or the tax protests, or how confusing it is to have genitals that talk, and how cloaks were made in the time before flexi, you are contributing to it.

As you reap, so shall you sow, and so the best and most effective way to keep the culture of Second Life is to be the change you want to see. Treating people the way you want to be treated, offering help and assistance to those who need it, and opening your arms to the new people, new experiences, and new opportunities which they offer. That's just the way it has always been.