The Column: Pondering 'life' in the so-called metaverse

How’s reality treating you?

No kidding — life in this dimension working out OK?

Unless you are the type who eagerly anticipates Valentine’s Day lingerie sales or the spectacle of tipsy 20-somethings staggering out of taverns on St. Patrick’s Day, you may need a lift. Winter is upon us; the world grows weary.

Dare to consider: the metaverse.

This is the latest in ersatz existence, a 3-D cyberspace domain where — if its pioneers are successful — we will spend hour after hour shopping, socializing, traveling, playing games and conducting business. Where, fellow space cadets, we will live.

"The metaverse will be as critical as our real world," promises the futurist web publication Predict. "We will soon be living, working, laughing, crying, building relationships, playing games in this simulated reality."

All the everyday activities mentioned above — the shopping, the traveling, the commercial enterprise — should be in quotes, of course, because they will not take place on dear, bedraggled Planet Earth but some artificial intelligence utopia, the great ethereal elsewhere that awaits.

Far out, for sure — the farthest.

Not sold? Paralyzed by the old, postmillennial jitters? Exhausted and had enough?

"Please, stop, awready," I hear you crying. "I don’t know Blu-ray from ‘Blueberry Hill’ and can’t figure how to stream ‘Lucy’ reruns. Alexa talks back to me. Grandchildren text photos I can’t open. I meant to buy only one pair of pajamas online and four arrived. I am worn down, depleted and cannot manage anything else. Mercy."

Sorry. The metaverse moment is nigh.

At least that is the conviction of — are we surprised? — Mark Zuckerberg, 37, whose contribution to modern culture thus far is Facebook, the powerful communications platform that allows one pal to tell another she is about to have a Kahlua-laced root beer float before dinner and likely sip another for dessert. Woo-hoo.

"We want to get as many people as possible to be able to experience virtual reality and be able to jump into the metaverse and … to have these social experiences within that," Zuckerberg told the techie website CNET last year before expeditiously changing the name of Facebook to Meta.

Oh, it will be excellent, friends, when, upon attaching the required "augmented reality" goggles (roughly $300 to 3,000), we enter that blissed-out realm of holographic simulations, dazzling landscapes, "avatar" images of our newly reconfigured selves and the infinite digital delights promised by Zuckerberg and other ambitious entrepreneurs.

After all, you may wonder, what is there for us in the paltry realm — the meager universe — we now drearily inhabit? Art, philosophy, science, music, literature, history, religion, HBO? Not enough, say the metaverse big shots. Not nearly enough.

"The metaverse is not just a 'new Americas' in that it's more real estate," said venture capitalist Robert Ball, according to the publication Business Insider. "It's a new canvas for individuals. It's more like discovering the solar system, the galaxy."

Wow, right? New canvas. Major discoveries. Amazing.

I am thinking now of a time long ago in Vermont — this solar system, this galaxy.

For one brilliant, cash-strapped year, my wife and I and our four kids lived next to a cow pasture and off a gravel road.

We had dropped out — wasn’t it the thing to do back then? — sold our little place in Blue Point, rented a U-Haul and landed nearly 300 miles north to sample life in the sticks.

And what sticks.

Autumn was gorgeous enough to make you weep. Winter was harsh — 24 below one morning — but, brrr, invigorating, restorative. We sat, spellbound, below a white sash of stars in spring and in summer skipped rocks across a meandering, crystalline stream.

Up the road, the farmers Ken and Barbara Murray proved what it meant to be good neighbors — saving us when the car got stuck, showing our kids how to gather sap for maple syrup, conducting guided tours of the barn at milking time.

Glorious, all of it unforgettable, but time to leave came soon enough. We were broke. Vermont was beautiful. New York, home.

Consider the metaverse?

Oh, maybe your avatar will skip rocks across an augmented stream or tap a row of make-believe maples.

Maybe there will be virtual neighbors like the Murrays.

You won’t have to pack up the kids or reserve a U-Haul.

It will be something, all right — unreal.