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I wanna live an NPC life

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Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#33

This is pure escapism. Numbing yourself to the burden of being. Likely from a stress tolerance so shallow and under-developed that the slightest inconvenience or expectation feels like a crisis. The truth is that after the brief initial relief of excusing yourself from being anything at all, you'll end up in a deep depression. It's a naive and immature fantasy. Remove all electronics from your life, they are a consta…

I don't know if I fully agree with this analysis, but I really appreciate the argument for emphasizing these values.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#34

This is pure escapism. Numbing yourself to the burden of being. Likely from a stress tolerance so shallow and under-developed that the slightest inconvenience or expectation feels like a crisis. The truth is that after the brief initial relief of excusing yourself from being anything at all, you'll end up in a deep depression. It's a naive and immature fantasy. Remove all electronics from your life, they are a consta…

i dont think it's that deep.

it's the age old advice of "dont give a fuck" dressed up in some modern terminology ("npc")

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#35
>be an npc. drive a boring car—who gives a fuck? have a boring job. do nothing after work. why do you have to do something after work? do something because you feel like doing it, not because you feel like you have to.

Obviously. People have reasons for buying cool cars or socializing after work. But if you don't have a reason to do something aside from a vague idea of "this is just what people do", then doing it anyway would be considered NPC behavior. You're just blindly following programming without even understanding the purpose of that behavior.

Instead of striving to shut your brain off, you should strive to actually use it. Think about what desires people have that cause them to take those actions. List them out. Do any of those desires apply to you? If not, then go ahead and stay home.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#36

This is pure escapism. Numbing yourself to the burden of being. Likely from a stress tolerance so shallow and under-developed that the slightest inconvenience or expectation feels like a crisis. The truth is that after the brief initial relief of excusing yourself from being anything at all, you'll end up in a deep depression. It's a naive and immature fantasy. Remove all electronics from your life, they are a consta…

Not sure at all you actually read the piece. Your responses about having a job or inconvenience or expectation seem entirely unrelated.

The text does not, for instance, encourage not having a job. It also does not encourage being nothing at all. Being nothing special is quite different.

Recommended movie: perfect days https://youtu.be/wqUT9hQd1XM?is=v1x85FdKOK_zfu60

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#38
I think NPC is the wrong terminology here - everyone should be the main character in their life - to have meaning and agency. But I think the problem arises in how 'main character' is defined and expressed - having the idea that you're supposed to 'do great things' and live this larger-than-life, life.

You don't have to save all the rhinos, defeat every poverty, slay every social cause or overthrow every tyranny. If anything it's arrogance to assume you can, or even should - that your specific brand of saving anything is even correct.

If you look at most people that do well for themselves and have good lives, they live narrow focused lives in domains they care about. They're very much the main characters of their own lives, but also recognize there are other characters running around doing their own things as well.

I think using the term NPC would be more apt if you're referring to someone that's purely on autopilot and not making any effort to ensure that they're leading a life that is meaningful to them.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#39

Heh, I just shared this elsewhere but kinda relevant here too: https://jonnegroni.com/2015/04/15/the-humans-of-wall-e-were-...

That was a good read, thanks! I think one thing the blog post perhaps misses is that although humans are nice throughout the movie, we are supposed to view a lot of their best behavior near the end as part of their "awakening", the realization that there is more to life than just pleasure and that it'd be great to get to live on earth again. It's not as incoherent as it seems, though there is definitely still room to wonder whether the protagonists are actually the villains.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#40
post #2

To make the most facile counterpoint - the reason the Skyrim blacksmith doesn't care if the main character slays dragons is because they weren't programmed to. There aren't consequences either way. To the extent that this post is meant to be inspiring, it only works if you're an NPC in a static world that has no real consequences - where you actually can live your life in a static loop because nothing will change. Wh…

I think when people use NPC as an insult (it is a dumb insult in my opinion), they are looking at it from the point of view of a player, someone outside the game who understands that the NPC is scripted (this is a silly and egotistical way of looking at the world). This post is looking from it from the point of view of the NPC instead, as if that was a living entity one could be.

"I think when people use NPC as an insult (it is a dumb insult in my opinion)"

It's a great insult, because it is usually used to describe someone whose viewpoint is basically a brainwashed and braindead pre-programmed one (either through upbringing or other things) and clearly demonstrating a lack of self-conscious critical thought.

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