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I wanna live an NPC life

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Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#231

Post by throwmeoutplzdo »

michael0church wrote: post #155
oilkillsbirds wrote: post #27

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…

It also ignores the real stresses imposed by society on ordinary people. The point of an NPC is stasis. The walking signpost gives you the same information, or the weapon shop sells you the same broad sword, whether you take 3 hours or 203 hours to get to that point in the game. The NPC has no inner life; it’s code that only exists when it is doing a job. In the real world, stasis gets you killed. Someone is paid hun…

[flagged]

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#232

Post by cracoucax »

SoftTalker wrote: post #205
tonyarkles wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they might just want to clock out from work at 5pm and go ride their bike until sunset without giving a single shit about anything but the fresh air. Or go home and walk their kid to the park. Or throw a ball around the yard with the dog.

Except you've got to cut the grass, weed the flowerbeds, wash the car, do the laundy, cook dinner, do the dishes, etc.

None of this is a burdain if you don't let it

- cut the grass -> robot

- weed the flowerbeds -> once every week, or no flowerbeds if you feel it's not necessary

- wash the car -> idk I wash mine every 6 months or something. Go to the thingy, put coin, wait

- cook dinner -> or not. You could choose not to have dinner at all, or one of those fine premade gazpachos with a bit of bred and an egg

- do the dishes -> mostly putting things in a dishwasher and removing them every few days

The thing is, having a mind mostly empty of this kind of thing is its own reward. Maybe your car is less shiny, but your inner experience more so.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#234

Post by Bluestein »

talloaktrees wrote: post #133

Zhuangzi was fishing in the Pu River when the King of Chu sent two high officials to him. They said, “The king wishes to entrust you with the affairs of his realm.” Zhuangzi kept hold of his fishing rod and did not turn around. He said, “I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for three thousand years. The king keeps it wrapped in cloth, enclosed in a box, and stored in the ancestral temp…

Deep lesson. Thanks for posting.-

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#235

Post by savolai »

asimovDev wrote: post #228
savolai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perfect Days is an amazing film which I recommend everyone reading to check out, I am not sure it's on streaming but available for rent / purchase on whatever platform you use (I bought it on Apple TV). I was amused to recently learn that it was an ad for Tokyo Toilet[0] 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tokyo_Toilet#Film

The link i posted is actually the full movie. yt-dlp?

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#236

Post by savolai »

spoiler wrote: post #226
oilkillsbirds wrote: post #27

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…

Very tangentially related but I've seen the word escapism used a couple of times in this thread... I can't tell what's happening here... Did we all extract a different conclusion/meaning from the piece? Did a bunch of people discover the same new word recently, and are learning to use it? Did people not read the full post perhaps, and jumped to conclusions? I don't think the author is advocating or engaging in escapi…

These are the cultural projections previous western generations were built upon. My reading is that that is what’s happening, that is why they are so predominant.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#237

Post by mvanbaak »

satvikpendem wrote: post #107
toomanyrichies wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You SHOULD feel like you have to do some stuff. Gregor: It would be nice to do something. Sam: We are doing something. We're sitting here, waiting. "Ronin", 1998

Sitting sometimes is good, sitting always is not.

Not the OP, nor the quote from Ronin state that one should always sit

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#238

Post by mvanbaak »

prtmnth wrote: post #184

Funnily I find the OP's thoughts to very much define what a main character is. An NPC is given a role and identify and they are bound by it forever. The main character chooses what they want. Whatever that is. But they exercise agency and their own will to choose their reality and what they wish to do and not do. What they wish to care and not care about. The OP is not an NPC. I believe the OP wants to live a less st…

And then you find out the main character is simply doing what the NPC's tell her/him to do. The idea that the main character chooses what they want is an illusion. They are just following the script that is steered by what the NPC's make them do.

I'm not talking about life, I'm talking about video games here.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#239

Post by saghm »

uncivilized wrote: post #187
chasd00 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is this “we” you speak of? I see this word thrown around a lot here. Never use “we” in a sentence unless you’re referring to another individual directly. It’s beyond arrogant to assume you have the authority to speak for all others.

Parent commenter means “we” as in humans. Their comment is not meant to speak for others’ individual preferences.

Humans are a bunch of individuals though with an incredible amount of diversity. If their claim is biological, it would be helpful to pin down more precisely what they mean, because right now it's pretty vague. I'm dubious that there's a rigorous claim here though because pretty much every time I've seen a claim like this before it's essentially just protection of one's personal beliefs about psychology without more of a basis than assumption that their personal experience is universal, which is what the comment you're responding to is alluding to.
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