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I wanna live an NPC life

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Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#271
This is a spiritual idea. Encouraged in many traditions all over the world. I saw Zhuangzi mentioned, and also saw people mention the "Perfect Days" movie.

I have delved deep in this matter, and read and plan to read multiple books in this theme:

1. Be As You Are: The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi - David Godman

2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

3. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger

These come from top of my mind.

If you have the acumen, go read Bhagavad Gita, Gospel of Ramakrishna, Tao Te Ching, etc.

Many people mistake what is conveyed as "NPC" here as being quitters and losers, but it is about owning consequences like no other way.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#272
Just terrible.

The author seems to conflate not caring about the inconsequential affairs of others with not caring about your own affairs. These are definitely not the same.

Being an "NPC" is considered a bad thing because it is seen as lacking the ability to make your own life better. No serious person cares what others think about them in the abstract, but they do care about what they think about themselves. That's the "lack of autonomy" that comes with an NPC. The fact that the author uses examples like "driving a boring car" or having "a boring job" indicates that they are only accounting for the perception of others in their thought process.

I drive a boring car because I'd get nothing from driving anything more than a boring car. Others, though, DO get something from driving an "exciting" car. Neither approaches to this aspect of life are indicative of being an NPC; they're just facets of each individual's psychology.

What IS being an "NPC" is having a boring job that you don't like, that doesn't pay you enough, that isn't impressive to anyone (including yourself), and that you continue to have because you simply fail to even try to do anything better. That person's situation is terrible. It suggests that if they just had enough capability to introspect and realize that they are an autonomous individual who can put themselves in a better position than they would, but they lack that ability. And to be clear: they don't necessarily lack the capacity to improve their own life, but rather the ability to recognize that they could improve their own life.

The Skyrim blacksmith example is actually a great counterexample. That NPC fundamentally CAN'T change their life. They MUST be content with what they're doing, because even if they weren't, they'd have no choice but to do it. But this isn't what an "NPC" in modern, real-life terms is really referring to. That usage invokes a sentiment that a blacksmith NPC COULD actually change their life if they were just aware enough to decide to do so.

A better example would be the player in Skyrim deciding to simply play the game as intended with no sense of exploration, interest beyond the story presented, or decision making beyond what the developers intended. They just buy the game, play it straight-through, and never pick it up again. Maybe that's sufficient for them, but maybe they're missing out on a better experience because they simply don't consider that a better experience is possible if they just choose to explore another trajectory.

>when you stop caring about being the main character, you finally get to just live your life.

This is good advice for a 14 year old since it's the first step in actually understanding what makes a good life. If you're an adult and you're still framing reality through the lens of video game characters, then you have a ways to go before you should take any of this to heart. There are good reasons to believe you are the "main character," and accepting anything less is a good way to end up a miserable adult who can't figure out why they aren't happy despite having the largest Funko Pop collection in their loose friend group.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is chapter 22 Master Tung-kuo asked Chuang Tzu, "This thing called the Way-where does it exist?" Chuang Tzu said, "There's no place it doesn't exist." "Come," said Master Tung-kuo, "you must be more specific!" "It is in the ant." "As low a thing as that?" "It is in the panic grass." "But that's lower still!" "It is in the tiles and shards." "How can it be so low?" "It is in the piss and shit."

I feel like the lesson in many stories like this is to be kind of indifferent, not ask stupid questions, and to not answer stupid questions.

I don't think that's the lesson. It sounds like the "One is all, and all is one" lesson from Fullmetal Alchemist.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is chapter 22 Master Tung-kuo asked Chuang Tzu, "This thing called the Way-where does it exist?" Chuang Tzu said, "There's no place it doesn't exist." "Come," said Master Tung-kuo, "you must be more specific!" "It is in the ant." "As low a thing as that?" "It is in the panic grass." "But that's lower still!" "It is in the tiles and shards." "How can it be so low?" "It is in the piss and shit."

I feel like the lesson in many stories like this is to be kind of indifferent, not ask stupid questions, and to not answer stupid questions.

I kind of took it to mean that there are no irrelevant facts in the universe. And potentially everything deserves close attention.

Re: I wanna live an NPC life

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, your comment only highlights the original post. Cleaning the (exterior) of the car is something so many people do primarily because of judgmental folks like yourself. They don't care about a lot of dust on their cars, but they feel they have to because of what others think. The point of the post is to stop caring what such folks think. They definitely are not your friends. His sentiment is a common one amongst…

Again, they were examples. Stuff has to get done. It doesn't specifically have to be washing the car or cutting the grass. Maybe it's helping kids with homework, or cleaning the toilets, or shopping for groceries, or taking your wife out to a nice dinner, or watching the kids while she goes to a movie with her friends. I don't care about your dusty car. By all means don't wash it for me. But if your wife cares, and s…

As several people have pointed out, the original submission is not saying what you think it is. It is implicit that there are some things he has to do. He says:

> 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.

Are you suggesting he has a boring job because he wants to have a boring job?

> I'm reminded of a quote, something along the lines of "if we all did the little things we know we are supposed to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves"

The reason old people give the advice I mentioned is because they tried this approach and it backfired.

One of the major markers of my maturity was switching away from: "Well, if everyone does X, things would be better" to "What is the Y that will improve things the most, given that we know not everyone is going to do it?"

Having a system that only works well when (almost) everyone plays nice usually fails. Search instead for robustness: What system works well when a decent percentage don't adhere to it?

There's a reason communism lost.

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