alt Hacker NewsI wanna live an NPC life
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What do you do when someone else's ambition encroaches on your NPC life?
Reading Dungeon Crawler Carl series... I would not like to be an NPC from that series :D
If there people depending on you to do your part, you cant be an npc.
JFC, some of ya’ll should take this advice. The article is basically saying focus on your own life, don’t worry so much about what other people are doing and enjoy the mundanity of life. People are acting like he’s telling you to just sit and stare at the ceiling.
I think this stretches the "NPC" term beyond its utility. It’s a cute little insult, but once you redefine it to mean “ignore status games, stop worrying about what other people are doing, and live according to your own priorities,” you’re basically just restating advice that’s been around for millennia. That’s Stoicism, Buddhism, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, etc. I’m not sure this new metaphor is adding anything.
That sounds like burn out tbh
He loved the steak even when he'd known it wasn't real
All well and good if your lifestyle stays the same... But what if it keeps getting worse?
Some people want the whole pie, some people want a certain sized slice and some people want nothing.
Some will fight to the death trying to get the whole pie.
Some will fight to the death trying to get or keep their slice.
Those who want nothing have nothing to fight for and over time will lose everything to those who want things and who will fight to get what they want.
I'm definitely in the middle camp. I don't want much but if I couldn't get that, my existence would not be worthwhile. There would be nothing to live for except revenge perhaps.
Even in stories about a poor fisherman who is content with his life; he still owns a boat, a net, a shack, has a wife, a couple of kids maybe. Even the poor fisherman is a hypocrite if he says he needs nothing.
The poor fisherman is richer than me in a material way because he was able to get everything he needed fullfilled for a low cost which he could afford... Probably the exact same things as I need but I can't get those same things for that low cost because my place in the world is different. I am literally forbidden by laws, regulations and moral obligations and commitments to obtain those same basic things and those basic rights which the poor fisherman has.
Rich people look at a happy poor fisherman and think "He is happy because he doesn't need material things."
I look at a happy poor fisherman and I think "He is happy because he can afford every material thing that is required for a happy moderate life in his society." And I can't afford the same.
be neither the pc nor the npc
reject game metaphors
accept that your life is what you make of it
reject every possible demand on your energy that does not bring you joy (there will be compromises; weigh them)
eat the rich
Maybe another angle would be:
Not living your life through the lens of third-party audience. I think lots of people (including myself) sometimes view their life not through their own eyes, but through the imagined gaze of some third-party audience. Maybe it's not about being the main character or NPC, but just realizing that there is no movie, no audience. There's just you and the people you interact with.
Gervais Principle strikes again.
Agreed. Life as NPC is great.
Did an NPC write this?
The whole ‘NPC’ thing is so juvenile and solipsistic. Believing other people have less mental agency than you doesn’t make you cool and edgy, it makes you come off as an idiot that needs to grow up
(Note I’m not directing this at the author necessarily, just people who do actually engage with this concept as if it is serious/real)
Best QoL upgrade was to stop caring about politics.
As an immigrant I can't vote anyway so why read about politics every day.
Now I'm just happy about life.
“One needs to imagine Sysiphus happy”
Albert Camus.
I want to live like an NPC too, but preferably one that can't be attacked. I'd absolutely hate being an NPC in the Dark Souls series.
weird flex but okay
nihilism
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.
That's just being an adult.
This is called getting a job. being a corporate drone in the USA.
In the US, if you are not part of the Epstein class. You are the help. Or in this author’s pose, "an NPC."
Live an NPC life, die by the ecocide/genocides of NPC life.
One day, NPCs will wake up and give a fuck about other people and the environments that allow for the NPC life to begin with.
Until then, they're just here to keep feeding the oppression machines.
I hate the emdash proliferation. We don't need to bring youtube jump cut editing to text.
We are all someone else's NPC. Even the worldwide famous movie stars. Even the billionaires.
My 11 y/o daughter loves the concept: there's this guy, he always walk his dog at the same hours. We always see him in the neighborhood: same route, same hours, same dog (obviously). And we just call him "the NPC". And seeing the NPC is something for us: if one of us sees it, we mention it to the others. But we always keep in mind that every single one of us are someone else's NPC.
Just to be clear: we're not making fun of the NPC. And we're totally okay with others calling us NPCs.
> be an npc. drive a boring car—who gives a fuck?
Or, you know, don't give a fuck and drive the car you want to drive: a boring car, or an old wreck (which can be either boring or not), a 2CV [1] (a friend drives one --and the same one-- daily since... 35 years), a Toyota Corolla, a Porsche 911... Whatever the heck you feel like owning. For you, not for what the others think.
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for everyone else other than you, your family and your friends, you ARE an NPC