I wanna live an NPC life
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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 temple.
“Now, would this turtle rather have died and left its bones behind to be honored, or would it rather be alive, dragging its tail through the mud?”
The two officials replied, “It would rather be alive, dragging its tail through the mud.”
Zhuangzi said, “Then go away. I too will drag my tail through the mud.”
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."
* Sadetanssi: Kuvasi kaltainen *
you said, little boy the wheel of the world is best pedalled so softly no one even notices
and beware the day you look behind when speed no longer notices the pedal pressed to the floor
you said, that boy don’t let him loose he doesn’t instantly know which way he should be going
if somewhere comes the sound of good behaviour breaking if somewhere they are having fun without your permission
you wear your shame with pride when you look me in the face I am made in your image
you’d rather be ordinary than stunted in your growth well-behaved rather than torn inside
when you open the cupboard in the morning the skeletons are laughing you don’t know a single one but still they laugh at you
when at night you look into the mirror and see my face I smile at you softly and turn my back
I’ve made every mistake you only dream of making I am made in your image
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 constant nervous system stimulator that has prevented you from truly relaxing into a state of repair. Then introduce responsibilities into your life, start small. We are wired to be needed, wanted, useful, accountable, social. You're just stressed out.
it's the age old advice of "dont give a fuck" dressed up in some modern terminology ("npc")
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
On my HN!? Surprised pikachu
Surprised pikachu :OOOO
Escapism. You SHOULD feel like you have to do some stuff. Our bodies are always aiming to relax, because conserving calories is an extremely effective survival method. We are hardwired to do nothing, in order to escape the burden of instead doing something.
Gregor: It would be nice to do something.
Sam: We are doing something. We're sitting here, waiting.
"Ronin", 1998
And I'm just tired...all the time. I do nothing and still I'm exhausted.
Unfortunately I have no advice for it but I wish you good luck. We're all struggling lately
So many other things are possible like iron, thyroid, sleep apnea, ADHD, depression or burnout, long COVID, tropical illness. Maybe more.
Finally it is totally morally OK not to be a 100% productive worker bee. A "cure" is not necessary but might be worth rabbit holing if you desire and have the energy.
You have authority over your body. You can tell it to do things it doesn't want to.
You can walk into your bathroom and take a cold shower right now, on purpose. Your body doesn't want to, but it will yield if your mind tells it to.
In fact, doing that will switch up your state into a different one, which is half of the work needed to feel better.
This isn't the answer for everyone, but for 90% of people, it moves the needle in the right direction.
This word keeps coming up, coupled with things unrelated.
The OP isn't saying "do nothing". He's saying "do what you want to do". If he wants to study mathematics, that's neither escapism nor "doing nothing".
obviously not.
If I didn’t enjoy yard care, I wouldn’t have a yard or I’d xeriscape or gravel + trees, or something. Laundry’s kind of a drag, mostly the folding part. Most of the time I enjoy cooking and tidying up afterwards; when I’m not in the mood I’ll do takeout or throw something from the freezer in.
I’m not sure what you’re saying overall? Is it that those things you’ve listed are what stops people from having enjoyable lives where they do what they want?
I’ll rephrase a little bit because “not give a shit” is maybe too flippant and what you’re saying is important context: if you have a family and responsibilities, framing it in terms of the article, that is one version of the NPC life and you’re going to be way better at it if you actually like it. If you feel like your constant responsibilities to your family are a burden and are getting in the way of doing what you want to be doing, that’s going to show up everywhere.
I was definitely raised with a “happy wife, happy life” mentality and a few years ago I smashed that whole notion to pieces for myself, not because it’s wrong but because the implementation I was taught was wrong. I understood it as “she’s going to want you to do a bunch of stuff that you don’t want to do, and the key to a happy life is to do it anyway.” As it turns out, in my experience, genuinely enthusiastic yesses and clear “no, not interested” is a way better approach. She trusts your yes way more if she trusts your ability to say no. Turns out that knowing she’s with someone who knows what he wants and doesn’t want, and has enough of a spine to say and act accordingly, is a key component to both “happy wife” and “happy life”.
If you’ve got family responsibilities and they feel like a heavy burden, it’s probably worth spending some time really reflecting on that and figuring out what needs to change.
- 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.
No one here is saying they’re going to stop clipping their nails or feeding themselves. If that’s how you interpreted the article, you’re being uncharitable.
I mean, sure, I wash the car every so many months because I take a road trip and can't get stuff off my windshield.
Washing cars is one of those absolutely pointless things people do that the article is alluding to. It is not supposed to be clean.
The guy who takes a bike ride after work until sunset has either done some planning and dealt with the chores to free up that time, or he's a selfish inconsiderate who's letting the other people in his life shoulder the externalities of his self-indulgence. Sure most chores can wait a bit, so some amount of spontaneity is OK, but it can't be a regular way of living.
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 much older folks. "Don't care too much what others think" is a fairly common advice they give. You'll put in a lot of effort and get very little in return.
Same goes for yard stuff. One of the things I looked at when I bought my house was how the neighborhood's yards were. Some were very "well kept". Others were clearly not. I bought the house because of the latter - it told me the neighborhood doesn't care that much, which is a good thing. Maintaining yards is one of the more wasteful acts in life (unless it happens to be your hobby).
https://blog.nwf.org/2024/04/why-we-shouldnt-have-lawns/
(My yard is actually well maintained, because I pay a guy to do it - if I can't afford him, though, it's going downhill).
> or he's a selfish inconsiderate who's letting the other people in his life shoulder the externalities of his self-indulgence.
Hey, if my dusty car bothers you - by all means come over and clean it.
I don't care about your dusty car. By all means don't wash it for me. But if your wife cares, and she's driving a dirty car because you go bike riding after work every day, then you might want to reconsider. Again, that's just an example.
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"
> 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.
In any context, this is about as trivially false as any non-tautological statement can be.
They are not ready to help because normal life is designed to be absurdly complicated, time consuming, constraining and draining.
The irony is that the solution is for people to take up massive projects that address the many angles of needless complexity [again]
Personally I enjoy listening to the birds with a book in my hands.
Annoyed that npc is not defined in the post. Non-playing character.
Related, I would also recommend the book "The courage to be disliked"
Having grown up in a small town, I can confirm this. The smaller the town, the more it becomes true that almost everyone in town has either heard of you from a friend or relative, or knows you directly. :)
Arguably a reason most everyone found the early internet/web so awesome: it wasn't as commoditized into feeds and platforms. You were an adventurer on an undiscovered planet, a secret life beside the boring real one and just did your thing. It's how most of us ended up here, anyhow.
Maybe, but that could also be because of autism, trauma or some other disability
And maybe the author just wants to feel heard, get others to comment on their experiences, be vulnerable in public (which btw can be pretty stressful too), and connect with their community
When AI eventually takes nearly ALL jobs, that will be a quite difficult thing.
That’s a stretch and in realm of pure speculation.
A blacksmith is useful for society and for himself. It’s a profession and it’s not anything. OP’s point is that profession compared to chasing dragons. I’m tired of chasing dragons and very happy focusing on my own life.
So status quo lol?
> needed
If I died today, I wouldn't even get a slack memo "we miss anal_reactor". Modern economy proved that humans are totally fungible.
> wanted
I have a dream that someone would take me on a date. But I understand it's just a silly fantasy.
> useful
I spent last two years at work doing projects that went nowhere because my manager is deaf to feedback.
> accountable
What is that even supposed to mean? If I don't pay taxes I'll go to jail.
> social
I tried inviting a neighbor for a beer. Didn't work.
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 escapism here... Did I misunderstand the post?
By that you mean American? Or German? Or French? Or Nordic? They were very different a generation ago.
Or like the fascist subculture? The pro-Russian one? The liberal one?
life is measured by individual achievement, self-actualization through work, being ordinary is failure as you're supposed to present and perform. none of those cultures differ much on that, though maybe on how much you're allowed to express preferences vs. that.
why does this thread read as escapism to so many? because it's a cultural norm people are not aware of, and it gets violated.
That is very American, even specifically American right wing masculinity point of view. Not generalized western one.
> none of those cultures differ much on that, though maybe on how much you're allowed to express preferences vs. that.
Oh yeah, they do differ on that exact point by a lot.
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.
When the metaphorical dragon comes to burn down your village, are you going to shrug and go back to looping your hammer_nail_03 animation?
viewing npc as a category of person is inherently an ego driven, narcissistic way of looking at things. It is a viewpoint that lacks a theory of mind.
This essay implicitly supposes that the npc has a mind + motivations and that those motivations are more important to the npc than the player character. I'd extend it to say that if you are an npc you are a player character; you're just in a different game. Village Blacksmith Simulator, where you make horshoes, fend off pickpockets and sometimes a hero's dragon fight flattens your shop and you start over.
The flaw is assuming the player character is always the same.
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.
Your life isn't scripted. If have the option to not ignore the dragon. You can work with your town to setup a watch and places to flee to when the dragon is coming (even if only 50% make it that is an improvement). You can as a town fund adventures to kill the dragon. You can move to a town where there are no dragons. There are probably other options that I haven't thought of.
You should not ignore politics. You need to understand the trade offs. You should plan for what is happening. Russia is at war with Ukraine - things like that can happen to you as well. You should understand enough to have an informed decision on how much to prepare... Maybe you need to build a bomb shelter, maybe not, but you should know in time to build one.
Which is part of my point. Don't live alone. You live in a community of people. You need to engage with your community to prepare for that dragon.
That doesn't mean don't go play with your kids or whatever. Do that too. But also prepare for life in ways that you can prepare because you live with other people
For some people, the reality is that this has simply not been possible; and people have died and not been discovered for years precisely because of this[0]. The most extreme example was not being discovered for 42 years[1].
> You need to engage with your community to prepare for that dragon.
The delineating aspect of this is the "it takes a village" moniker. In Ireland, for example, someone can have lived in the same community for 10+ years and still be a blow-in[2]. The reality is: Sometimes, you cannot force the community to engage back with you.
0 - https://www.awesomeinventions.com/people-died-bodies-not-dis...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Hedviga_Golik
2 - https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/rosita-bola...
You can, in fact, do this. Just because you prefer to be helpless doesn't mean that's the only option.
The blacksmith tasks the protagonist to get a Dragon's Teeth or whatever and pay 100 Golds in return(never played TES, sorry if this isn't a good example). The player has no control over the blacksmith; the blacksmith is in full control of the situation. The blacksmith is an NPC. The protagonist is the player. But then some thinks the blacksmith must be the player, I suppose. The fact that this sometimes seem to happen almost puzzles me.
Probably not totally relevant, but a several years ago I was out for one of my best friend's very low-key bachelor party (just a few friends/family members bar-hopping, no strip clubs). We went to a bar that was recommended by one of us and the dude who greeted us was so insanely charismatic that I assumed he was someone my buddy knew and was this later joiner to the party or something. I asked my friend, "Do you know this guy?" and, you kinda have to know his humour, but he replied, "No, he's an NPC." He was not insulting the guy (in fact I think he may have even said "non-playable character" in full) just saying, "Nope, not with us," and ya... I laughed... like, really hard. Needed recovery time.
I don't know the point I'm trying to make.
That made chuckle! Not to the point of needing recovery time, but still. Thank you for sharing the story. I can’t help you get to the point you were looking for, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
If the guy was incredibly charismatic and managed to sort of join the group despite lacking a properly developed backstory, maybe he was a DMPC (dungeon master player character).
Just live your life however you want, you only get one, and it’ll be brief.
To care about the world and the people in it is human. To numb yourself to that is self-deception, and to advocate for that is harmful.
Justify that
We don't live in a democracy. We live in plutocracy where people with capital and influence have an outsized influence on policy.
They're playing their own game, whatever has meaning to them.
In the actual game, NPCs do care, in fact they often won't shut up about it. They just don't let it affect their lives, which is the point the OP is making.
> When the metaphorical dragon comes to burn down your village, are you going to shrug and go back to looping your hammer_nail_03 animation?
When such a disaster strikes a village those are often scripted events that do change the loops of the NPCs previously inhabiting the village. They are programmed to adapt to a new cycle of rebuilding the village or even assisting the main character in dealing with the threat.
It's funny that the assumption is the NPCs don't care about anything that happens in the world when there are games with NPCs engaging in entire rebellions against their oppressors. It's just that NPCs don't care beyond their immediate objectives being fulfilled. Once the rebellion succeeds and the tyrant is overthrown most of them just settle back into their usual loop.
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.
1. Someone whose life choices can either defeat every poverty or bring the downfall of humankind - Main characters
2. Someone whose actions are in a loop - NPC
3. Someone whose actions are in a loop but we choose to - NPC-by-choice
Is this terminology better? Correct me if I'm wrong!
You can do and be absolutely anything or anyone you want. Just gotta bear the consequences and that’s it.
Wanna live a homely life surrounded by loved ones? Go do it! Nobody is stopping you. Wanna galivant around the world having adventures with no roots? You can!
And when you meet a local npc bartender on your adventures, you’re just another rando tourist npc. It’s great
"We're all someone else's NPC".
Life’s funny that way. You can’t predict what an individual will do and yet predicting what a crowd will do is so easy we have entire engineering and social disciplines based on manipulating crowd behavior.
https://theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfilling...
I know our society is ignorant of the classics, but given recent cinema, I'm not sure you need to explain who Odysseus is ;)
even George, perhaps the most boring and least reactive person you've ever read about or met, would just laugh at the goal of being "entirely unfazed by everything happening around you." Even he falls in love, experiences great joy and brutal heartbreak, finds his own small ways of making an impact, makes peace with difficult things. For a character who supposedly does nothing important, he does a hell of a lot.
Good luck, I guess!
the gist of the post is "do something because you feel like doing it, not because you feel like you have to." and "the goal is to just do your own thing.".
it is not "never let anything affect you ever, then die".
So basically, a main character life, the life of a player. A player can even choose not to play the game, and it isn't their whole world.
The reason this post is incendiary is due to their overwrought metaphor which ultimately works quite poorly, if at all.
Plus, it reads like a 15 year old's diary entry.
>Plus, it reads like a 15 year old's diary entry.
okay?
But given that you are posting passive-aggressive "okay?"s to my explanation while purporting that you don't understand the comments while alluding to the notion that you do understand exactly why...makes me think you are just a troll, or worse.
not trolling, just found it to be an odd thing to add on. none of the other comments that i read at the time of my comment, except yours, brought up the age of the author.
i typically try to avoid using age as an insult. i find it rude. you don't, apparently.
(out of curiosity, what is the "worse" thing you think i am?)
They try to reign it back in at the end with “goal is to do your own thing” but the examples given, and really NPCs in general, are the antithesis to that.
Ironically, the NPCs are designed to do exactly what they are supposed to with no free will at all. I have programmed you to do this, and thus you shall.
I think the author lost the plot.
they stretched an imperfect metaphor. i think that's forgivable. the piece, as a whole, is (as they say) a retelling of stoicism.
The blacksmith from Skyrim is a great example because along comes a player, puts a bucket on your head and steals all your stuff without any complaints.
this is an incredibly stressful time to be alive. i think i'm moderately ambitious and so i grind at my early stage startup and enjoy the work most days. but sometimes i also think it'd be nice to just have a bakery in a middle-sized town somewhere without thinking too much about politics. and just living my life with its ups and downs, but without the daily / hourly emergencies that come with being on the internet nowadays.
As the type of person with a more "life is like playing pokemon, if you make an effort to talk to everyone, you'll have more fun and they'll help in unexpected ways" vibe, I just don't get it.
That's not a life lived, I'd sooner log out.
Shortly after I made that commitment, there was a notice published that I was starting a typography magazine.
I had talked publicly about doing this, but it was something that I had planned on doing with my then-girlfriend who subsequently broke up with me and I decided that I would shelve it. But thanks to that notice, I started getting inquiries and I ended up doing the typography magazine anyway. I’m glad for the experience of having done it, less so for the negative impact it had on my finances for the next decade.
This just sounds like mental exhaustion as mentioned. The internet exposes us to thousands of opinions on how to live, so those terminally online get information overload and analysis paralysis. I don't think the answer is to give up trying or just settle into a boring life. Then people write these snarky blogs as a coping mechanism. Personally, I think navel gazing and these shocking, screw-the-world articles are just ways to live comfortably inside your head. It's addictive to write shocking, against-the-current stuff and get reactions, and it feels like you are affecting your life. But most of the time I think it's performing for yourself.
Adding the 1001th random opinion and being a hypocrite: go offline more, interact with real people and you'll realize life is actually fine and enjoyable. Natural dopamine and serotonin. It's easy to fall into anhedonia or apathy as a safety response to information overload. Having a boring, soul-crushing job on purpose is not good advice, nobody should intentionally spend huge parts of their years on Earth like that. Making your life enjoyable through effort in the real world is not a bad thing.
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 stressful life. The OP is pulled towards a simple life that does not involve flashy things or high status (this is my interpretation).
Which in today's status signal fueled world may feel like being an NPC. But in my opinion, it is the exact opposite.
I'm not talking about life, I'm talking about video games here.
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.
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.
NPCs immitate life, but very pourly. Do not take them as an inspiration.
Don't try to ignore the world around you as it is the direct opposite of a game world which is static.
Real life is dynamic, changing and if you behave as an NPC for a long time, you are going to have a bad time eventually
It's not about being a main character in the world--it's about being a main character in your own life.
Arjun is not detached. He is doing battle. In fact he is doing the battle he is supposed to be doing even though his relatives are aligned on the other side.
The whole lesson is to exercise your agency to achieve what you are supposed to be doing, despite what's happening.
This is interesting because this the EXACT opposite of my reading. Arjuna in fact is not acting on his agency; he despises going to war. However, Shiva (I think) pretty much tell him to let go of his ego. He just needs to do what he has to do. It is his duty to go to war and so he shall. It is a lesson to live life given whatever it is, to not ask what could and should have been, but to just live it. At the limit, you will "die" and become an "animal", "you" will be reduced to pure consciousness, no longer pondering what could and should be, then and only then can you escape the wheel of dharma.
For example "be a father" is a duty that takes active commitment. NPCs on contrast follow the programming and a path of least resistance.
There is a negative karma to putting this kind of nihilistic message out into the world. Obviously everyone should shoot for the stars, not the dirt. The goal is to give one's life meaning and purpose. If the job is a snooze, adjust your aim. Treasure your family and start your own if you are able. Life will be infinitely more interesting and meaningful when you take on that special burden.
I know, you're on Hacker News, you gotta ship code and sell your startups, but hear me out.
Starting a family in your 40's really sucks. Fertility is waning by then, and kids are f'ing exhausting. There us so little energy left at 40. I think much of the sourness of raising kids is because so many of us start in our late 30's and 40's, and we're tired.
Nature set us up to make babies in our teens and twenties and then be _done_. I say go to college, make it your mission to find your sweetheart there and then get married and have however many kids you want through your twenties. Stop at 30, vasectomy time if she's a champ at baby making.
You are only on the hook for 18 years after final baby is born. That is the plan at least, obviously some kiddos need more supports than that. That is a major risk you run - but a risk that only increases with geriatric pregnancies. The vast majority of babies are healthy.
Here is the beauty of this system. You're done and free at 50, they're probably out of college and starting their own family if you got going early enough.
How many startup entrepreneurs only have a hit in their 50's and later? The vast majority of them.
Here is how you win at life: find your niche/passion as a kid, get your skills and networking built out in your twenties, thirties and forties, and then execute your plans for businesses after the kids are out of the house. If you can do it while they're in the house, great, but don't be an absentee parent because that's dickish.
Having business success is nice and purpose is what gets people out of bed in the morning. But you're going to die and you wont get to take it with you. Time is always very fleeting.
Building a great family gives you purpose too - men grow up quick when the first baby comes, a chemical switch gets flipped. Starting a family creates a kind of rabid survival mode. Legacy is a treasure and family history can start with you.
That's what I mean, when you have kids your mindset flips to being a provider. Providing a home. Providing food. Paying the bills. You're not going to risk that with some hairbrained startup scheme. You want a steady job with good health insurance and a predictable income, not an "infinitely interesting" life.
And when the kids are grown? Well these days that can take 30 years. Easy to say "they're on their own when they turn 18" but be honest, are you really going to do that with a kid who's struggling to get his own life going? And as you say, by then you're tired. Throw in a divorce, which is pretty common along the way, and well I guess things do get interesting but not in way you imagined.
Having the drive and energy to launch and lead something entrepreneural in your 50s is pretty rare. I think a few people are born with that kind of drive and they have it their entire life. I used to think I did, 12 hours days at a startup was fun when I was in my 20s but working an 8 hour day now has me wiped out. I can't imagine working in a startup environment at this point in my life.
First and foremost, we satisfy the biological needs and work our way up from there. I think that imperative has been hijacked to become "you must live the 'good life'", which in modernity equates to consumerism. Hooray for plastic and glass and lithium.
I'm not saying don't create eWaste as a part of living, and there's a lot of waste to just existing in all regards. But, the longness of time is an awful thing to contemplate - our insignificance in the grand story of Long Time makes trinkets meaningless.
Anyhow, starting from biological, we subsist and reproduce. Reproduction is the closest thing we'll get to immortality. If we physically can do it, we are foolish not to if we care about mattering at all in Long Time. And, we should make more babies than replacement just to account for mishaps and developmental failure.
Along those lines, females are more valuable than males if you consider Long Time. Men are quite disposable historically, so keep your head on a swivel but also protect the women and girls you love if you are a man.
Beyond the biological, we get all the human civilizational gravy: culture, writing, government, architecture, chemistry/medicine, physics/energy, computing/AI, etc. All that stuff must synergize with the biological or it will either be cast off or fester and then undo and destroy us.
Any groups or leaders promulgating actively antagonistic social movements or technologies are either herd management fanatics or anti-human or both. Even if some of those individuals are earnest and well-meaning, if they are promoting anti-human agendas, they must be opposed.
If you look at fertility rates worldwide, we're on the brink right now, and I contend that's not an accident. Everywhere you look are social campaigns against family formation, chemical pollution and toxic medical and street drugs, and crap food weakening us. We're two generations from complete collapse if you look at the birth rates and health indicators.
> when you have kids your mindset flips to being a provider.
I'm convinced it's brain chemistry, and it's friggin' glorious when (ok yes, if) you can come out the other side triumphant. Your body and mind remember the challenges and fear, and it's a big reward to living and overcoming that. Let me say it again differently - making kids is a key aspect of being human, you're not fully living unless you jump through that portal if you are able.
> Well these days that can take 30 years.
There is a long series of choices that leads to kiddos' inability to mature, assuming they are physically healthy. Mobile apps and Youtube/Reddit/Roblox have been a real retardant to child development. You can have a house policy against it for kids, and you can always allow them to pig out on the mental candy when they go to friends' houses.
> Throw in a divorce, which is pretty common along the way
I am ashamed to admit I didn't know how low the real divorce rate actually is[1]. It looks like it stands at 14.6 per 1000 married women become divorced per year, down from the boomer peak in 1980 at 22.6 per 1000. Them's good odds you can make it work, don't believe the "50% of marriages end in divorce" hype!
I think men and women need each other because it's so rough out there, and people are generally loyal after they make a commitment. Knowing Jesus gives you a 50% bonus to staying together until one of you dies[2].
> Having the drive and energy to launch and lead something entrepreneural in your 50s is pretty rare.
The numbers say 45 is the sweet spot for successful entrepreneurship[3]. I agree that lack of energy is the most concerning impediment to success, but most people are not cut out for going their own way and taking on extra risk anyhow. I'm looking forward to freedom and putting all my energy into my startup when my boys are graduated. I'm in my 50's and I feel healthy enough to do it.
Finally, I know everything I'm saying above is stuff nobody ever says. I'm right and all of those other people are wrong/misguided/evil (sometimes). And, I'm ok with not having all the answers and making the wrong choices myself in my own life.
[1] https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/FP...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210624081456/https://hfh.fas.h...
[3] https://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents?PublicationDoc...
How many times in a row can you read the same boring five minute story?
The whole point is to slow them down and put em to bed. So read a real book to them, whatever you like. Sets a good example to read real things, they just love the attention and to hear your voice, and they fall asleep with big words in their ears which is great for brain development.
You must buck aspects of modernity that are obviously stupid to you, not commit legacy suicide because modernity is obviously designed for morons. (The designers hate humanity.)
She has defined a life she wants to live and is scarily detailed. It is sort of an NPC lifestyle. I believe she is inspired by the games she play.
She might change but for now she seems have a clean outline of how things will be, work, home, and everything else like a very finite number of friends, the things to own, no brand logos (or should be really muted/subtle), etc.
I get from this “you cannot have expectations of me, because I’m an NPC, so stop the judgement because I cannot change what I am. It’s in my programming.”
Like, not really anything else. I cannot handle failing to meet expectations (regardless of where they come from, who is seemingly imposing them, or really anything related to expectations at all) so I just absolve myself from having any.
“Make it your goal to life a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.”
If I do not see progress being made, I know that if I do not change what I am doing (or measure in smaller increments) again, I may head for depression.
Even crappy odds are an acceptable challenge, when I compare to what I imagine is an NPC/don't give a hoot outlook.
As an immigrant I can't vote anyway so why read about politics every day.
Now I'm just happy about life.
I keep up on local news and events, as they are the only thing that affects me anyway. At least the only thing I have any bit of control over.
It is about a man living a very simple life as a public cleaner in Tokyo, and after watching it (it’s been three times now) I have the desire to throw away 99% of my unnecessary possessions and go work a simple job as a barista or gardener.
"No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good."
"It is not the [hu]man who has too little, but the [hu]man who craves more, that is poor."
"If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write."
"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."
Why try hard when you can just skate by?”
https://signalundefied.bearblog.dev/everything/
https://signalundefied.bearblog.dev/is-it-meaningless-to-apo...
The key is consciously making that choice. What people don't want is to be forced into a way of living by others. People can accept what they have a hand in discovering and choosing.
— Guy
you don't know what you got (til it's gone)
that said, it is ok to drive a non-boring car, or be dovahakiin.
They most decidedly DO care if you do this.
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.
The author of the article also demonstrated a preference: according to certain criteria of moral obligation they decided for themselves that it's better to "do something because you feel like doing it, not because you feel like you have to."
Again, to manifest such preference you have to be the main character and not an NPC.
Only non-NPC can decide to what degree that want to be like an NPC and what meaning they put into it. NPCs don't have ability to put meaning into things or display preference.
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
Albert Camus.
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.
I think what OP describes is much more Epicureanism than Stoicism? Stoicism's goal is "living a well-reasoned life" but based on a global logic system and reasoning about the world. Epicureanism is much more about living well enough in your little bubble (which I highly appreciate).
(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)
That's just being an adult.
In the US, if you are not part of the Epstein class. You are the help. Or in this author’s pose, "an NPC."
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.
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.
Optimistic take. The PCs are very good at convincing the NPCs that nothing they do can matter. Keep 'em poor, keep 'em sick, keep 'em stupid, control the women and all that.
Wtf have we been playing TTRPGs for if not to prepare for exactly this?
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.