Re: "i wanna live an npc life" by signalundefied
I stumbled across this blog post by signalundefied, and then this response post by Absurd Pirate, and I wanted to contribute a little bit to the discussion.
signal's original post can be summarized in a couple of different ways, depending on how charitable you care to be with your interpretation. On the more generous end, signal is advocating for a lifestyle in which you live life for yourself on your own terms, and don't allow the expectations of others to unduly influence your behavior. The following is perhaps what signal intends to be their thesis statement:
[...] it’s the ultimate "i don't give a fuck" state of mind.
On its face, this sounds ideal, and perhaps even admirable. However, the context which surrounds it is quite a bit more grim, and saturates signal's point with a sort of radically apathetic fatalism that is profoundly unhealthy. It all appears to flow from the opening paragraph, in which signal defines their understanding of what is communicated by pejoratively dubbing someone an "NPC":
the general consensus around being an npc is that you’re giving up your autonomy—essentially becoming a side character in someone else's story or watching life pass you by while doomscrolling on your phone.
Already we can see the potential for some cracks to form in their argument, because this is not a complete reading of what "NPC" tends to mean. signal is correct that one aspect is living your lift without exercising agency, but the connotation usually isn't that someone is actively choosing to live this way. Most of the time, NPC is used to describe people who don't exercise agency because they literally have no agency to exercise. It's used to denigrate people who are judged not to have any sort of interiority, capacity for critical thought, or individuality. To "live an NPC life" would mean you mindlessly consume the most popular media without actually thinking about it; get your news from whichever source you were conditioned from childhood to prefer and then credulously accept everything it tells you; spend your time not adding anything to the world, but compulsively consuming for its own sake; and generally skulk around the world, aimlessly wandering without an inner monologue or any spark of the things we value about humanity.
Whether such people actually exist is not relevant to this discussion; the point is that when signal advocates for the life of an NPC, this is the baggage of the term being used.
The immediate counterargument might be that I am judging signal's argument based on a context which they don't draw from. If "NPC" to signal merely refers to someone who could exercise agency but purposefully chooses not to, I should respond to the argument with that definition in mind rather than one which they are not using.
Firstly, it is not always reasonable to sidestep connotation this way. If I were to write an essay entitled "I wanna live a Nazi life," and then open by defining "Nazi" as "someone who merely takes pride in their heritage," it would be silly for me to take umbrage when people call me out for misusing the term. "NPC" doesn't mean "stoic," "unfazed," or, as signal explicitly claims, "doing your own thing." In fact, "doing your own thing" is the direct antithesis of what being an NPC is, because that phrase implies that you are choosing your own path regardless of external influence, whereas NPCs do not have or exhibit the willpower to choose which thing is theirs. Its meaning is closer to "p-zombie," "robot," or "without consciousness," which are obviously not things to aspire to. Just like "Nazi" has a wealth of baggage that prevents me from taking seriously anyone who uses it to mean "someone who is proud of their heritage," "NPC" has baggage that prevents me from taking signal seriously when they use it to mean "someone who is unbothered by social expectations."
If this were my only issue with the post, it would just be a difference in framing, and there wouldn't be anything more to say. But more importantly, the post seems to comport more to the complete understanding of "NPC" that I explained above than to the definition signal themselves has chosen to use. It is bizarre to read, because signal opens with the aforementioned incomplete definition of "NPC" shortly before describing the lifestyle in a way that matches the complete understanding they either implicitly reject or are unaware of.
take an npc blacksmith in skyrim, for example. do they care whether or not you slay dragons? no. do they care if you come in and steal all their shit because you pickpocketed them? no way. what do they do? they just keep living their life as a blacksmith [...]
It astounds me how signal could use this as an example to portray living as an NPC as aspirational. If anything, this is a perfect demonstration of why living "an NPC life" would be disastrous. The Skyrim blacksmith doesn't care whether you've stolen from them; they just continue on, incapable of recognizing that they have been victimized. The world could fall apart around them, and the quality of their life could suffer immeasurably, but since they are programmed just to keep on smithing, that's all they do.
This is a horrible lifesyle to present as your ideal, and striving to live this way would be horrendously irresponsible. And this example does not comport with the definition of "NPC" that signal claims to be using.
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.
The "drive a boring car" example is more mundane, and more suited to signal's definition. Their argument would have benefited if this was the only sort of example the post used. However, "do nothing after work, because why should you do something?", like the blacksmith example, is a terrible aspiration, and plays directly into the definition of "NPC" that signal does not use.
I believe that to get home from work and simply sit there rotting, mindlessly consuming media with no intention of learning, or thinking, or analyzing, is not healthy for your mind. Thinking critically is good for you. Analyzing the media you consume refines your enjoyment and makes the experience richer. And though it is an unfortunate reality that our modern capitalist dystopia does not afford everyone the time, money, or energy to pursue creative and constructive hobbies, engaging in creation is more emblematic of the human spark than endless consumption. And while consumption in and of itself isn't bad, by any means, it's like the toast upon which the butter of creation ought to be spread. Creating helps you consume more critically, and consuming critically helps you refine and deepen your own creations. People are naturally going to consume more than they create, but they should strive to do both.
Compare this mindset to that for which signal appears to be advocating. signal believes that the ideal lifestyle is one in which you get home from work, plop yourself onto the couch, and consume media, all the while going out of your way to avoid thinking about it, in emulation of the Skyrim blacksmith who does not think about the ramifications of the player's quest. signal appears to be urging us to spend our time purposefully avoiding doing anything constructive, and even refusing to engage in introspection regarding those things we consume which other people have created.
This, again, is a terrible aspiration.
when you stop caring about being the main character, you finally get to just live your life.
And this attitude is not conducive to living your life. This attitude is what prompts you to sit idly by while, as signal indicates, "your life passes you by." Not only does this attitude make you stagnate, but it leads you to grow soft: it dulls your thinking, atrophies your ability to introspect, and strips from you your uniquely human ability to engage with the world.
As regretful as signal may find it, we are the main characters of our own lives. This cannot be avoided. We will only ever see the world through our own eyes, interpreting it in our own minds. It is undeniable that we should not allow peer pressure and the expectations of others to dictate how we live our lives. signal says this. But being an NPC is to surrender your cognition, which leaves you no other choice but to passively absorb and defer to the influence of other people. signal seems to portray being an NPC as being a free thinker, but they are complete, diametric opposites. It is damaging to relinquish agency in pursuit of some misguided "fucks not given" attitude. You should avoid the undue influence of other people when their influence hinders your progress toward becoming your most actualized self, but this assumes that your goal is to actualize in the first place. By a plain reading of signal's post, they appear utterly uninterested in such things.
It may be argued that I am misconstruing signal's point. Perhaps signal isn't advocating for us to soften our minds to match the Skyrim blacksmith, but is instead arguing that we should be empowered to do so if we so chose. Perhaps signal might not find such a life ideal, but is arguing that anyone who does should be free to pursue it.
I believe, however, that this interpretation would be pushing the bounds of signal's post beyond what a plain reading reveals. At no point does signal explicitly say any of this, nor do they indicate that the thesis of their post is one's freedom to choose. They directly state that "the NPC lifestyle," explained as the lifestyle of the Skyrim blacksmith, is the ideal for which they are arguing:
but here’s my take: the npc lifestyle is actually a very viable way to live.
It would be one thing if they said, "the NPC lifestyle is viable, and everyone should feel free to live it if that is what makes them happy." Instead, signal spends the post expounding upon how their ideal, "stoic" sort of happiness naturally flows from the "NPC lifestyle."
maybe the secret to living—or maybe this is just a retelling of stoicism and endless levels of historical philosophy—is that the goal is to just do your own thing.
Again, "just doing your own thing" in this statement does not appear to refer to choosing your lifestyle as you see fit. In context, it appears to be referring directly back to the Skyrim blacksmith.
Ultimately, it is untenable to claim that signal's post argues that the key to happiness is having the freedom to choose your lifestyle, and that "the NPC lifestyle" is just one among many valid options. It is clear that their argument is that "the NPC lifestyle" is the specific ideal to which we should be striving.
Absurd Pirate's response delves a little deeper into some issues with the argument, including how their characterization of the Skryim blacksmith isn't completely accurate to the game anyway, and how actual stoic philosophy is very different than what signal seems to believe.
I would implore to signal themselves to realize that they are straying too far into the realm of apathetic disconnection from the world. Don't just "do nothing after work," even if that's what you want to do. The things we want are frequently not healthy for us to have, and there is more to life than taking the path of least resistance and whittling away our finite lifespans just passively absorbing the things that other people do and say. The fact that you bothered to write the blog post indicates that there is a spark of creativity in you, a compulsion to create, and this is not something to discourage or be ashamed of. In fact, it is good, and should be nurtured and cherished.
If you want to drive a boring car, do it. If you want to pull back from the endless news cycle and focus on yourself, do it. But if you want to live "the NPC lifestyle," do not do it, for your own sake. Becoming anything close to an NPC would be a terrible fate.
As critical as I have been of signal's argument, I am grateful they put it out there, because writing and interpersonal discourse is healthy and productive. Their post made me think, and the fact that I can do that, the fact that I motivated myself to write this instead of just mindlessly scrolling, which would have been much easier, is a blessing. I wish signal would see it that way too.