NPC

I’ve been feeling the tension of the world more and more.

Political leaders are stepping down, one after another.

There are crises on atleast three fronts that I know of.

The United States now wants to annex Canada as the next state, and incorporate Greenland as a territory.

And there’s a wildfire spreading through where I grew up in Southern California, in the winter!

People are still in distress, more than ever, with housing crises left and right.

And despite all of this, most people don’t seem to know how to react in a genuine way.

We’re still celebrating the holidays and the new years.

We’re still going about our jobs and regular lives, for the ones who have them still, knowing that soon enough, we’re about to be kicked to the curb by AI.

We throw more of a panic at our shows buffering than the crises that we’re in as a society.

And this makes me think of NPCs.

NPC stands for non playable character. These are any characters in video games that don’t have an agency of their own. They don’t look any different from the main character, but every single one of their moves and dialogue is scripted. They can’t think outside the box. These characters are used solely to move the main plot forward.

In the Matrix, the woman in the red dress is a NPC. In The Truman Show, every character that Truman interacts with is a NPC. And for a lot of the movie, Truman is a NPC himself. What separates the main character from a NPC is his ability to make decisions for himself. It’s in his ability to take risks, to do something different from what’s expected of him. For him to be a human, and not act as a monkey, or one of our soon to be AI agent overlords.

Even though this term comes from media, NPCs exist in real life too. Just like a NPC in video game, a NPC in our world…

• would follow what he’s told

• wouldn’t have a mission of his own, but his life will be lived to fulfill someone else’s

• wouldn’t take any risks would live the most conventional way, as a way of fitting in would never question any external authority, and wouldn’t know how to listen to his inner authority

In many “developed” countries, there are people who live in their bedrooms, attached to monitors to hook themselves up with games, shows, and porn, who live off of food that they order on their screens and have that delivered by robots at their doorsteps. Here’s an example of a hikikomori in Japan:

In the west, some of us wake up to an alarm clock that starts a 8-10 hour shifts in front of our screens, to go to bed after a Doordash delivery, without a single minute of time spent outdoors, with our friends being some avatars on Discord.

How do you know you are not a NPC?

And what’s the risk of living life in a society of NPCs?

Ask yourself…

• Have I ever actively made decisions that shaped my life, or has my life been dictated by someone else?

• Have I ever been supported in taking a risk, of any kind?

• Have I ever left a safe but soul sucking job, left a predictable but unsatisfying relationship, or walked away from a scene of injustice because no one else was stepping in?

• Do I question the purpose of my existence?

• And, have I done anything with that answer?

The world is changing fast.

And with that, more and more people are going to be subtly pursuaded to leave behind their godgiven blessings to actualize, in the name of AI generated movies on Netflix and more and more ways to staying hooked on Temu.

The system is way more subtle in its nefarious way of molding each of us. Unless we practice hypervigilance over our minds, and more importantly our hearts, it can be gone before you know it.

Ask me how I know this firsthand through my family.

p.s. If you identify as a man and are ready to reprogram yourself…

I have a Men’s Rite of Passage that might be of interest. 3 months of deep work. 2 weeks of nature time in the mountains. 1 opportunity to recondition yourself, forever.

Space for 3 more men. Early registration discount ends in 2 days. We start in 1 month.

🍵 x 🐉