We got a little deep just then, didn’t we? I told you about the stakes. I warned you that the world of non-NPC conversation is withheld from 99% of us for a reason. It’s difficult work—or, it can be.
This is where humor comes in. When you talk about personal matters, the things that make people tick, and matters of existential consequence, it’s easy for things to feel heavy—very heavy. What’s the solution? I think you can probably guess.
It’s humor. The solution to all that heaviness is humor. It’s something we all crave when things get heavy. It’s the reason why we laugh when someone trips and falls. When confronted with the serious parts of life and the universe,
you have to laugh, or else you’ll cry, or else the conversation will die.
I’m going to teach you how to make people laugh so they don’t cry. Before that, I need to establish the following truth: if you can’t make yourself laugh, you can’t expect to make other people laugh. Remember that, and seek first and foremost to make yourself laugh.
The ability to wield humor in conversation is what will protect your conversations from turning boring or depressing. This ability is what will make your conversations totally, undeniably gripping. Humor will allow you to engage your conversation partner’s whole brain, not just the parts that like talking about “deep stuff.”
Laughter is a deeply primal expression of joy. It’s a physical, auditory, and verbal indication that you are having a good time. It’s your body’s way of expressing the joy that you feel so deeply in your mind, body, and soul. It’s also the thing that will make people obsessed with talking to you.
Humor is a superpower in conversation, and it can be wielded by anyone. That’s right:
anyone can be funny.
We all have the capacity to laugh, don’t we? We all know how it feels to be tickled by a funny little turn of phrase in a conversation. We know that feeling, which means we know—even if that knowledge is hidden from us—how to make others feel it.
Like any superpower, it needs to be honed and respected. The goal is not to go around saying crazy things just for the sake of getting laughs. That’s cheap. That’s not the point.
Think about it. There are plenty of NPC dialogue options that are funny, that would elicit a chuckle or two, but that’s not what we’re going for. Our goal is to infuse our higher-level conversations with humor to soften the weight that comes with the territory of Levels 2 and 3. Our goal is to make any errors (bird bites, plane turbulence, whatever you want to call it) feel a little less scary.
Think of the person fallling, and how we laugh at them.
We laugh, not because we like to see suffering, but because to err is to be human, and to be human is to laugh. That’s what we’re trying to tap into here.
Humor is about tension and release. The tension part is going to come quite naturally from ascending the vibe ladder. Talking to someone about personal, emotional matters will bring tension. Talking to someone about what it means for all of us to be here spinning on a rock in the ether can bring tension.
Takling about these things makes you vulnerable.
You are pulling on the rope of your own consciousness,
and the tension can either be pulled tighter until it snaps, hurting you and your conversation partner in the process, or it can be strategically loosened at key moments. That’s where humor comes in.
So how do you do release when you can feel the tension building up? Part of the beauty of non-NPC conversation is that once you’re in the flow with someone, once you’ve met each other’s wavelengths and are on the same page, things can start to feel quite natural and dynamic. Humor has a tendency to come exactly when it’s needed, as if some external force has guided it toward you without any conscious awareness on your part.
But what about the times when things feel uncertain, when you’re still learning how to operate without a script, when you don’t know who has the next line? In these moments, it pays to remember how much of communication is nonverbal and lean into that idea. Sometimes a well-timed facial expression is all it takes to relieve some of the tension that’s built up.
A raised eyebrow. A cheeky grin. A drop of the jaw.
Humor is rooted in the physical, and it’s okay to lean into that.
Release can also be accomplished through wordplay. It can be as simple as a momentary change of topic, a little breather between heavy statements. For example, after talking about how the universe is constantly expanding and contemplating the implications of that expansion, you might say something like,
“But is science even real, anyway?”
That’s the release. The rope gets a little less tight, because you’ve lowered the stakes a little. If science isn’t even real—a premise that most conversation partners will find humorous, especially in the midst of a Level 3 conversation—then the expansion of the universe is immaterial, and the tension doesn’t feel so tense anymore. This one small question will provide significant relief for both you and your conversation partner.
That liminal space between serious and not-serious is where humor lives. The tension, or the seriousness of the higher-level conversations, is what allows you to operate as a non-NPC. The release is what allows you to keep pulling on the rope rather than leltting it go completely, to keep living in that coveted non-NPC world of conversation.
You can’t have tension without release, or release without tension. You can’t allow the rope to snap, the plane to crash, because that will hurt you and your conversation partner. Both of you will be sent flying and land on your butts.
We don’t want any broken tailbones.
Sometimes it’ll hurt to keep holding onto the rope, but it’s the kind of pain that begs to be leaned into. Your hands will get used to it. Your muscles will grow stronger. With practice, they’ll learn to tolerate pulling for longer periods of time.
Callbacks in conversation are another way of infusing humor into a conversation. For example, if you’re having a conversation about the secrets of the universe and whether or not they’re within our reach, you might relieve the tension by circling back to something that was said earlier in the conversation: “I bet it’s weird to live in a mysterious, maybe-expanding universe with just nine toes. I think you’re brave.” This shows your conversation partner that you’re really listening to them, which will make them happy, priming them to laugh, thus relieving the tension. It also shows them that you can relate seemingly unrelated topics seamlessly, which will inspire them to trust you as their conversation partner, leading to deeper connections as the conversation continues.
What’s most important to remember, the one thing that I want you to take away from this chapter, is that “naturally funny” is a myth perpetuated by the same people who handed you that NPC script. They want you to believe that humor is reserved for comedians, people whose career is to make others laugh. This is not the case.
Humor is as simple as holding a rope.
Anyone can do it, and you must do it in order to climb the vibe ladder. Humor is not only within reach, but absolutely necessary in your journey to breaking free of the NPC mold.
so what's next?