My hands are tied.
I do all of my best thinking pacing back and forth with a cigarette in my hand.
Mainly I think about you.
Who you are, what I'd say to you.
I generate a fair amount of decent monologues.
everything is so hard right now
Ok, so I'm coming from a Venn of Dungeons & Dragons, Computer Gaming, and Existential Despair - and hopefully that framework will cue up enough relevance for you to play along.
For starters, you'll need to know enough about "tabletop gaming" to keep playing. Since we're on something digital, I'll show you the Venn between that and computer gaming. Essentially, in tabletop gaming, the Dungeon Master/DM/Storyteller is the game console. The DM is the computer that generates the gameworld and the player's interface with it. The game resolution is determined by the same mechanism with which you project a visualization in your head of things you want to be scared of, like him running his hand up her thigh.
The thing about becoming a Dungeon Master, if you want to create a campaign, you want to create a whole world. When you do, you start to look at I dunno, anthropology, sociology, cultures - the maturation from cult to society - and such. I mean, at the starter levels you put orcs in the forest. Then when you create the region, you have to make "random encounter tables" for the forest, so if the dipshit players don't figure out they're supposed to go to the mountain for 3 in-game-damn-weeks, different things happen.
Anyway, there's players - those interfacing with your game world, and NPCs. NPCs are the game-interface equivalent of player "conspecifics." So, if the reader is the player and I'm the DM and you decide for this next paragraph you want to be in the tavern and talk to the BarKeep - the DM (or game interface) acts out the scene and dialogue with the player/reader. that'll be 2 creativecoins, lad
^^ In this case, #AlphaStar is top-end NPC.
Then, there's you
The player/reader. The interactive audience portion of the co-creation, asitwer. Where, if you and I position ourselves just right, and interface in just the write way - something beautiful happens.
On the outskirts of the Venn of these experiences, you can make more sense of it if you think of the person who hands you your Starbuck's as "an NPC". They could be anyone, and it's always better if they have unique and amusing traits, but they're there performing a function. Barmaid, Goblin, Internet-Troll. All NPCs.
So, most people then, are compensated by the system for the time they're willing to serve as an NPC.