A Hikkikomori StopGap

Note: For some reason, some of these comments got cut off. I’m not sure if it’s because the anon-archive script wasn’t able to capture them or that it was always cut off. (although personally, I don’t remember them being cut off) Most of these quotes are still readable and coherent though. I’m just posting this as a warning in case you thought it was a case of mis-copying.

Update: According to the script developer, the problem is fixed.

One of the things that got sidetracked in the popular (for the board at the time) AnonIB Hikikomori Poll thread was the issue of social suicide.

Some might even say, I hijacked the thread.

One of the question under the poll was:

#13 Is being a Hikikiomori good or bad? (explain or don’t)

Someone answered with:

Being a hikikiomori is bad, because you miss out on *living*.

This prompted me to address the post with:

Not to be insulting of the above anon’s opinions but I’d just like to point out that being a Hikkikomori is not committing suicide so no, you do not miss out on living.

However if you meant living as in going outside, I would also argue that tons of people from hermits, experts in their fields, passionate athletes and researchers and even multi-billionaire businessmen and entrepreneurs all have the underlying structure of often missing out on living yet as a general group, I doubt you will hear that people will say their paths are inherently bad just because they often miss out on “living”.

…and it went on from there.

First though, the video above addresses the question Is Social Suicide so detrimental to society?

This was something that wasn’t discussed in the topic. It’s not perfect but it should suffice in giving you a clue to the answer.

…

On to the actual conversation:

Anon: Well, living as far as ‘interacting with other people’ and ‘being happy’ go. Not that everyone who isn’t a hikki doesn’t miss out on living, either, just that it’s a signature trait of being a hikki.

Me: Actually no it isn’t but it can seem that way when you look at the dictionary definition only.

One thing that you miss majorly is how life continues on regardless what decision one makes.

In this case, many or enough hikkikomoris will be exposed to the point where their decisions must be challenged and at the same time, many Hikkikomoris will also seemingly act as if they were happy with being a Hikkikomori.

This is why Hikkikomoris came to popular mainstream news in Japan when some Hikkikomoris would even go so far as to commit crimes once they were outdoors or forced to be outside.

Another thing that is often missed out by the dictionary definition is that if Hikkikomoris didn’t feel happy, they wouldn’t have been stereotyped as videogame lovers, indy musicians and other such isolated sort primarily because they should act more like hopeless people. Yet if you follow this trail of hopelessness or sadness, Hikkikomoris won’t really be Hikkikomoris as they would decide to let others conform and control them rather than go through what you or majority society normally perceives as the way to happiness (i.e. graduation, jobs, employee, etc. etc.)

You might then say, the question really falls down to the “quality” of happiness one has.

Yet here too philosophy, history, biology and other aspects disagree that interacting with people is happiness.

Over-simplistically, if people were happier interacting with other people and being happy, historically there would have been no mainstream desire for matrimony and the concept of romance wouldn’t be so strong between two people as opposed to a polygamous relationship. One might even say that even polygamous relationships are often still bound by the quality of the centerpiece husband and wife, otherwise we would have become a web-like polygamous colony-like society.

Now marriage is one example although it is a major one. Historically too, our society would have progressed farther in social development than in technological improvements if interacting with other people is equivalent as the ultimate fundamental for being happy.

This is not to mean that it is useless but certainly if you look at history, some of the men were happiest rebelling against what the majority considered happy. Others found more importance and hence more drawn to individualism. Still others would be popular party goers but often being most happiest with their works and their loves and hence contributing more to the world than the average hive.

This doesn’t mean it is always free of tragedy or it is heaven but even biologically, interacting with other people has spread diseases, promoted wars and cause issues to befall the mob mentality and groupthink.

Even philosophically and money-wise, the riches or the wisest of their time often emphasized surrounding and befriending those that contemplated one the most rather than those who befriended the most and often those people too achieve the highest fame and richest material wealth.

This doesn’t mean Hikkikomoris are bound to all be rich too but it simply shows that as far as the general and specific evidences are concerned, interaction with other people hasn’t and was always often the antithesis of being happy.

Even those that disagree with my definition of Hikkikomoris and feel even those who are afraid to go out outside their decision are Hikkikomoris were often interacting with other people prior to becoming Hikkikomoris too. Would they really be scared to go outside if interacting with other people automatically or often times = being happy? I doubt it.

Even saying it’s a signature trait of being a Hikki is flawed in that often times, Hikkikomoris’ stereotypical shy actions often attract rather than repel interaction from the people who really are worth befriending them the most and aren’t really just faking it.

Anon: no, it is. it’s social suicide, just existing from day after day doing the same dumb shit without even interacting with other people (internet shit like this isn’t real interaction). we might as well be in a coma or something except then we might be worth something because our families could sell our body parts and shit. hikky is a living death no matter how you look at it.

Anon #2: I think I’ll agree with this one. Not just because 9/10 of what Foolness said went right over me head, but rather there’s a difference between voluntarily being a hermit or a recluse and being a social retard (me).

Anon #3: (italicize are quotes taken from my post)

interaction with other people hasn’t and was always often the antithesis of being happy.

Just because it might not be the antithesis of being happy, doesn’t mean that for most people having social contact does contribute to happiness.

Hikkikomoris’ stereotypical shy actions often attract rather than repel interaction from the people who really are worth befriending them the most and aren’t really just faking it.

How would this ever happen if you don’t go outside at all? And even if you do go outside, there are very few people who are willing to talk to someone who is quiet all the time.

Anyway, I’m really curious, how many hikkis have you talked to that seemed happy? I’m not saying they don’t exist, but in my general experience most aren’t happy with their current lives at all.

Mine: (apologize for the quote-formatting, Imageboards are a pain in the ass to copy-paste off but you should be able to get an idea of who I was replying to.)

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Then you might as well consider modern society a breeding ground for social suicide because believe me more than half of the people today even those that go outside exist day to day without interacting with others.

You get the occassional hi and hello but many people are merely indulging themselves in work and coming home tired and almost ritualistically going through a phase of small talk. Others merely drown themselves in parties, not really being any different than someone moving from tribes to tribes doing tribal dances and then leaving without really trying to get to know those people. Still others are too focused on success and by the time that phase passes by, they’re looking for a settled life. Sometimes meaning producing enough money for life, sometimes meaning they can produce material wealth for their family, even sometimes just being able to stay home and lie comfortably in bed.

None of those are social interaction. They’re more like social plays where you act out something so people can leave you alone when you don’t need something and pay attention to you when you do.

It is a system that over-simplistically revolves around the structure where the ideal social interaction by most people to replace social communication with adult social playtime, replace communities with a suicidal “just me and who I consider family”, and even replace communication by following whatever crowd ticks with them.

Ex.

If it’s religion, then the average Church goer sticks to each of their religion often tolerating other religions but equally not really applying their religious teaching, often being there to find comfort in shutting their brains down and following the priest. If it’s patriotism, the average patriot is willing to wait what the rest of the people firmly believe the others want and what the media presents them, often shunning proper research and pushing their fellow men into deaths from wars made out of lies (to take something from that other thread) Even as simple as being in school is like a coma where you are often a bunch of huddled wide eyed similar aged groups suddenly taught to follow someone called “teacher” and shutting part of your brains down to convince yourself that the teacher is someone that should be followed. Often producing such results where people become rebels, other believers in how their teacher raised them to the very end thus applying it to all teachers, even others just wasting away their childhood intelligence often drowning out the slave-work like feeling by simply interacting with their fellow students almost as if taking a break from being a comatose.

Even your thoughts of living death, have you forgotten what pollution, global warming, wars, corrupt governments and companies, lazy institutions that produce or fail to prevent disasters, pedophiliac priests, fake preachers and other such sorts weren’t produced or contributed by Hikkikomoris alone (or at all)?

Do you really think that simply by going outside and saying hi, suddenly you’re no longer committing social suicide?

Note that I’m not just using these examples to show that your term “social suicide” fits modern society well but also to show you how you are so passionate against Hikkikomori that you are putting us in a pedestal so you can knock us down while giving the benefit of the doubts to everything else or most everything else that it is leading you to such a flawed, absurd and emotional knee-jerk conclusions such as social suicide and that you might want to think these things more.

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doesn’t mean that for most people having social contact does NOT* contribute to happiness.

It mostly doesn’t. Most people do social contact almost like they do watching TV. They flip a channel, get a commercial and decide whether they want to turn it off, put it on mute, flip it back, switch to other channels or go back to it and see if Telly says “timeslot is up, time for a different show.”

Most of the happiness contributed by social contact is actually produced not through socializing but through engaging in something that you feel has contributed in something you value.

On a shallower note, someone who wants to hear about their favorite shows would obviously feel happy if they meet someone else who likes their show while others instead would like it more if they can have detailed and candid conversations about the show and not just some fanboy/fangirl praise of the show.

On a deeper example, someone who is working on a project would appreciate it if they can find someone who can help them in a major way and a big part of that is being able to trust the person and that can only realistically be achieved through prolonged contact with that specific person.

All this can apply to modern telephones, internet conversations even television as a sort of media broadcast or perspective dawning material (i.e. a comedian wanting to show more people how funny they are)

None of this requires social contact nor does having social contact mean you are guaranteed that you will be receiving this kind of social contact or even avoid situations that will damper this happiness because of the same social contact effect.

In fact, to apply your own phrase to something else, one could merely say the same thing for anything that might bring happiness to that person.

Just because it might not be the antithesis of being happy, doesn’t mean that for most people having a slave doesn’t contribute to happiness.

The core ingredient for why social contact can sometimes seem better is not so much because social contact is necessary but other forms of communication haven’t reached the sophistication provided by face to face interaction.

For ex. Knowing and being able to hear someone’s problem over the internet doesn’t mean you can just teleport from here to there and hug them.

However this stimuli also doesn’t mean that social contact is needed in large amounts or at all. This is why many of the more successful people would often mention the need to sacrifice social contact. This is also why I feel my definition of Hikkikomori needs.

Anon #4:

Excellent post, Foolness. I don’t know what to add other than I noticed on my own, when I was little, the meaninglessness (or vapidness) and insincerity of others interactions. Also that others are just fine and great when speaking to their friends, yet are completely incapable of speaking to strangers.

Also seen way too many who only care about going to work, going home, only giving two shits about their little clan family, watching the tube, then someday their death will sneak up on them. People are boring, shallow, scared, predictable, selfish. All the same. Very isolated and clustered into exclusive groups, which merely insulates them and increases their comfort to the point that they can’t leave that little bubble without immense distress. Yet they end up just another cog in the machine, looking like every other cog, spinning slowly until removed and replaced.

Anon: Wall-of text is tl, dr

4219/4222 here

basically what I was trying to say is that people who aren’t hikikomori at least have a chance to have lives, interact socially, be happy. no idea how many do, and sure, many don’t, but I take as gospel the notion that a hikki *doesn’t* get that, ever, as long as they’re a hikki.

Me:

Not trying to be an asshole (ok, somewhat trying to be an asshole) but I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that I didn’t get what you were trying to say when you were the one who in fact stated you didn’t read my post. (hence you were the one not getting what I was basically trying to say)

My apologies. I know you’re being more polite than the average tl;dr -er but I’m just having one of those days where my tolerance level is lower than usual. :p

Anon:

Welllll…I kinda skimmed it ^_^

I was just trying to clarify ‘cuz my earlier post was awkwardly phrased, not that you didn’t get what I was saying.

Me:

Thanks for not starting an argument. I was just in a bad mood and combined with my distaste for tl;dr posters…well, I already said it so it’s too late for excuses.

Oh and I felt your earlier post was clear enough. Couldn’t really pinpoint any awkward phrases from my side.

Other Anon:

“Not that everyone who isn’t a hikki doesn’t miss out on living” is pretty bad, at least flow-wise. I could’ve put it as “Not that everyone who isn’t a hikki *does* ‘have a life’” and it reads a little better. Double negatives and all that.

Another other Anon:

When I read things like:

“People are boring, shallow, scared, predictable, selfish. All the same. Very isolated and clustered into exclusive groups, which merely insulates them and increases their comfort to the point that they can’t leave that little bubble without immense distress. Yet they end up just another cog in the machine, looking like every other cog, spinning slowly until removed and replaced.”

and

“… believe me more than half of the people today even those that go outside exist day to day without interacting with others.”

I think it’s a sure sign that you have been isolated for so long that you no longer are able to make a sound judgment on how most people out there in the world live their lives. I understand you got this bleak impression of other people very well (I can’t say that I haven’t felt this way about the world/humans too, I still often do), but it’s a view of the world very much colored by bad personal experiences, bitterness that comes from being isolated and lack of interaction with friendly people.

…

(This was where things started heating up)

Me:

Nope. Sorry, you got that wrong.

You’re not worth bothering because I feel you’re one of those who don’t really listen from the way this post of yours is written (notice I’m applying the same attitude you did to my post), but I think there are people with the same views as you that don’t have their head as much up their ass so I’m just going to post some of the glaring flaws of your post just as a way to warn them that although you might have similar opinions to theirs, they should be wary in assuming you are a proper representative of one who knows how to make a sound judgement of people as you can’t even make a proper sound judgement of the posts you’ve read here just based on this one reply.

The #1 flaw with your post is that you didn’t really give any reasons to back up your points other than that you “believe” you have similar feelings. This isn’t bad on it’s own but when I read things like:

I think it’s a “sure” sign…

It just shows that you have a holier than thou attitude to begin with.

The 2nd flaw is that you lumped two separate posters post and acted as if they are one. A sure attempt of misquoting.

Yes, you could say the theme of the posts is similar enough but isn’t it convenient that you took out the details from all my post and grouped it with a more insultingly over-simplistically written post by another poster and claim that suddenly “it’s a sure sign of isolation” according to you?

Classic symptom of “I have my head up in my ass so much I don’t want to address their points and simply need to copy paste the weakest parts of what I’ve skimmed to make it sound like I actually considered what those two inferior to me posters wrote because I got what they are talking about since I know I’ve sometimes thought of it too.”

Worse not only did you do that to my post but you actually made the other poster sound ruder than how he really was when you messed up his post.

Third is how much you really misinterpreted what you’ve read. I was actually reliving a good experience when I wrote that post. Most notably during this:

It’s not only common in examples but funnily enough, from personal experience, it’s common enough that when you come up to a stranger and converse with them, they often have this surprise “coming out of the reverie” look almost as if they were in a coma.

Had you really tried to comprehend the post I wrote or were interested in making sure that the signs you got were indeed “sure”, you would have find it strange that I would use the word “funnily enough” if I were trying to present a bleak impression of people. In fact, if you really comprehended my post, you would have realized that if there was something bleak about my post it was that we are in a bleak environment but there are lots of people who continue to strive and adapt through it that the world continues to live, experts continue to exist, progress continues to move (albeit in a slow pace and often in a two steps forward three steps back way), people working on projects continue to discover people who will help them, friends losts doesn’t mean no friends gained for eternity… had you simply tried to listen, you wouldn’t have come off as self-centered and your points might have some virtue worth discussing because they really are worth discussing but coming from you, written in this way, sadly they are just the words of a person who’s already settled in their beliefs, politely assuming they’ve somehow walked through all manners of perspective, thinking that they are the ones making the sound judgements when the only judgements they’ve decided upon is a judgement based on unsound cynicism trying to act as if the ones they were dealing with were the ones making the unsound ones. A case of trying to reflect your own shortcomings unto others in the hopes that you would not have to admit that you were the one who fell short in your analysis but unconsciously enough showing and proving that you are reading and setting your experiences up as your own strawmen rather than opening yourself up to a variation of your own experiences that might have been based from a totally different premise.

Anon:

For ‘not worth bothering’ you sure made a long posts, as expected of you I suppose. It seems I really hit a nerve there, considering the personal attacks… I wonder why.
Anyway, I have no desire to further derail this thread so I will not reply in depth to your post (not like it wouldn’t make a difference). I will say this though, I’ve taken the effort to read pretty much all of your posts on this board, many on the hikikomori forum and I’ve even talked to you in chat, and more then anyone (that I know to be hikki) you come across as someone who is not very tolerant of any opinion that differs from his own. I’ll leave it at that.

Me:

Not really. Yes, you could say it was long by other’s standards but it really wasn’t long enough for me and that’s where the “not worth bothering” part comes in.

For example, I did expect that there was a good chance that you might pull the “I hit a nerve, personal attack” bit (though I had a slightly different wording of it in mind) and I considered prolonging my post to address it but that was one of the major bits I decided to not bother since I was writing it more from a perspective of a warning than a direct address to you. (hence where most of the length went)

Something that, while definitely could be interpreted as an excuse because I’m addressing it after you have posted this and also because it can often be used as an excuse, I’m sure from someone who read “most of my posts” you’d probably know isn’t something that I normally would write if I didn’t really mean it.

In fact here too you might be wondering (or even point out as part of an insult in a future reply) of how if I really didn’t feel like bothering to point it out, why am I doing it now in this post?

It’s simply because I didn’t want to bother with you personally so much (after I explained and stated why) in that last post that I didn’t want to even focus on explaining it beyond stating that I was writing it as a warning sign because I really felt your premise had value (as I previously stated) but you yourself was a person that wasn’t worth bothering with. By cause of not bothering, it just naturally followed that I didn’t really want to expand on how it wasn’t personal or how you might think it hit a nerve, but it really was more of hitting a semi-deaf switch (one part addressing your post, another part tuning it out and addressing it to people who agree with you) so I cut it to the simple point of stating it’s a warning sign and here are the flaws.

Here, however, by natural fact that I am addressing your post these reasons come out both as a clarification for people who might miss this intention in the previous reply but also because, unlike in the previous post, this is the post you should be accusing me of being personal and not the previous one. (THAT is how different those two posts affected me.)

And this hit a nerve with me because you gathered some vague skeletons of when we might have talked in chat, in HF and over here but not quite the reason you’re probably assuming.

You see this hit a nerve because I was torn between simply stating the obvious flaw that at no point in any of my post did I even bring up anything about my tolerance of other’s opinion and that this was another evidence of your head being up your ass too much. (obviously the second conflict here is that if I really believe you to be this way, why am I paying attention to you if I already know you either won’t listen or will interpret something differently again from my post)

See this is why I say this post hit a nerve with me. Normally I wouldn’t bother with it (or even just point that flaw alone and leave it at that) but because you bring up some vague stuff about chat and HF, it just hit me the wrong way and so I can only come to the conclusion that definitely you hit a nerve in this post.

Now with regards to my personal attack: here it is.

1) You must be even fuller of yourself than I originally assumed if you think stating I don’t seem very tolerant of others’ differing opinions is news to me.

It would be alright if you weren’t reading my posts but I take insult to the fact that someone can’t get that drilled in their heads from my constant pointing out and emphasizing that my opinions can seem “elitist”. Not only that, I’m just generally pissed off that someone would even get the impression that I was stating some kind of “I’m better than you” statement in the previous post which leads to my 2nd problem with your post.

2) As if you couldn’t further prove your holier than thou attitude, you’re so full of your own world that you actually think I was referring to myself as better when I couldn’t even find a hint in my previous post of how I could’ve implied that this is how I could do it better… or even the keywords “than me” in my previous post.

To me that is just a sheer sign of absolute arrogance that further increased my anger towards your post.

It could be one thing if this post of yours have even a semblance of defending yourself against the points I raised of what was wrong with your post but no, you totally dissed anything worthwhile in your post and immediately went straight to an ad hominem attack but worse, not only an ad hominem attack but an ad hominem attack that revolves around my previous words (and not even a specific event at that! Just “I’ve taken the effort to read pretty much all of your posts”

3) Finally the thing that pisses me off most is that you have the audacity to accuse me of throwing out personal attacks when the fact that you resorted to an ad hominem clearly proves you were the one that my post hit a nerve with and hence you had to use a poor attempt of digging up some past unrelated stuff I stated; thus producing a kettle meet mirror effect. (This was more out of the frustration of your sheer arrogance than any expectation that you wouldn’t eventually pull something like this.)

Anyway, nevertheless, the unaffected rational person would say that regardless of these points, knowing that you aren’t one to listen, not only did I let the troll win (assuming you are one) by being pissed off like this but even if you’re not a troll, the fact that I already assumed you’re not one to listen should have caused me to just ignore your flawed reply and thus by being affected by you, not only did I became the lesser man but almost none of my words most likely penetrate through your thick skull.

To that person I will say, yes they are right but that is what hitting my nerve does to me and thus why I definitely and firmly deny that the previous post hit even a slightest of my nerve but this post definitely did. Not only that, I would also point out that when something pisses someone off so much, at some point, posts like these aren’t so much a reply or even worthy as a comeback for if you notice this post I am acting like I am better than you while in the previous post I felt I wasn’t precisely because you actually pissed me off in this one which opens an argument for anyone who wants to side with you or even you yourself to state that I am also acting like someone who has his head up his ass based on this post (even though the emotions and intent between this post of min

Anon:

zealous objectivity is worthless

Me:

Not sure if this is directed towards me but if it is, I’m not that either.

Not to mention that the word is an oxymoron and also that as far as I know, Google 1st page results don’t show anything so it might just be something you came up on your own.

In that case, it doesn’t matter who you are referring to, you might want to rethink that phrase. I’m not anti-word creation but the word fails two major criteria for what should make the word work:

a) It’s not funny enough to be a meme

b) It doesn’t make sense enough to be a word

…

The End

For a link countering the video above, check out this MetaFilter link: http://www.metafilter.com/83878/Nurturing-Creativity

The comments on the MetaFilter site aren’t worth much but as with any Twitter-like attention span posts, some of them contain a “big picture” grain of truth to be worth a skim.

Ultimately though, the best portion of that other link is this:

Vice Three: Put Gambling First

Gambling is at the heart of every worthwhile accomplishment in life. Consequently, vice three is essential for the success of your creativity. Instinctively, the highly creative person knows that nothing matters except the throw of the dice. As the French say, “There are two great pleasures in gambling: that of winning and that of losing.” Or, in the words of Mark Twain, “There are two times in a man’s life when he should [gamble]: when he can’t afford it and when he can.” These are vital lessons.

The world is full of stories of highly creative people whose success was based on the big gamble. A young Steven Spielberg sneaks into a Hollywood film studio, sets up an office and proceeds to act like an employee, thus beginning the most lucrative directorial career in history. Thirty-year-old Henry Miller moves to Paris with little money and no prospects, determined to become the most talked-about American novelist of his generation, and does. Hugh Hefner boldly walks into the offices of John Baumgarth and acquires the rights to reproduce the photograph of a nude Marilyn Monroe, a little known starlet, for his yet-to-be-published magazine.

Certainly, there are horrifying stories of those who gambled and lost heavily, whose compulsive involvement in games of chance, often played out in the arena of big business, nearly ruined them and scores of others. But it’s not until the end of life that we truly know what we’ve won or lost. French philosopher Denis Diderot summed it up eloquently:

The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than 60 years, dicebox in hand, shaking the dice.

END QUOTE^

For those who can’t quite connect this with the idea of suicide, the “true” suicidal is actually very similar to the person who takes large risks. The main difference between the two is that the gambler in life bets on the material outcome while the suicidal bets on the existential outcome.

There isn’t any unanimously accepted definition for what a true suicidal is though.

Some of you may even think I’m talking about martyrs and honor - to a great extent the answer is no; to a great extent the answer is yes.

When I still considered myself a suicidal, I could sorely remember how I was never influenced by martyrdom, seppuku, even the orthodox thought of “escaping from suffering” when I’m finally dead.

Yet being a Filipino who was enrolled in a Catholic School, the tales of Lorenzo Ruiz, Jose Rizal and Christ was already embedded in me. Later on, Anime and the fascination with Japan’s Bushido would introduce me to the act of seppuku.

I’m telling you this simply to highlight the already existential struggle a suicidal (who hasn’t killed or failed to kill himself) would be battling with throughout their lives.

On one hand, I like to show you how I wasn’t influenced by anything consciously. How to a grander extent, most “true” suicidals by my definition don’t aim to kill themselves. They simply think of going away. It doesn’t mean all of them are born this way but it does mean that like a gambler, most of them live with a ticking clock in their head.

The gambler is always constantly on the look-out for the right opportunity. Yet at the same time, the successful ones aren’t the ones who go all-in all the time but are merely ones who have a consistent body clock inside constantly telling them to gamble. Constantly giving them the instinct to continue playing the game rather than just willing things to come or letting the wind blow where they may go.

Yet the ultimate quality of the gambler isn’t when he’s winning the game of life but when he’s down and out and he just seemingly falls on the ground asleep; he wakes up, registers he’s alive and like an addict goes up to replay the game… again. (While possessing the subconscious apathy of knowing the stage doesn’t start from the beginning.)

Of course, not being a gambler, I’m not even sure my definition of them fits correctly. I just know for most of my life as a suicidal, this was how I felt. Only my game was to take the risk of resetting the game from the start…or turn off the console forever.

But then there’s the fact that science and neuro-ignorance says subconsciously something must have influenced me. As the above poster alluded to, to a grander extent: “How do I know I’m not just a product of a bad environment?”

…and for the most part in my life, I wouldn’t have known. Not until much much later in my life. Sounds obvious but most everyone likes to think they’re right before their full cycle of life resolves.

Yes, even non-suicidals like to think that the women they’re going to marry is the one they’ll be with forever, that the political ideology they have aligned with will forever be the one that’s valid…that the religion they’ve felt the most comfortable with is the religion that’s superior to all the religion they’ve never tried. Big surprise why there are lots of fundamentalists huh?

Too bad we’ve only started cracking down on the religious nutjobs rather than going full out on all the social fundies…

We’d probably do the world a lot better by implementing poker lessons for elementary schools if we did.

Yet this is also the reason why I shared those names. As a person, seppuku interested me but I didn’t go so far as to know the specific ritual beyond a knife entering a part of your body. Jose Rizal and Lorenzo Ruiz were only on my radar because I am a Filipino. (even Ruiz’s name I didn’t remember until I started typing.) Christ was the same too because I was raised in a Catholic school. However as a non-theology researching atheist, the name would hardly be my first choice. None of these were my first conscious choices for what influenced me. (and for good reasons; if I used them, you would be accusing me of misinterpreting their life’s works.)

Nevertheless, that is why even when I wrote in a previous post that I didn’t know what existentialism is really about I used it again here. When you’re dealing with what influences your existence, it’s often much more valid to highlight the unlikely because then it’s much more vivid to hypothesize on the “subconscious unknown” that is capable of influencing one’s life opinion.

…

When you’re in that “true” suicidal state — the why behind the choices — the adaptations you choose — your “integrity” in your moment of choice… they all don’t lead to death. At least never to that concept which means nothingness or escape or metaphysical sociopathy.

Every true suicidal, in their own way, heads to life. That is why they can contemplate the subject for so long …and they still would want to kill themselves. It doesn’t matter how much they fail. It doesn’t matter how much they rationalize. Their “conscious motor” tells them to commit that thing they call suicide. Not just death. “Suicide”. As in “to kill one’s self”.

That is why it annoyed me when I first logged into the internet and read some of these people who want to kill themselves for shallower reasons…and with shallower methods.

It’s simply frustrating to hear these people become the straw men of people who want to simplify the act of suicide and argue it as an irrational act. It’s simply frustrating to know that these people were indeed considered as “attempting suicide”. Not only because I’m elitist but because once these people get inserted into the discussion — once someone used them in another goddamn anecdote of “ehh… I know of this one kid who wanted to commit suicide but a couple of visits to the school counselor and they realize how stupid they were” — the argument is pretty much over. Men and women who act more like they were seeking a way to simulate an act of walking towards “death-inducing accidents” suddenly now became mental equals of men and women whom each day had to look at themselves in the mirror and wonder whether they have achieved enough conviction to not become a hypocrite once the pain begins or the fear creeps in.

It’s not even that my definition have to be right and those people have to be wrong. After all, even if I wasn’t dead I was pretty much thinking of dying anyway. The elitism comes from the fact that these are precisely the people who will contribute to more “false” suicidals.

Yes, these people sometimes get people to realize that their acts were stupid. (They’ll often argue that it’s not sometimes but alot of times due to confirmation bias)

However,

These people will create the type of bad environment where future people will indeed go through and become false suicidals. Even corrupt some “true” suicidals.

…

When you often turn a “natural” act into something to be perceived as stupid, irrational and “to be changed” by de facto: you’re going to often turn people into repressed animals that are just waiting to blow off and do precisely those things you’re accusing them of.

Specifically towards “false” suicidals,

“These” happen because they become more fearful of gathering the

right information on committing suicide. They become more anxious in such a way that they often shut up about committing the act. They even become criminally-minded in that these anxiety develops enough fear in them that they end up coercing someone close to them or someone similar to them to assist them in their actions.

These goes for anyone who had that first impression, who had that first curiosity and had that first doubt. The more you make something natural — taboo — the more it will spill and breed people who will self-fulfill your prophecy because they bought into your misguided noble definitions even when they were conflicted and haven’t decided yet on their actual course.

Equally, this is why I loathed that poster who equated Hikikomoris as committing social suicide.

The same process will happen if more people started adapting his opinion.

It’s not just because they have a different definition from me.

…

By using the words “social suicide”, that person is not only telling those social anxiety-based ones to shut off their critical thought and instead think “Ok, he’s right. I am pathetic! I am committing social suicide. Boo Hoo Hoo” — he’s also sending the message to anyone who might be conflicted with the issue to not even try to research and talk about their feelings. That is, the message that these anxiety-based Hikikomoris are getting is to not think of their daily situation and simply to accept that they are helpless. That they cannot change. That being a Hikkikomori doesn’t need to be a decision… that it doesn’t need to fit the term “social withdrawal” …and that people who say this has to be a decision or this isn’t social suicide are simply trying to convince themselves that Hikikomori isn’t bad.

Whether these people agree or disagree with my definition of what a Hikikomori is, these words are already brain washing these anxiety based people into “mental” fight or flight mode.

More towards mental flight mode because the definition they’re buying into states that they’re pathetic and helpless.

That is why I originally was adamant to accept any people who claim to have social anxiety disorders as Hikikomoris.

There’s just too much lost when people think they’re not in control of their destinies. When they think their “status” is not based on their decisions. (…or when they couldn’t decipher the difference between a choice and a decision.)

Of course, this is further complicated with the mainstream misconception of psychological disorders which believes that when you fit a disorder, there’s something wrong with you as opposed to the original intention of stereotyping/profiling, which is for the doctors to actually fit you into that definition so that they can better guess your problem. (which happens because the symptoms got so bad that you ARE actually showcasing symptoms of losing your control …and not because you already fitted the definition of the disorder beforehand)

Of course, for the sake of neutrality and to strive to be more objective, the reason I am here and able to say and state these differences is because I failed to kill myself… I stopped being a suicidal… and yet I know I didn’t stop being one because I saw I was wrong and stupid, but for different reason altogether.

That is the weakness of my argument but it is also my experience. An experience that motivates me to argue that equating social suicide with being a Hikikomori is not only wrong but harmful because I was a suicidal and I am a Hikkikomori.

Yet that is also the bane of my being. By being a failure and no longer being a suicidal, how can I even argue that my definition fitted a “truer” definition when having this definition ended up in me failing to kill myself?

It’s a dilemma that I doubt I can ever give anyone a satisfactory answer for. The only plus side is that as I alluded to — if I have went and succeeded in killing myself — not only would I not be able to argue this but I wouldn’t be able to be put in a place where I would be convinced not to kill myself and consider my being a suicidal only due to my having been in a bad environment before.

…Yet in that place, even as I’ve leaned towards not killing myself and not being a suicidal anymore… even as I felt I had a good chance of living in a good if not decently enough pleasurable environment… I could not rationalize enough that my decision for becoming a suicidal was wrong.

That is because I considered such a place before. Everything that should surprise me: surprised me from a socializing aspect.

There are just obvious things like being able to be confident or cocky to someone that seems so far off the possibility chart when you were socially anxious before that seems so simple to achieve because the landscape of your environment has changed. (although I wasn’t in a bad enough situation that I was diagnosed as having social anxiety disorder)

Yet these obvious things are like new experiences, culture shock and are not mindset-destroying philosophical realizations.

It was only then that I knew: I knew that even though I would no longer be a suicidal. (Something that I thought I would never drop.)

I wasn’t doing it because something convinced me that I was wrong. Rather, it was because these new experiences merely convinced me that I was right.

…and I know how dogmatic and misguided that can come off to someone who claims he is an elitist and has been accused of being stubborn before — but that’s why I can only keep opening my ears and keep contemplating and balancing my thoughts — so that I am sure that even in my weakest hour, even in my stubbornest days… that I am not rejecting others’ opinions and facts because I think I’m correct but also because I have tried my best to see through others’ perspectives.

Trivia #1 - When I stopped being a suicidal, I didn’t instantly became a Hikikomori although by virtue of being unemployed, I fit the category of a NEET

Trivia #2 - For those who are curious, my last suicidal attempt was in trying to swim to the ocean but my body just froze as soon as I hit the water. Worse, it wasn’t an abandoned seashore like in the movies so there were some (not alot) of people just gawking at me. I also have never committed a suicidal act in such a way that I was hospitalized. These two events along with other more minor stuff is the reason why I have always considered myself a coward and is also why I had to, in good conscience and objectivity, share how I’m not as valid as other suicidals if actions were the only thing factored in - but that hasn’t kept me from holding a strong belief in suicide in such a way that kept me from using the term “true” suicidals. (notably in my short time on Gaia Online)

Trivia #3 - For those who want a more valid “Wikipedia” term. My suicidal views matched closes with that of being a Dutiful Suicidal. That said, I have never served under someone that loyally but the constant bombardment of how I was a burden to my biological parents (this was before I became a Hikikomori) and their resistance to simply throw me out on the streets and make me fight my battles did produce my earliest views of suicide which was in the idea that it was for the greater good that I be gone via my own actions.

P.S. For those who feel this is too much of a self-important view and it doesn’t matched with your pathetic self, you may like to check out this article by Merlin Mann: http://www.43folders.com/2009/08/04/enough

I haven’t followed the guy alot but I have read enough to know that his M.O. matches that appealing to one’s pathetic-ness and low esteem as a way to segway into the same motivational theme without portraying you or him as “enlightened” head-in-the-cloudsmen.

That said, you should be warned that despite being highly rated, Mann can often flip-flop to serve his needs. This was the guy who’s claim to fame was that he wanted to maximize all this GTD productivity stuff and yet in this article, he assumes the mantle of the “Just do it” guy (well, specifically: just “start” it) as opposed to falling back on all his old familiar tips and tricks just to sell the agenda of his post.