I empathize with Hikikomoris, do you?

[TheManBeyond]

http://vimeo.com/110754414

Not the best documentary, the one i wanted to link is only in spanish. Anyway it gives you an idea.

Will you be one? or like you say, been there done that lol.

 

[Pyropyro]

I was a semi-hikikimori (since I still did online jobs and I'm too proud to simply ask for support) for around a year when I quit my job. I do sympathize with them but they do need to get out and earn a living. It's kind of wrong to rely on another person's support all the time.

Being a hikikimori is at least a two-person thing. One's the shut-in while the other (usually the parent) is an enabler.

 

[TBerg]

It's been an on-again-off-again phenomenon for me, but I always helped significantly with my parents' business, did my fair share at home, and studied my own material. I have one good friend, and that's about it. I kind of let my social life go to hell because I did not have the money or the time to venture closer to them after college. I also lied to them using a false persona that feels prohibitively fake and untenable now. I would not know how to relate to them after being such a clown and hiding my loser feelings. This is how I destroyed myself after thinking that I am not good enough for any meaningful connection with anyone.

 

[QuickTwist]

I found that video fascinating. I was going to watch just a bit of it to get the gist of it, but I ended up watching the whole thing.

I understand the Hikikomori. No one tries to be one, it just happens. People who are Hikikimori have had their spirit broken and they do not have the will to live; all motivation and ambition has been stripped from them. After the next great war which we will unavoidably have, people will adopt this kind of lifestyle and it will become much more common. Those left with ambition to do and be more will easily climb the ranks of success and there will be a great gap between those who have, and those who do not have.

 

[idokaiho]

If I didn't basically spill this earlier today I wouldn't be posting this. I've been one for the most part for a while now. I go out rarely and I do see my family. I hate myself for it, probably somewhere in my subconscious. I'm so detached from my feelings I wish I could feel it so that I at least have something to push me. My little brother looks up to me which is probably the worst part. For some reason he thinks everything I do is cool or something. I tell him not to be like me and at least he isn't. I wear a mask like I'm actually okay, how can they not know? Why do they love me? Why do they feel more like strangers than family?

I thought this might help me but it seems more like I'm just reinforcing these thoughts.

I shouldn't have even started posting this crap.

 

[nanook]

i used to be in the otaku mode for a while, peaking in my last years of school, ebbing off after that for like 4 years, but now my existence is no longer build around entertainment, i don't even watch more than like 20 movies per year and my mind is unsuccessfully concerned with problem solving instead of being completely apathetic and indulgent. i also leave the house for skateboarding, biking or visiting the social anxiety self help group. i have no social life and apparently i couldn't possibly have one and nobody would give me a job. even shitty jobs call for someone who is more appropriately shitty, in the mind of employees. society is like a gradient from orks to elves and i stand out of the whole cast-system-spectrum like gollum or something.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Parenting, mental health, personality, and employability are all factors. I don't know what it's like in Japan but I think it's rather difficult for someone to fall into these trappings in the U.S. due to strong cultural pressures.

Yet mental health is an important factor and anything from major depression to autism/aspergers to social anxiety to addiction could have you in such a situation, though I would assume a person is more likely to end up homeless here than a hikikomori.

It would be nice if we were free from external pressures forever and could follow our interests but cocooning is extreme self-preservation. I'm just glad that I'm not stuck like that, and I make it a goal to never become so.


On the other hand, immersive VR and advanced digital technology in a post-scarcity society will be interesting.