Call Me What You Want's List: Hikikomori

My first choice, however, wasn’t Tumblr but forums.

Several things made me reconsider my choice however:

Update: Turns out the script was done and is located in this site: http://anonarchive.hikiculture.com/

Guess there’s not much need for this blog anymore. I’m basically just putting the topics here anyway as a personal motivation task.

Nah. I always read the comments especially since I'm not finished reading through the Anon-Archives.

It's just that I can't see this blog offering much purpose for anyone else seeing as this was suppose to be just mostly an idea to band-aid back-up AnonIB before it went down.

I am a Hikikomori

http://www.experienceproject.com/group_stories.php?g=142181&s=d

Ok, I was banned for the second time in HikiCulture (I don’t know the reason why. It could have something to do with that announcement that something changed in their profiles but since I never put any data in there, I never bothered tweaking it but soon I saw my account/posts disappear despite remaining active.

In fact, my account was deleted around the same time I wrote a reply. It wasn’t a controversial one and it was attributing the fact that despite the admin’s criticisms with the HikiPhpBB forum, the member base growth remained the same and in fact, the previous forum probably had more Hikikomori related topics although it wasn’t the fault of the forum design as there were certain key members that stopped being active at around the time the forum required these members to stay active.

For those looking for a board to talk about Hikikomori issues, as much as I’m ashamed that an attention whore thread got this high in Reddit, that’s probably where we are left with right now judging by this topic:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9k7kk/i_was_a_hikikomori_and_didnt_leave_the_house_for/

All untestable assumptions, and built on a shaky understanding of evolutionary psychology. In other words, “…more research is needed.”

Also, more coffee. Kin I gets mah grant now?

First though:

some of the notable comments so far: (Italicized words are my own thoughts)

#1

“I had in mind several examples like lao tzu. perhaps the following will be of interest.

a well-known teacher of buddhism, bodhidharma, developed or practiced a special sort of meditation technique.

what was this technique? he sat in a cave and stared at a wall. some legends say for various years, etc. this is a valid meditation technique, called Wall-Gazing. tell me, is this not the practice of a recluse? ask the ordinary guy on the street if staring at a blank wall for more than five seconds sounds appealing!”

I don’t actually consider this a good point. It is too far fetched and stretches itself to affirm a point.

However wall gazing could be an interesting subject for those who aren’t familiar with it. I didn’t do any research on it but I once came upon an anecdote that compared it to the Ganzfeld Effect which if you haven’t heard about, is a pretty interesting albeit controversial experiment on achieving ESP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

As far as meditations go, it’s not totally a reclusive task in my opinion. It should be much more equated to a person watching a bunch of ants walk around or a common man relaxing as he observes his fishes swimming in the aquarium. That’s my minimum assertion of it anyhow. I understand that it can be done with a much “higher” purpose in mind but one action does not equal the entirety of reclusivity.

“these people were like some of us, just fully devoted to their spiritual path and unencumbered by worries about their social lives. in fact, it seems absurd to think of any of humanity’s spiritual greats as even existing within the social order.

they were so much themselves, so fully integrated in their individuality that they could do little but live as they felt most natural to their being, which was often in aloneness.

there’s a beautiful sanskrit word, KAIVALYA

what does it mean? aloneness

total, pure, aloneness”

I don’t actually know if the word matches with the definition but hopefully you can see through the “almost hero-worship tone” in this sentence. That’s a major part of why the original post rubbed me the wrong way and I gained some suspicion that it might be a troll. The writer seems to feel that the act alone (separating all motives and goals) is immediately deserving of praise.

That said it’s not too farfetched to think that a normal person might think this.

“”i was talking to some dude a while ago who hears voices. i wonder if anyone has tried getting those people to do meditation instead of drugging them up. do hindus have crazy people or do they find some balance or whatever?”“

“it’s very common, or was, in the east to treat people with ‘mental disorders’ as potent receptacles for spiritual teachings

they call them masts

there’s a similarity between such a person and the mystic, because both have basically dropped out of the common run of the world

the madman exists outside of the social circle

the mystic also exists outside of the social circle

interestingly, meditation techniques generally don’t approach on the basis of stopping thought in a violent way, but in advocating a sort of passive detachment and witnessing of thoughts, which are seen to float like clouds in the sky

a person who ‘hears voices’, if taught these methods, could at least see them for what they are

besides, we think of those people as if they’re crazy, because they hear thoughts that they aren’t consciously thinking

yet if you sit down undistracted for a few minutes you’ll find that your own thoughts rise like waves without your consent or without your willing them

so there is a similarily.

anyway i just wanted to clarify that i don’t mean for people to continue living as they are and just label it with a positive term, there needs to be a significant change at some point”

“what i mean overall is that the hiki/reclusive way of living in general is very close to how many if not most of the, for lack of a better term, spiritual giants of the past lived, and it is even prescribed in many monastic orders

in fact, many monastic practices involve such intense levels of seclusion that even the most devoted hiki here could not manage. for example in tibetan buddhism they have a practice called ‘dark retreat’ where a monk goes into a sealed room or cave where all light is completely blocked out. here he stays for however long it is deemed necessary. his food is brought to him and he does nothing but meditate in the darkness on the darkness. there’s a special reason for it - in total darkness there’s nothing you can see. even the concept of spatial distances dissolves in darkness, you cannot tell if a wall is right in front of you or you are in boundless space. this allows the mind to quickly and intensively dissolve all of its attachments and deep states of trance become easily available.”

Here the writer alludes to one of my major criticisms of his post in that he has this “loose” manner of equating any spiritual act as befitting the statuses of giants.

I’m sure the writer didn’t intend it to be this way but he might as well have equated the actions of a Buddha to that of a budding beginner monk.

It’s not totally wrong as most spiritual acts have a flexible hierarchy compared to the strict rigidity of something like the Catholic Church where a Pope has a definitive upper authority over a deacon.

(But still, there must be context for if one ignores that then they are basically left with cherry picking events that suit their arguments.)

“”Could you talk some more about how you came to see this as a path?”“

“i don’t see the average hiki/reclusive life as the path itself, but it comes very close to it. the teachings, which vary differently throughout each tradition, generally involve cutting away one’s attachments to the world. it’s not necessary to leave the social world to do this but it makes it much easier if you’re living a mostly solitary life.

what is not spoken about in popular expositions of these traditions and practices is that they seek to de-condition the mind so that it’s natural again. consider: we’ve all grown up around others and our minds have been FILLED with all sorts of things. all of this hides our real nature. what is a thought or a belief? one person runs around fighting over his thoughts against someone who is fighting for his thoughts. it’s absurd, and they don’t even know it. behind and beyond those thoughts - pure consciousness, which can only be merged with when the mirror of the mind has been cleaned, then it reflects the truth.

in my first post i said that the hiki/reclusive way of life may be a sort of unconscious longing for these traditional spiritual paths. for others and perhaps most it might just be the obvious - circumstance, personal weaknesses, and laziness. but i know that for myself it’s the former - i was very much a loner even as a child and until i dived deeply into understanding these ancient ways both intellectually and experientially i could not understand why. then it became absolutely clear - i’m just the type of person who in other cultures and in older times would’ve renounced the world to seek whatever you want to call it.

consider the beloved and world famous story of buddha - he was basically, according to the legend and history, a prince with EVERYTHING. all the things that people long for, he had. wealth, women, everything. and he was going to inherit the kingdom after his father. except, what did he do? around age 29 he left the palace. left not only his father, all his possessions, but also his wife and child, and went into the forest to become a sannyasin, which means a world renunciate, and he spent time learning various spiritual disciplines and meditations until he attained his awakening. it was only then that he spent the rest of his life in public helping others attain the same state. however that was not necessary -

here’s an interesting quote:

Should you destroy vain imaginings, desires,
which form the very web of time;
Should you realize the Lord, all-pervading
and yet untouched and pure,
You may live the life of a householder,
Or a hermit’s life in a hermitage,
living the truth that you have known.”

…I know people much more in the know would not consider the information “good” at all even at the basic level (though they may appreciate the intention of the writer), however as far as simplistic definitions go this has enough content to motivate an unknowing person to consider that kind of spiritual path.

For something more modernly considered though equally basic, I would still opt for Matthieu Ricard’s TedTalk over what the poster wrote.

Unfortunately while currently editing this draft (Aug. 18, 2008) AnonIB is down once more so I couldn’t refer to the other post.

It took me this long to post mostly because <insert excuse; I have encountered internet problems which further made me procrastinate my reply.>

Moving ahead…

My accusations of trolling can simply be summed in one sentence:

I’m not claiming to understand Lao Tzu better than the writer though.

Rather I’m just comparing the pattern of Lao Tzu’s words to the theme of the writer’s post.

If we were to rephrase the words in such a way that they address the writer’s post, Lao Tzu would have said something along the lines of:

He speaks too much! A Hikikomori who believes he’s a recluse already accepts that he is a recluse. A Hikkikomori who does not think of himself as a recluse already knows that he is not. Where is the need to tell a man who he is if you are already trying to convince them to follow my teachings? Should my teachings not already start to transform them into who they are rather than who they were? Or do you believe these people need not change anything at all to follow my teachings? If this is so, what is the point of trying to convince them to become someone they already are? He is just a man wanting you to feel good!

“learns to unlearn his learning”

I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,

“I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

(This one isn't about a conversation spoken in a Hikikomori Board but I've encountered a similar pattern in the old AnonIB Hikikomori board addressed to my way of posting so when I encountered this, since I haven't read that part of anonarchive yet, I thought this was a great example to add because these are words I've spoken and it shows me in a negative light)

Me: Again may I be allowed to disagree? *sweat drops*

The first bit of appealing to pathos is correct. You don't need it to coincide with your own. See all American presidents notably Obama

Secret agendas are also wrong. Of course everyone has secrets but in politics, the best politicians aren't those with

secrets that when revealled gets them kicked out of the office but the ones who's secrets are so open, you can't help but close off your mind to them as a mass and become apathetic to it. aka The Big Lie although the origins and context of that term is controversial.

Still Me: @chocolatehappiness On the contrary, in the Philippines, appealling to logos = voting for the lesser of two devils and the president that will most likely win. ;)

Appealing to ethos would be to suggest welfare projects to fool people into thinking that government is about answering people's needs rather than well... governing :(

chocolatehappiness: go ahead mister speaker

adjudicators are listening :p

chocolatehappiness: case in point: the 9/11 Bush brainwash on the US soldiers is a solid ground of what is stated above that self-interest coincides with... secret agenda

chocolatehappiness: case in point: the 9/11 Bush brainwash on the US soldiers is a solid ground of what is stated above that self-interest coincides with... secret agenda

Me: @chocolatehappiness the thing is Bush didn't brainwash the US soldiers nor the culture of the time. They were already brainwashed. I'm not saying believe the conspiracy theories but historically evidence-wise there was already a strong implication of blowback. The only question was when. The fact that Americans didn't even know why someone would hate them so much to risk their lives proves that it was more of a Big Lie than a secret agenda.

Me: Clarification in this case.

...and the chance to be proven wrong without being misunderstood. :p

Me: Clarification in this case.

...and the chance to be proven wrong without being misunderstood. :p

CognacWest: once we've entered politics or anything that has to do with dirty tricks. let's accept the fact that nobody is clean and too much idealism..

...is bullsh*t!

CognacWest: once we've entered politics or anything that has to do with dirty tricks. let's accept the fact that nobody is clean and too much idealism..

...is bullsh*t!

chocolatehappiness: so what is the bottomline of your argument mister chair?

Me: CognacWest, nah, that's not exactly valid especially after the Ron Paul phenomena during the US primaries. I'm not saying everyone is perfect but it's perfectly possible to be idealistic and not be destroyed by the system to a certain point.

@chocolatehappiness, didn't I already answer that? :p

Me: CognacWest, nah, that's not exactly valid especially after the Ron Paul phenomena during the US primaries. I'm not saying everyone is perfect but it's perfectly possible to be idealistic and not be destroyed by the system to a certain point.

@chocolatehappiness, didn't I already answer that? :p

CognacWest: so that's why Ron Paul didn't even make it to the primaries? dude, republicans think the way i think :p

chocolatehappiness: @Huo, no because your arguments are self-contradicting. hehe

Me: @CognacWest actually he eliminated two top contenders Gulianni and Romney who were originally going to be the big names and large money backing them. Gulianni lost when he went against Paul in the primary debates. After that, he is probably the biggest major upset in recent American political elections This mind you when Paul was basically an unknown and who's politics was considered walking on water for the Republican party. Meanwhile McCain was running out of money but Paul who was a true conservative and had the support of money bombs continued to hang on

CognacWest: really? How Come it's Huckabee and my mentor, John McCain won the primaries? coz u know what, Paul is a double agent working for Democrats!

Me: (cont.) despite the lack of political support. At this point Romney was still in it and...

Actually Huckabee was the 2nd black sheep. He was the most charismatic of that bunch despite the media selling Romney. However his politics while it may have been good compared to everyone else there except Paul, just wasn't enough to keep him afloat unlike Paul What happened with McCain was that as I was saying, the top 3 including Paul despite being the kulelat was still darn close. This was what should have set up what is called a brokered convetion. Romney however despite being on top of the top3 and had the most financial backing, "mysteriously" backed out. With him backing out, even if the odds were low for a brokered convetion before, the situation pretty much was in McCain's favor since Paul was stilll not just as big a name as McCain. This is why Obama faced better competition during the primaries than the general too. McCain was self-destructing everywhere. The only reason people forget the primaries is because McCain kind of distracted everyone with Palin

Me: (cont.) despite the lack of political support. At this point Romney was still in it and...

Actually Huckabee was the 2nd black sheep. He was the most charismatic of that bunch despite the media selling Romney. However his politics while it may have been good compared to everyone else there except Paul, just wasn't enough to keep him afloat unlike Paul What happened with McCain was that as I was saying, the top 3 including Paul despite being the kulelat was still darn close. This was what should have set up what is called a brokered convetion. Romney however despite being on top of the top3 and had the most financial backing, "mysteriously" backed out. With him backing out, even if the odds were low for a brokered convetion before, the situation pretty much was in McCain's favor since Paul was stilll not just as big a name as McCain. This is why Obama faced better competition during the primaries than the general too. McCain was self-destructing everywhere. The only reason people forget the primaries is because McCain kind of distracted everyone with Palin

Me: In fact, you can't legitimately call yourself capitalist if you even support McCain unless you didn't do your research

shares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUZwL9GPcNw

Err... you're taking the Nba analogy way too literally.

Me: In fact, you can't legitimately call yourself capitalist if you even support McCain unless you didn't do your research

shares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUZwL9GPcNw

Err... you're taking the Nba analogy way too literally.

CognacWest: dude, I'm a capitalist the way i think, not by political affiliations.  :p

chocolatehappiness: uhm nah, we think YOURE just trolling :))

sorry @eloisa for all the fuss

Me: @chocolatehappiness, then that's unfortunate and sad.

There used to be a time when replying to a serious issue even in a not so serious thread wouldn't be equated to trolling but nowadays

that term is used so loosely I can't really defend myself. Hell, I'm sure some can even justify their reason to troll a troll because it's

open-ended nowadays.

Me: @CognacWest, exactly. If you tried being a Stephen Colbert in a serious discussion, you can easily be accused of being a troll but nowadays

fun and trolling are kind of convenient terms depending on how you want to present a person.

CognacWest: dude, trolling will test how far can you defend your ideas are even if you're talking to a fool.i'll ask you this, what percentage...

Me: @chocolatehappiness Like I said, I can't defend your modern open-ended discussion

*open-ended definition.

Me: @CognacWest: not really. That would be like saying Paul can defend his points when O'Reilly says: We don't have time for a history lesson.

shares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7JPvbVsDdY

@chocolatehappiness: that would at least be more valid. But that's what you didn't say earlier. You point blank said you think I was being the troll.

@CognacWest: that doesn't really make sense in this context.

Me: anyway your question about percentage is flawed because you assuming running for politics is about who the people already are and not about winning people over.

@CognacWest: the weird thing is I don't even know where the debate was. I said something, you guys said something, I replied and then I suddenly fitted the qualifications of a troll. In terms of netiquette, no debate was officially challenged nor did I even put myself anywhere. I just "replied".

Me: @CognacWest: I don't really get how that is relevant. You're entitled to do what you want but such actions like increasing post comments used to be a merk of a troll or an attention whore. I'm not attacking, just saying that it's pretty poor of you to do it this way.

@chocolatehappiness, I doubt it. I think you are the one who really don't get what I am saying but that's a borderline insult so I'll just leave at this. You guys can think whatever you want. I have said what I wanted to say so goodbye. *leave it at this

chocolatehappiness: haha nah, its okay my dear. we just plainly think u wanted some attention. :)

and oh by the way we still know how u never got the statement above after all. to each his own :)

CognacWest: increase eloisa's karma my friend. come on, you have to face the reality not everyone will take matters seriously but if you wanted to...

try joining ANC's square off and imma cheer for you. well, you quite impressed me. :)

in reality, it's a win-win situation, i did even increase your karma.

Me: Btw chocolatehappiness and CognacWest, do you mind if I quote your words here along with your usernames on my blog?

@CognacWest, not really. I don't really care for karma. (I left for awhile and it went to 0) I know this isn't anything special to say

chocolatehappiness: yup u got that right :)

go ahead use our names we really dont care

Note:

This isn’t a replacement for Verbal Self-Defence but I haven’t researched and practiced the latter enough to attempt a guide specifically for Hikkikomoris.

This also just happens to be the next thread that came up when I was reading the AnonIB /hikki/ archives — so I decided to make a collection to highlight how redundant the comments are — even if these are often not exclusively thrown at Hikkikomoris.

Btw this is intended to be a constantly edited topic, it just happens that I got the idea from reading the above topic and started with it.

Well, I'm not even a novice at Verbal Self-Defence as I've pointed out in the post but as I understand it:

In general, there are things said that can produce negative emotions to the receiver who hears it.

The book: The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defence explains this concept more eloquently but the article linked to the post also addresses it to an extent. (as far as I know, the term is linked to one author and one author only and she creates a series of similar books revolving around the term.)

Anyways, the idea that you can feel bad about an insult is fairly obvious.

However because the theme of the book centers around the idea of how to "diffuse" the conflict rather than ignore it or mope around for a few days, it also went into details elaborating everything from why the latter two actions are self-destructive in order to set-up the whole "Self-defence" theme.

As one Amazon reviewer writes:

"Professor Elgin does a good job of analyzing verbal insults to reveal the presumptions underlying them, which we often sense but which we are unable to identify. She also rightly explains that responding to the conclusions reached by our adversaries--but ignoring the presumptions--simply impales us more deeply on their verbal hooks. Her suggestions, however, for dealing with these insults are somewhat in error."

Full text: http://www.amazon.com/review/R233BTKZ7FONL9/ref...

Anyways, I wasn't able to listen entirely to the content because I could only find an audiobook for it via bittorrent and it was choppy and I haven't ordered the book.

However even on the first cd, the author gave a glimpse of how even kind-hearted words can produce this negativity.

My own example (since I no longer have the audio cd) is to use the classical example of telling someone to "keep on practicing."

To the right person, this is a good enough encouraging advice. However to the wrong person, this is worse than giving no advise.

This is why it's not so much that the negativity in the list implies bad or offensive; nor that it needs an alternative "positive" comment list to serve as comparison.

If this is still confusing and you don't mind reading something long, you might want to check out these two links. (which are unrelated to my example but also highlights why the wrong words can have vast and dangerous implications)

With that specific example, the negativity inducing portion was the implication that by using "we" and "many of us", you're creating two negative implications:

1) One, even if you didn't intend it to be interpreted this way, you're sending the idea that you speak for everyone else. (Yes, even if you said many instead of everyone)

2) "We'll get there in time" while complimentary towards the OP sends the message to everyone else working towards that goal the idea that it's going to "take a while" before they manage to mimic the OP's success. For all they know, they might gain this self-realization tomorrow but your words send the message to them that they're not quite progressing as much as they thought they would and while not "Apocalyptic-like" in it's harm -- there's always the chance that the words would unearth the negativity they're trying to combat so much already and further drag them down.

Here's the rub though:

The goal of this post isn't to let these quotes hang out to dry and paint them as "Haha! Look at these jerks."

...Well that's not the main intention although sadly it does send that message to the wrong person too.

Rather the idea is to create a list to numb the Hikikomori to such negativity by showing them how redundant the words are as many of the points are repeated by different people.

It's not the best verbal self-defence nor do I know if the book actually recommends it but it's a much safer way than getting into a beehive of trolls and getting egged and potshotted on to harden your internet nerves.

Also this way allows you to "sit back" and look at the words and intentions rather than be focused on the attack which is another theme promoted by Verbal Self-defence.

#2

No problem. Hell, I'm not sure if being aware of it makes it any easier.

I mean even the average youtuber rants about this all the time but you don't really find most of them being changed by that awareness outside of going "Hear! Hear!" on the posts they like.

Even in this topic, I encountered the problem of trying to be biased by looking at the posts through as close as an objective yet emotional outlook as I can

...vs. feeling bad that I didn't include my own post and wondering if it's because of my bias

...vs. the idea that the longer the post, the less chance of it being offensive because there's more room to put clarifications that may diffuse the offensive sentence.

This Amazon review provides a much shorter and direct issue as to why I'm skeptical:

Source: http://www.amazon.com/rev...pr_viewpnt#R1TY559HFLITPR

You only agree with the idea that it is a culture of impatience after the answer has been given to you.

Yet, when I was reading that paragraph, the thing that strikes me was impatience was the last thing I would attribute it to. Instead I would say the web is a culture of gullibity and I'm not just thinking of scams and such.

I wasn’t intending to criticize homeschooling in general. Some of the most articulate teens I’ve met have been homeschooled.

Then again, I’ve also met some individuals who were homeschooled and had parents which actively discouraged their children from learning knowledge essential to surviving in the world because the parents felt these abilities were at odds with their faith.

It’s also quite possible »4917’s parents homeschooled for completely different reasons.

As far as homeschooling, I’ve always been of the opinion that it was only better because traditional schools were that much worse. (This goes beyond what #4 said about U.S. schools) That’s probably why I phrased the question that way.

It isn’t like most schools aren’t fostering isolation either. One just has more physical space while the other has more mental space.

Still, space is still space. If you perceive it as a prison, both are still prison. Perceive it as a workplace and both are workplace. Perceive it as luxury than either one is luxury…

In the official Japanese diagnostic system, taijin kyofusho is subdivided into the following categories:

* Sekimen-kyofu, the phobia of blushing (English term: ereuthophobia)
* Shubo-kyofu, the phobia of a deformed body, similar to Body dysmorphic disorder
* Jikoshisen-kyofu, the phobia of eye contact
* Jikoshu-kyofu, the phobia of having foul body odor (English term: osmophobia, bromidrosiphobia)

Since it is not prevalent in American culture, taijin kyofusho is not detailed in the DSM IV. This is under debate, however, as symptoms indicative of taijin kyofusho are sometimes found in patients in the United States.

Yay!!! Finally a new word for Wapanese people. Maybe that’ll get rid of most of the bandwagon hikkis.

…just kidding.

I think it was Jikoshisen-kyofu because as a person who grew up shy and could be considered anti-social and then getting to a certain point where you did become more social, the difference in eye contact is mind boggling to yourself.