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Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#161

Post by scotty79 »

embolism wrote: post #155
GFischer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it assumes you already have housing, and that you live in a country with socialized medicine. I can see myself retiring with maybe U$ 500.000, though I'd like to have more to afford better healthcare than my country's default (which is MUCH better than the U.S. average, but much worse than what you can buy with money). What my grandparents did was to rent 3 or 4 properties, and live off that. They did so for ab…

What does 'already having housing' mean? It's state provided? Even in a country without property taxes a property you own outright will require maintenance. 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. I'd still love to hear the original commenter explain his or her reasoning - there might be some useful tips to learn from.

Inheriting apartment to live in. Houses are extremely wasteful. You have to maintain by yourself huge area that has direct contact with outside. If ou own a flat in block of flats cost of fighting of nature is split between all flat owners. Also taxes are extremely low because you own just few square meters of the land that the building is standing on.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#162

Post by beachstartup »

mililani wrote: post #11

I think the simplest explanation is the one always ignored. Japan is a tough place to live and raise a family. It's super expensive, the economy has been in a funk for a long time, the work hours are widely known to be brutally long, people don't know anything but work and sleep over there. When one is confronted by this harsh reality, one wonders, what's the point? So they either commit suicide, which Japan ranks am…

it's happening in the US as well. and lots of other developed countries.

hell it's even happening in some cities in china.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#163

Post by TeMPOraL »

GFischer wrote: post #152
embolism wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do elaborate though - that figure seems about 10-20x too low.

Maybe it assumes you already have housing, and that you live in a country with socialized medicine. I can see myself retiring with maybe U$ 500.000, though I'd like to have more to afford better healthcare than my country's default (which is MUCH better than the U.S. average, but much worse than what you can buy with money). What my grandparents did was to rent 3 or 4 properties, and live off that. They did so for ab…

I guess the price depends on the place you want to retire to. I.e. in my country $500k is about what I'd expect for average person to earn through their lifetime having a dayjob. So almost by definition $500k is enough there to live the rest of one's life.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#164

Post by TeMPOraL »

embolism wrote: post #155
GFischer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it assumes you already have housing, and that you live in a country with socialized medicine. I can see myself retiring with maybe U$ 500.000, though I'd like to have more to afford better healthcare than my country's default (which is MUCH better than the U.S. average, but much worse than what you can buy with money). What my grandparents did was to rent 3 or 4 properties, and live off that. They did so for ab…

What does 'already having housing' mean? It's state provided? Even in a country without property taxes a property you own outright will require maintenance. 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. I'd still love to hear the original commenter explain his or her reasoning - there might be some useful tips to learn from.

> 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay.

As I answered in the sibling thread, it very much depends on where you live; $500k is, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, about a total amount of money an average denizen of my country will earn during lifetime, so it definitely is more than enough to live there.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#165

Post by TeMPOraL »

pessimizer wrote: post #112
precisioncoder wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with items 1, 2, and 3 on your list. Here's my list of things everyone should do: - Pursue your personal goals with strength and conviction - Find out what social environment makes you happy (It's ok if it's none) and find a way to build it - Stay healthy in body and mind in a way that is enjoyable or at least tolerable for you

Jerry Seinfeld in an interview a week or two ago described the process of finding an adult life as a process of finding a torture that you're comfortable with. You find a level of health that keeps the pains down to a tolerable level, and you suffer through the amount of exercise and refuse to eat things that you want to eat enough times that you need to keep you at that level of chronic pain. You make these calculat…

> Eventually you're living in a finely tuned pain minimizing environment, and if you have any energy left, you can get things done.

That, sadly, sounds just about right in my case.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#166

Post by nilkn »

erre wrote: post #117
rangibaby wrote: post #23

This is a personal anecdote, but it happened last week seems relevant-ish: My landlord is a hikikomori. He is around 50-60 years old, and refuses to leave his room in his house; he instead barks orders at his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80). She is a very kind old woman. I was shocked that he sent her to collect water money (we pay to our…

On a side note: his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80). I found your choice of terms interesting :) Most people in their 80s that I know seem to be doing fine, are physically and intellectually active, and I wouldn't describe them as "older than dirt" - unless you're talking about somewhat young dirt, here ;). May I ask how old you are? I am…

How can you be so certain that you know a truly representative sample of people in their 80s?

There are a very considerable number of people in that age range who are most certainly not really doing all that fine and whose physical and intellectual activity are nowhere near what they once were even ten years prior.

It's hard to know the mental and physical state of another person sometimes through a passing glance or cursory interaction. Sometimes even with more substantial interaction the true nature of their state can remain hidden from you. My grandmother, for instance, who is in her late 70s, experiences chronic pain in her knees. But I wouldn't have known that if my father hadn't told me; she generally does what she can to happily tolerate the severe pain when around family members.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#167

Post by chunky1994 »

diminoten wrote: post #157
mikeash wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a real thing. He never said it wasn't. What he said was that it doesn't explain anything, and that's true. Laziness is a symptom , not a cause. It's like diagnosing someone with a "cough". It may be correct, but it's pointless, because it's obvious and tells you absolutely nothing about what to do.

At what point is a personality merely a symptom? If everything about us is a result of our ailments, and all of our ailments have treatments, how does a person know which parts of his personality are him and which aren't? What am "I" then?

I would probably say that we can classify our personality as the difference in sets of what anyone with our ability and in the same situation would do, and what we do.

That being said, our ailments could probably be categorized by affecting all aspects of our life equally and in full measure of time (i.e something that doesn't fluctuate across the years is probably an untreated ailment).

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#168

Post by coroxout »

keithflower wrote: post #154

From a medical perspective, I'd worry that many of these folks suffer from major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, or obsessive compulsive disorder. This is not to pathologize behaviors people choose which don't interfere with quality of life, but my gut reaction is that many of those described in the article would benefit from treatment with psychotherapy and/or medication. However, I'm told that signifi…

Granted that applying a layperson's understanding of a DSM category to people I've never met from a completely alien culture is a pointless and possibly crass task, but reading through this I was thinking of avoidant personality disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder#S...

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#169

Post by embolism »

scotty79 wrote: post #161
embolism wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'already having housing' mean? It's state provided? Even in a country without property taxes a property you own outright will require maintenance. 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. I'd still love to hear the original commenter explain his or her reasoning - there might be some useful tips to learn from.

Inheriting apartment to live in. Houses are extremely wasteful. You have to maintain by yourself huge area that has direct contact with outside. If ou own a flat in block of flats cost of fighting of nature is split between all flat owners. Also taxes are extremely low because you own just few square meters of the land that the building is standing on.

Taxes are usually linked to property value, not land area.

Re: Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

#170

Post by embolism »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #164
embolism wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'already having housing' mean? It's state provided? Even in a country without property taxes a property you own outright will require maintenance. 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. I'd still love to hear the original commenter explain his or her reasoning - there might be some useful tips to learn from.

> 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. As I answered in the sibling thread, it very much depends on where you live; $500k is, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, about a total amount of money an average denizen of my country will earn during lifetime, so it definitely is more than enough to live there.

I guess that assumes your country doesn't develop rapidly and experience the accompanying inflation of the cost of living.
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