A question | Permalink

I was asked, not long ago, about the purpose of my blogging. At first, I was about to say something, but then didn't. I wasn't sure, back then, if I really had a blog for a reason. I have been pondering about this for a while, and the real purpose of this blog is still uncertain.

I am, in a way, what modern phsycologists call "hikikomori". I am not a hikikomori, but the way I live and think resembles the hikikomori lifestyle. Hikikomori comes from the japanese term "to pull away, seclude", which, in those oriental lands, means social withdrawal. Hikikomories (hikikomoris?), who are about almost a million in Japan, live their lives alone, secluded in their own rooms or homes for weeks, months, or even years, without contacting society directly and depending on someone else for their survival. They don't come out of their caves, only for the ocassional food shopping, and spend most of their time sleeping, watching TV or being plugged into the computer, mainly surfing the internet. I don't live like that, as I have classes to attend to. There I contact just a piece of the real experience of being involved in a society. When I'm not at school, I just use the computer, researching, doing homework, etc. I seldomly go out, as I am not invited to social reunions, and at the same time I prevent myself from being involved in them.

Fine.

But why? Why am I shutting myself from society, and, the ultimate question of life and death, why do I even blog?!?!

Let's go slowly over the stuff in my head, dig in the piles of images, sounds and memories collected in my mind, in the big staircase of files. I live in an OK family, I have a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, etc. We live simple lives, living at the edge of a urbanization-starving city. I attend school, my parents work. We all work together to keep our family's and society's gears turning. But, our parents split up, to live separate lives, as it was convienent for the both of them to live divorced to prevent further difficulties. Still, that decision brought other problems that the family was about to face. I will only focus on myself, from now on. The few times I have seen my father, which have been quite a few, about 10, after the divorce, caused something in me to not develop correctly. Let's say that I became socially-detached from not being guided in life by my father. And at the same time, I secluded myself from not noticing that burden building up, since before I was 7 years old.

I am a disaster, you may say. I don't attend social reunions, such as parties, dinner with friends, going to the movies with others, joining hobby clubs, you name it. Why am I limiting myself to come upon new experiences in life? Fear, of failing, of being laughed at, between other reasons, is probably my biggest fobias. And therefore social fobia. Agoraphobia, sociophobia, gynophobia, arrhenphobia, philophobia, etc., are among some of the phobias I have observed in my behavior. People may see me from afar as calm, but inside I am a savaging inferno of sorrow. And, surprisingly, some have heard the sounds of pain from inside.

I am no hikikomori, but if I had the money, and a place to live, I would become one very easily.

And then again, why do I blog? Why did I set up this blog in the blogsphere? Why am I even typing this on this crappy computer (and monitor too), anyway? There is not a simple answer to that question, but I'll try to do my best to make it as clear as possible.

Humans, since the beginning, have felt the need to express themselves, to communicate. That is why the paper, the novel (and other literary works), the telegraph, the radio, the phone, the TV, the Internet, and the blog, where invented. To express, to communicate ideas and feelings.

I am a humble person, I might become angry somewhat easily, and seem to reject people who try to contact and "elope around me", to socialize with me, and only accept those who have had a social relationship with me since a long time, and those who I accepcted to socialize with. You might not notice it, but I am fragmented from inside. And those who have felt my cold spirit and bitter personality have questioned it.

I don't speak much, I am more of a writer than a speaker. If I ever want to express anything, like this, I would materially represent it in text, not spoken words. People ask me personal things, and I suddenly have difficulties coming up with things and ideas. It is an unconscious act, I don't really block myself up. It's like a self-shutting system to which there seems to be no OFF button.

And then, to answer things with 100% confidence, to express the feelings and ideas from within, I have to write it down. And so, there is this blog. This is where my feelings and ideas become materialized, represented, to vent myself. If I didn't have this blog, I would have become a graphophilic, I suppose. My social condition is a problem to my own development. But I am afraid, of being ridiculized, being embarrased, and rejected. Just by thinking of society, a part of my mind lights up in fear.



"Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you..."