Second Post of the Day

This excerpt from a recent book on the subject of hikikomori makes me rethink my appropriation of the term, since it seems to be a culturally specific thing. The non-productive, emotionally stunted hermit thing I had in mind isn't quite the same as hikikomori, which seems to be more a matter of not finding a role for oneself in a highly stratified society. Perhaps in Japan some folks hide because they're given too few possibilities, while in the West some of us retreat because we're bewildered by the possibilities and have too little sense of what to do with those possibilities? Nowadays I know the proper response to possibilities is to consider them, then try a few of them on for size, but once I was bewildered. I still get dizzy considering the swarming cloud of possibilities all around me.