Why don't you try to get one then, there are still more than enough Japanese women willing to date foreogners.

 

The country has more soul than you can fit in it.

 

If there is a problem, then it is in the people.

Isn't it telling that many great Japanese authors and innovators in fields of the arts commit suicide? Is the soul that stems from Japan that of smothered despair at the dropping of nuclear bombs, US occupation and the fall of the royalty?

 

Japan tried to combine domestic and foreign Western in a manner that would keep the two separate. The result was fascism. Then they started to satirise and ironise themselves to greater lengths. The result is that young people in their society have stopped suspending their disbelief.

 

In the Netherlands, our spirit is entrepreneurial. In the US, their spirit is egalitarian. In Italy, their spirit is temporal.

 

In Japan... you have hyperultrapopular media which has exhausted itself and a xenophobic and isolationist electorate.

 

On one side they produce a lot of food, drink, media etc. etc. products and commerce, but they also don't have anything else going for them.

 

Anno makes NGE, a sort of monument to depression and tries to subvert otaku expectations, only to kickstart the greatest otaku icon the world has seen.

 

Miyazaki makes animation with purpose, that is art, and it becomes the technical and vaguely moralistic inspiration from alien things that deceitfully claim to be 'anime'.

 

All I can say is that Japan lives in half-apathy, half-ignorance with a sugary glaze of high quality products.

 

Name one thing Japanese post-WWII which isn't either lamenting irony or ironic.

What if suicidal people are more likely to think about god and the world and therefore become writers?

Just a thought.

God, LOL. If God is a tangible entity, He is malevolent. Please don't begin on God, it is the fabrication of a madman [Jesus] who lived in a world of symbols and all his crucifixion proved is that his Kingdom Come in death, in the salvation from reality.

 

Jesusism and other religions are flight from reality onto suicide, they're all death cults save for ones that are purely metaphorical.

 

Suicidal people don't become suicidal as a result of nothing, they view the world as wretched and God as wicked and off themselves.

Never lend someone a book. I had purchased a book on this exact topic of Jesus against the world and lend it to someone who probably will not read or return it, without me expressly pressing them on it, shaming myself.

 

I hate that. Normally I would be able to re-read it right now but instead I have to work off memory.

So they do at least think about him.

With "god and the world" I only meant that they probably think more about this and that than average people.

 

Agreed.

I also learned my lessons when I once lent someone the first part of my Mirai Nikki Mangas that I bought many years ago because he was literally sucking my dick for help to learn Japanese, so I gave him something easy to practice reading.

 

Motherfucker never gave it back even after I asked.

Now I have the parts from two to twelve standing in my bookshelf next to me, reminding me of my mistake every time I look to the right.

I think there are more crucial things to think about than God. He is immutable, and the immutable is irrelevant. When instead of liberation it is used to control, it becomes actively hostile to human nature.

 

As for lending books, I loaned someone The Cyberiad, Penguin edition and purchased a new one which was from the last century and is probably worth more than I paid for it, so that's good. I also loaned Notes from Underground and it was not returned. Both times I stressed that I wanted them returned.

 

I also do not want to sour relations with people because of lost literature, however I do like to re-read texts for better understanding. I think that if in a few months he doesn't voluntarily return the book, I will just buy it again.

 

Why don't you re-purchase lost literature? If there is anything that I spend copious amounts of money on, it is books.

 

Also; if someone is pressing you really hard for you to loan them something, asking them for collateral isn't unheard of. One method is to swap books, where you take one book you really liked and they take a book they really liked and swap it and then discuss it. I haven't personally done this, but it seems reasonable to demand something of value for value of your own.

 

It's sad how friendships are overshadowed at once by material imbalances.

Why do you think relationships will get worse if you ask for what belongs to you?

Ask until you get it, if they refuse they aren't worth to deal with anyway. Running away from a conflict is more shame than silently suffering and spending money for a replacement.

 

In my case, I moved to another city far away and the guy just blocked me in WhatsApp after I asked a second time but if I was still living near him I would have screamed in front of his house until he gave it back to me.

 

I have the trait or problem that if I see people who are motivated in what I like I have the urge to help them even if we are not friends or anything, your idea about asking for a deposit is interesting.

 

To this one book I have memories, it was the first one in Japanese I ever bought.

I don't want to re-buy it.

 

I instead replaced it with the Russian version of it because that is the next language I will master. It looks weird but reminds me of never lending books to someone, and the time when I had troubles decoding the first page of slavrunes is also already more than a year ago so it's purpose and meaning for me is similar to the original one that I kept like a treasure when I was young.