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Loneliness & Solitude –four articles

from ScienceAlert: “How Solitude Can Be Good – Even Important – For Your Mental Health”
URL: https://www.sciencealert.com/how-solitude-can-be-good-even-important-for-your-mental-health

from QuantaMagazine:”How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain”
URL: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-loneliness-reshapes-the-brain-20230228/?sponsored=0&position=7&scheduled_corpus_item_id=809ac824-d181-45ff-8f8a-fd78e34e0dc2

from Science Daily via Association for Psychological Science: “Lonely people’s divergent thought processes may contribute to feeling ‘alone in a crowded room'”
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230407124558.htm

from Psychology Today: “You Can Be Alone Without Being Lonely”
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/turning-straw-into-gold/202303/you-can-be-alone-without-being-lonely

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Macaque social behavior

The Conversation offers this interesting item titled “Macaque monkeys shrink their social networks as they age,” adding the byline “new research suggests evolutionary roots of a pattern seen in elderly people, too.”

Research on 200 macaques living on an islandoff of Puerto Rico revealed that the impetus to reduce social contacts suggested an unconscious motive of propmoting health and avoiding disease in aging. The chief remaining contacts as the monkeys grew older were family and friends.

URL: https://theconversation.com/macaque-monkeys-shrink-their-social-networks-as-they-age-new-research-suggests-evolutionary-roots-of-a-pattern-seen-in-elderly-people-too-196862

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Hikikomori – update

The Japan Times among other media news sites reports on the status of hikikomori in Japan. A recent survey by the Cabinet Office concludes that there are 1.5 million hikikomori in Japan, the number having increaed because of the societal affects of the COVID period. About 2% of the population aged 15 to 62 have become recluses.

“The cabinet office surveyed 30,000 people between the ages of 10 and 69 across Japan last November. The poll found that just over a fifth of respondents aged 15-39 had been socially isolated from six months to less than a year. More than 20% said they had experienced problems with interpersonal relationships, while just over 18% cited the pandemic.” — The Guardian.

URLs: Japan Times: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/01/national/hikikomori-numbers-pandemic/; The Guardian (UK): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/03/japan-says-15-million-people-living-as-recluses-after-covid

A review of statistical and sociological methods applied to the study of hikikomori is offered by a 2023 article published by the International Journal ofEnvironmental Research and Public Health titled “Hikikomori: A Scientometric Review of 20 Years of Research.”

URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5657

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Edward A. Burger’s “The Mountain Path” – 3 conversations

Three video conversations with The Mountain Path film director Edward A. Burger. The conversations followed public screenings of the film.

1. Video recording of the conversation between Edward A. Burger and John Kieschnick, professor of Buddhist Studies at Stanford University.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAyOdj_ZIjI

2. Video recording of the conversation between Edward A. Burger and Buddhist monk Rev. Heng Sure, Vice-President for Religious Affairs and Dean of Translation and Language Studies at Dharma Realm Buddhist University.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAVpO1ZqEnA

3. Video recordingof a conversation between Edward A. Burger and Bill Porter, moderated by Gaetano Kazuo Maida, Buddhist Film Foundation Executive Director/Chief Programmer. Sponsoredby the California Film Institute and the Buddhist Film Foundation .
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZvKpeKikBM

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Devil turned hermit – book illustration

Old Book Illustrations features “Devil Turned Hermit,” from an early 19th-century book titled Cent Proverbes.

The book describes the illustration:

“The Devil, in the guise of an old man with horns, has a female visitor shown to the door and his worldly paraphernalia swept away while he immerses himself in prayer among symbols of asceticism.” Adds the website editors: “The caption reads in the original French: Quand le Diable devient vieux, il se fait ermite. This proverb has a loose English equivalent in The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be.“