I keep reminding myself to respond to this but I've had a pretty busy weekend... at any rate...

Ul: There's a lot of things that I could say here (and most of them are things others have said, albeit much too harshly considering), but I should point out that I agree with you on a lot of the things you've said. Corruption, division, laziness, lousy government, chaos, abuse of freedoms... we could argue on the severity or the percentages of it, but the fact remains that those things are here and they're pretty widespread. Also, to at least some extent, we should focus on the bad things. If we turn a blind eye to the self-destructing society and to our own deficiencies, we are practically giving our consent for them to continue.

Also, as I've said, if you're happy being on your own, congradulations. 'The Way of Self Reliance' is something the world needs a lot more of today. (As far as the principles Musashi put down in his last work goes, they're not perfect but I can appreciate many of them.) I think that companionship is okay as long as you're not dependent on it. After all, who doesn't enjoy sharing the good things you find in life with people you like? If you find someone with whom you don't mind spending most of your life with, enjoying life together, more power to you.

I think the reason why people are having a hard time understanding you is that they haven't seen positive things about you that they can wrap their heads around. Many people wouldn't choose a life of self-reliant completeness in solitude, so they can't quite grasp the concept of that being a positive thing, and we haven't heard you talking about how you enjoy discussing philosophy with friends, or maybe books that you like, or... well, anything. And, yes, the negatives may outweigh the positive aspects of life, but if you only focus on the negatives, they're just going to stress you out and irritate you. Of course, if you -want- to be stressed out and irritated a lot, by all means... as for me, well, I try to do right and all, and I'll speak out against corruption in the world right along side you, but "when the world is coming down on me, I let it go!" :)