Home / Quotes / Quote by Johann Hari

Quote by Johann Hari

“If your picture of a perfect afterlife is being with the people you love all the time, why wouldn’t you choose, today while you're still alive, to be truly present with the people you love?”

Book:Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Work

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Johann Hari

Johann Hari is a British writer known for his critical analysis of global news and media influence. His work often focuses on social justice, mental health, and global political issues. more

“tweet on 136. The other day a client said, “I like being able to chatter on like this or stay silent just so as I want. It takes years to build up a friendship that allows you to do that and it costs money along the way, but with rental person, I can behave like that right from the start. It's a real luxury! I had never realized before that rental person could have a cost cutting effect. 138 - 140/ It would be misleading to say we pay for friendship, but friends certainly cost money. If I went out eating and drinking with someone and they always paid, then it wouldn't feel like friendship. I don't really know how to define, “friend” or “friendship”, and I suppose different people would define them in different ways. But it seems to me at being with friends often involves getting out your wallet. You may go to a restaurant with friends, for example, and when you do you share the bill so that you have a balance relationship. You don't want there to be debts on either side. If you play a computer game at someone else's house, then it may not seem as if it's costing you anything, but if you live some distance away, then you have to pay for the train or bus to get there. And if you have snacks or drinks, then you probably share the cost. But just going to someone's house once to play a game doesn't guarantee a real friendship. You'll have to keep meeting up and every time there'll be a cost involved. I think I'm sounding stingy; the point is simply that building and maintaining friendships involves spending time and money. And besides financial costs, there are costs in terms of emotion and energy. Friends often lend things to each other. In Japan, this happens a lot with manga books. I did that with colleagues I got on with at the company I worked for. I'm not the type of person who wants to read something just because someone else recommends it to me—I'd borrow it just because it seemed unfriendly to me not to. And if you borrow a book, you have to read it and when you give it back, you have to give comments. If you didn't enjoy it, you either have to lie and say you did or you have to choose your words very carefully, so as not the harm your relationship. I find all this kind of thing very stressful. I suppose the psychological burden is the cost of adapting to the other person. As I said earlier on, I'm bad at building relationships within a fixed community, and I think one reason for this is that I can't easily adapt. I guess that makes the mental cost relationship greater than it would otherwise be. To reach the stage where you can just be yourself, but the other person takes a lot of time and energy. You probably argue sometimes or spend long periods, hesitating whether to say things or not. And this is all a type of psychological cost that mounts up over time until you reach the day where you can say without reservation. “This manga I borrowed, it was garbage.” So I think you could certainly say that skipping the whole process would cut costs, financial and emotional. That, at least, was how that particular client saw it. My not doing anything meant there was no pressure on her. It was interesting to find someone who thought like that.”

Friendship Rental Person

Author:Shoji Morimoto

“Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the 'harami' child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.”

Love Purpose Friendship Meaning Maternity Life Well Lived Acceptance Of Death

Book:A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Een verschrikkelijk iets, een instorting van 't vriendschapsgebouw, de wraak voor te veel aanhankelijkheid, een foltering dat het geweten kwam knijpen. [...] Een diep gevoel van ondankbaarheid, bijna een zelfbeschuldiging van uitbuiting, omdat ze iets aangenomen had wat ze niet kon vergelden.”

Love Friendship Heartbreak

Book:Erfelijk belast

Source: Erfelijk belast

“I've been clinically diagnosed with sociopathy,' I said. 'Do you know what that means?' 'It means you're a freak,' he said. 'It means that you're about as important to me as a cardboard box,' I said. 'You're just a thing - a piece of garbage that no one's thrown away yet. Is that what you want me to say?' 'Shut up,' said Rob. He was still acting tough, but I could see his bluster was starting to fail. He didn't know what to say. 'The thing about boxes,' I said, 'is that you can open them up. Even though they're completely boring on the outside, there might be something interesting inside. So while you're saying all of these stupid, boring things I'm imagining what it would be like to cut you open and see what you've got in there.”