Yukio Mishima might have been mentioned a couple of times on this sub, usually in quotations taken from Henry Rollins articles. Today I bring you more facts about the this japanese man.
"No matter how long and intense the training, our body, deep down, is progressing little by little towards decadence"
Consciousness within the flesh:
"Pain, I came to feel, might well prove to be the sole proof of the persistence of consciousness within the flesh, the sole physical expression of consciousness. As my body acquired muscle, and in turn strength, there was gradually born within me a tendency towards the positive acceptance of pain, and my interest in physical suffering deepened."
Steel, strength, struggle:
"It is true enough that when I lifted a certain weight of steel, I was able to believe in my own strength. I sweated and panted, struggling to obtain certain proof of my strength. At such times, strength was mine, and equally it was the steel’s. My sense of existence was feeding on itself."
Muscles as Air and Light:
"The muscles that I thus created were at one and the same time simple existence and works of art; they even, paradoxically, possessed a certain abstract nature. their one fatal flaw was that they were too closely involved with the life process, which decreed that they should decline and perish with the decline of life itself.”
Yukio Mishima was multi-faceted man: writer, director, model, actor and political figure of the 20th century. A nationalist, he leaded a coup d'etat in 1970 that unsuccesfully failed to create the response he expected to achieve. Because of that, he commited suicide through the ritual seppuku. Still, hes considered one of the most important japanase authors and was thrice nominated for a Nobel prize. His works were considered controversial at the time, given that they "displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change". Mishima "wanted to restore the divinity of the emperor, strengthen Japan's army and discard the country's pacifist constitution. He felt western values were invading and weakening Japan like a cancer."
A married man with two children, it is rumored that he was a closeted homosexual. His first novel is a partly autobiographical work that describes a homosexual who must mask his sexual preferences from the society around him. He took bodybuilding at age 30, in onder to change his weak physique "he was fascinated by physical beauty and rejected the aesthetics of intellectualism. He thought an ugly body was disgraceful, and seemed somewhat ashamed of the weak body of his youth". Ultimately, his increasing obsession with blood, death, and suicide, and his interest in self-destructive personalities could be the cause that lead him to end his life abruptly and have caused much speculation on what his true motivations were.
TL;DR
Japanese writer works out since age 30 because scrawny bodies are for nerds, lives up to his words and ends his life on his own terms.
Crookedly 6y ago
“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.”
Chaddeus_Rex 6y ago
The simplicity, perceptiveness and sheer brilliance of the observation all encompassed in a short quote is testament to the genius of the man.
sd4c 6y ago
Thanks for posting something a little different.
Im not sure if he's gay, but have noticed there's two kinds of them: the kind who liked women, but we're weak, lazy, or ugly, and gave up on them, and the other kind who were never attracted to chicks in the first place. What's amusing, is that these gayer men can be really, really smart, decent, and successful-like Milo or Wittgenstein, or Turing- and most women can't stand them because they won't put up with their shit.
There appears to be a relationship, between maleness, gayness, IQ, and autism. I don't know what it is, but when you count up the gay geniuses and gay murderers throughout history, you realize if they ever invent working artificial wombs, that women are in big, big trouble.
Chaddeus_Rex 6y ago
In the movie Troy, Achilles said that said that the Gods were envious of man's mortality - for men could witness the sublime in their deeds, especially in those that carried a risk of death thus allowing men to rival the beauty of the gods themselves.
I do not know if this was a true legend or if it was written for the movie, but I do know one thing - the Greeks could appreciate the value of the sublime and some tried to reach the sublime through their deeds on the battlefield or art.
drkinferno72 6y ago
Omg yes I've been waiting for someone to post about yukio mishima
We take a scrawny writer (his boyfriend even called him a man let in a bar that started his bodybuilding) and transform him into a muscle man through weight lifting, karate, and kendo. The man is a total badass and I reccomend reading his work "sun and steel" his reasoning for lifting and the like amongst other works.
PhaedrusHunt 6y ago
Henry Miller wrote a fantastic essay on his suicide. I lived in Japan for a long time and I like Mishima okay, but there's something lacking in his writing. Honestly I feel like he missed the big picture somehow.
Overall I feel he was an attention whore who was less talented than he was notorious, and ultimately he failed to adapt to the times and thrive.
Still, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea was a damn good read.
drkinferno72 6y ago
Temple of the Golden pavilion is my favorite work of his
Dat_Chad 6y ago
hahaha look at his fucking photos
what a flamboyant, overly dramatic attention whore with small arms
I'll read his work tho
PhaedrusHunt 6y ago
Yeah the seppuku was definitely an attention move. Hey bro, you're not an actual samurai.
They totally botched it, too.
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PhaedrusHunt 6y ago
Oh, he was interesting for sure. He was like someone that swallowed to the red pill, but only got it externally. He never internalized it.
drkinferno72 6y ago
What do you mean internalize?
PhaedrusHunt 6y ago
As in, he still doesn't get it. It's like... He's memorized it and can cite it verbatim, but isn't just living it naturally. He has to think about it. It's not yet instinct.
drkinferno72 6y ago
I think he did pretty well considering he was raised a girl by his grandmother.
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dmystery 6y ago
As soon as you said Japanese writer I knew you were talking about Mishima. He was a radical character for his time and pictures of his chiselled body and the antique garb he wore during his coup are ingrained into my memory.
It’s interesting that you mention speculation regarding his sexuality. There seems to be a correlation between possible homoeroticism and red pill writing as can be seen in the writing of the Greeks (and Romans to a lesser extent).
One of my favourite modern writers (the great Oliver Sacks) also went through a body building phase (setting a California weight lifting record in the process). His writings are far from red pill though haha, but he was a great scientific writer.
Starfuckingman 6y ago
Although it is indeed a suicide but in Japan, someone who got the guts to take his own life to take responsibility for their failure, although wrong and stupid, is goddamn badass. Seppuku is a known act among the samurai in the old times and most of you know that, I just don't see seppuku of a great character in the context of suicide anymore but sheer strength of will. And I deeply respect those people for such dedication to principle even if it was something as stupid as taking their own life. Don't get me wrong, though.
Rodion-Raskolnikov 6y ago
Confessions of a Mask is one of my favourites.
waldo888 6y ago
man just a confused radical
CasaDeFranco 6y ago
He was a radical but a man in his 20’s and 30’s can be. Japan and Japanese culture has been deracinated under Western influence and he wanted to preserve the values of the empire. He lived and died on his own terms which one can respect.
imbeciI 6y ago
He wanted Japan to be great again. Doesn't that slogan ring a bell in modern times?
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