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.