Yukio Mishima part 1 : explaining through the body

Mishima in contemporary history is so significant and representative of so many different instances that it is really difficult to understand it in its entirety. In this first post dedicated to him, another will follow next week, I want to dwell on his unique ability to speak through the body or rather his need for perfection that can not only be intellectual or physical but it must always be simultaneously on all levels of being: physical, intellectual, spiritual. If one of the three levels is corrupted and weak, an imbalance is created that also corrupts the others.

Mishima was consequently one of the greatest authors (both of novels and plays) of the contemporary era, he was an actor in both cinema and theater often playing the characters he created (even if most of his characters were his alter-egos),  he was an excellent martial artist in Karate but especially in Kendo, he was one of the last political figures to oppose American molasses rhetoric, a die-hard anti-peace, he was a great connoisseur and Zen practitioner.
Mishima could be described as a lover of aesthetics and non-superficial beauty that when it is such can only embrace the whole being.

Here are words taken from Bushido, the code of the Samurai, of which Mishima was the last great interpreter: "I have no armor, Jin-gi (human sensitivity and sense of duty) is my armor. I don't have a castle, fudo-shin (the imperturbable mind) is my castle. I have no sword: mushin (mental emptiness) is my sword."

m.m.