Best short profile of Yukio Mishima I’ve ever come across…

“The average age for a man in the Bronze Age was eighteen. In the Roman era, twenty-two. Heaven must have been beautiful then. Today it must look dreadful. When a man reaches forty, he has no chance to die beautifully. No matter how he tries, he will die of decay. He must compel himself to live.”

-Yukio Mishima, A Life In Four Chapters

Mishima called the Hagakure—an 18th century collection of reflections on the way of the Samurai— the “womb of his oeuvre.” He believed that post-World War II Japan had abandoned its virile warrior tradition in favor of becoming a commercialized, soulless nation synonymous with “flower arranging.” Given Japan’s current status as the global hub of Hello Kitty cuteness, he’s probably glad he’s dead.