Status Updates From El pabellón de oro

This sense of individuality robbed my life of its symbolism, that is to say, of its power to serve, like Tsurukawa’s, as a metaphor for something outside itself; accordingly, it deprived me of the feelings of life’s extensity and solidarity, and it became the source of that sense of solitude which pursued me indefinitely. It was strange, I did not even have any feeling of solidarity with nothingness.

It is said that the essence of Zen is the absence of all particularities, and that the real power to see consists in the knowledge that one’s own heart possesses neither form nor feature. Yet the power to see, which is capable of properly envisaging the absence of feature, must be exceedingly keen in resisting the charm of formal appearances.

Every time I read Mishima I just think what the actual f**k was going on in his head. Then I accept that he was a genius and keep reading.