Mishima & Tanizaki

I've liked Mishima for more than a decade

but always sensed something morbid around his writings

In a way it would be natural to sense it from a person who ended his life by that dramatic suicide

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About Tanizaki

I firstly read his novel over a decade ago

But only 3 - 4 years ago I could began to realise who Tanizaki was, what Tanizaki was all about

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Simply put

Mishima was rejecting what life offered
And it was this "rejection" that his desire for writing came from

Tanizaki was accepting what life offered
And it was this "acceptance" that he wrote about & let him a long life

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Over the past couple of years I've preferred, or tried to prefer, Tanizaki over Mishima

Tanizaki's relaxed nonchalant attitude looked far more appealing than Mishima's excessive seriousness

Mishima's over-seriousness feels too much sometimes

Probably because I share some very similar dispositions with Mishima

But even though, there is one Mishima's line that still resonates with me

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Human beings are not strong enough to live & die for oneself

We always want something beyond our existence and wish to live for it, sacrifice ourselves for it

We can't live only for ourselves

We quickly get bored with a life that is only for oneself

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I came across this Mishima's line more than 10 years ago

I felt guilty
because I did feel I lived only for myself

Now, more than 10 years passed, and I feel this guilty even more

Because I still think, actually I feel more that I live only for myself

And this is not only about myself

Looking around
people become more individualistic, more self-interested, more self-absorbed

I'm not against it
I'm 100% absolutely one of them
In fact I'm the one who probably lives for myself much more than other people

But that's why this Mishima's line resonates with me even more now

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I was thinking for what, for who I was living

Still looking for