I am a man who has always been interested only in the margins of the body and spirit, in the frontiers. Depths don’t interest me. I leave them to others, because they are frivolous and common topics. What’s at the extreme limit? Just a shred hanging in the void? On earth man is crushed by gravity, his body is enclosed in an armor of muscles; he sweats, runs, hits and, albeit with difficulty, jumps. Yet, at times, I have really glimpsed, in the darkness of blinding weariness, a hint of the color of what I call “the dawn of the flesh.” On earth man indulges in intellectual adventures, as if he could fly towards infinity. Motionless in front of his desk, he tries to drag himself further and further on his knees, to the borders of the spirit, defying the danger of falling into the void. In those moments (although very rarely) even the spirit can glimpse its own dawn. But body and spirit never merge, they could never become alike.
Taken from: Yukio Mishima, Sun and steel
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