The Soul of Japan: Manifesto

And so I start this blog, on this day in history, to commemorate one of my favorite Japanese novelist and arguably the most prolific figures in modern Japanese literature.   Mishima Yukio.


   At first, he had to look from within, and drawing from the well of knowledge shared by all sentient human beings, he extracted from it, the knowledge of other great men what he needed in order to make sense of his own reality, but it wasn’t until it all came together for him on November 25th 1970. A day that will live in infamy.



      I instantly related to his prose as I, a Westerner, living in a non-Japanese body, and finding richness and identity in his essays translated in the English language.  His contradictions, his association with death and beauty, and the pain of that beauty and decrepitude, his masturbatory fantasies, I identified with in my own way.   Mishima was initially trapped inside of a weak body, but not his will. Once he discovered his mission, he trained his body and made it strong.


     There is no martial spirit here any longer, no honor, no patriotism other than the Republican Ochlocracy and the rich minority, cast against the working poor majority.   Am I to stand up against tyranny both at home and abroad? Am I to embrace the principles of freedom and Democracy when so little of it is evident today.

   
So I decided to travel and see the world. I’ve been to over a dozen different countries. I have met all kinds of people, and from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. And then ultimately finding my way to Japan which further enhanced my already well grounded perceptions of it before I even set foot off the plane.    Japan to me, like from the very first time I met the greatest human being in the world, who embodied everything I could possibly hope for in a human being, to that very first sip of a sake kiss, pink rose pedals dancing in our midst, beautiful hinomaru, oh what bliss, I exhaled. Who am I to identify with this???   And then death comes.   It’s inevitable.   You cannot reverse age.   Times change, then I guess that means we should change with the Times.   But what more are we to embrace, but yet another death.



     It is the role of every human being to give and receive love, even if it’s just to one human being. This is what we must do in order to be human beings, it is our obligation. If this option is not there, we must seek out a way to give love, and in whatever form permissible, and even digestible.



      Mishima wrote plays with the intent on making people cry, but instead, they just cried in laughter. The play was an act of love – sacrifice. I have to extrapolate from my experiences living at home and then living in Japan, and then trying to infuse both elements together. This way I can offer something to the people. A testament of love and freedom and Democracy. The love of Thomas Jefferson, and Lincoln and at how they freed the slaves when they themselves were slave owners themselves….Even after freeing the slave.  


    How can I come to Japan and preach of such a virtues deed committed by such a benevolent white man? Lucky me, my ancestors were freed by a white person, and then it took 80 more years until after Jim Crowe came to an end  just to make matters worse.    I have to deduce down some virtue from this legacy of having to be told I was freed by another human being.    All human beings are born free in principle, aren’t we?



     I’m supposed to be grateful, much like the Japanese are to be grateful for receiving two atomic bombs. We have to forgive and forget the transgressions committed by our former enemy.  I have to surrender all vestiges of my blackness and resentment, and other entitlements I feel my ancestors deserve because it’s (un)American, the Japanese have to surrender all forms of patriotism because it’s (un)Japanese.
Mishima didn’t feel so.  And I sure as hell don’t feel so, either.  I didn’t come to Japan to spread Democracy and the rule of law. I didn’t come here to testify of the virtues of white men who set my ancestors free,so that I could come here just to exalt them.  For what? I chose to come here and represent myself, because I can, not because I’m obligated to.



     Mishima had to live up to the fullest potential of himself as a Japanese by setting a standard, he didn’t pay homage to the legacy of his former oppressors, in spite of the fact that he lived in a Western-style house, and wore Western clothes.  He had to break the shackles of Western dogma and ideology, while at the same time proving that he could craft his own destiny.  He had to infuse his own obsessions with the elements of Bushido and his love of all-things flesh,  while entertaining the notions of Western ideologies. In the end he chose death. He successfully infused his ejaculate with the sound of his own death knell of his own convictions, and ultimately through the fatal swoop of a blade across the back of his nape.



     He had to bring everything together in order to achieve this grand expose: His homosexuality, his orgasm, his passion for love and art, Bushido, the martial spirit, his zeal, his passion, his obsession, his schizophrenia. His exhortations his lamentations to the son of heaven. All of these elements came together for him. He dressed in Western attire, but ended life committing seppuku, the Japanese way.



     This blog will set the record straight on my own convictions, lusts, and passions, and zeal. I can infuse my own passions and bringing them together here in this blog, but from the perspective of an American obsessed with Japan. Not an American obsessed with being an American trapped in Japan because of his failure to understand the natural order of things in Japan. In Japan I feel like I’ve been reborn and reshaped. Totally free. I chose to come here, I wasn’t forced here. I made my own way and my own moves. I love Japan because it’s Japan and I would hate to see it change, like it has been changing in recent decades.



     My function is to speak out in defense of what’s pure, noble and righteous. Many of my Western contemporaries seek ways to reshape the fabric of Japanese society. I am the resistance to this. I seek to peel back the indoctrination of Western fundamentalist poison layer by layer, so that people all of the world can have a respectful balance and understanding of the real Japan, the way it should look and appear without the excessive Western misconceptions.


Some of my essays are loaded with apotheosis over subject like sake, women, and onsen. These elements are all purely Japanese and deserve to be looked at purely as elements of real Japan from the perspective of a foreigner who has fully embraced his foreigners and at who has truly developed an immense love of the country.