The Mishima Delusion

Bodybuilding or gaining muscle won't make you a good writer

At the age of 45, Yukio Mishima, one of the most important writers of the 20th century, committed seppuku (with assistance) in protest against the decadence of the Japanese government and society. Mishima is a strange case, in that he began as a weak and pathetic queer as described in his first 1949 novel, Confessions of a Mask. This would soon evolve into the love of death and desire found in his other novel, The Temple of The Golden Pavilion, and his play, Madame de Sade. Jerry Piven wrote in the 2004 study, “The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima,” that Mishima was clever at hiding his insanity in his work, and presented himself rather as a calm and rational actor to hide it.

One of his most beloved works, Sun and Steel, recounts how he became a bodybuilder, and that his desire to grow muscles was a reaction against his boyfriend, Akihiro Miwa, who made fun of his frail image during a club outing together. It is no surprise that Mishima’s interest in such an unattainable goal was projected in another novel of his, The Sound of Waves, where self-transformation and redemption of the pagan unapologetic spirit were evident in the plot and protagonist. If you work out and build muscle, you can get the girl, win over friends, and envision the Socratic “good life” as a role model and moral crusader. Right?

No.

This is something I would like to call “the Mishima delusion” and it is quite common in today’s delusional “male gurus” found in Andrew Tate, Raw Egg Nationalist, Jack Donovan, Sneako, The Golden One, Paul Waggener, Athenian Stranger, …and so on, as the list continues. You know these names and faces. These bodybuilding “red pill” advocates tend to peddle the same ideology over and over again, that liberal society is falling apart, and the only way to fix to world is to be “strong” against a tide of weakness. What is “strong” is not defined as a virtue or a cultural trait but as a physical presence of “getting rich quick,” daily gym attendance, and importantly, building the body by powerlifting and other such acts of delusional athleticism and fitness.

The real delusion is the correlation between bodybuilding and gaining muscle as a method to become a good writer. That is, bodybuilding or gaining muscle somehow correlates to clarity, logic, expression, and the ability to write fluently in English, whether for creative purposes or as a technicality. I never met or known a person who has muscles or is a bodybuilder, that is also a good writer. The two can't exist with one another.

What is “good” writing is not subjective, but an objective reality. It’s not based upon some kind of established merit on what is good. “Good” constitutes an array of intelligent, logical, and complex thoughts that any intellect would comprehend. This can’t be reduced to expression only, as the expression is truly subjective. The assumption is that being an interesting character (think as a “queer”) makes you knowledgeable, but this doesn’t promise anything with literacy or mastery of the English language.

Fans of Yukio Mishima may be upset at this, but bodybuilding deludes the mind with arrogance and masochism, and logically the muscle gainer can't think straight. This is what I call the Mishima Delusion because the fans of these male gurus, and Mishima, can’t see the real madness and perversion that is developed when the body undergoes pain, as Piven notes.

This is likely due to a conflation of body mass equating to virtue ethics, where virtue ethics would naturally develop into the habit and discipline of good writing. Bodybuilding is just that. It doesn't promise literacy or clarity. Virtue ethics largely came from an understanding of Plato and his philosophy. “Socrates,” if he is even a real person or the imagination of Plato, wrote about such idealism of virtue in his dialogue with Alcibiades. The relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades is important because it is the core understanding of pre-Christian Western ideology, intimacy, self-improvement, and the controversial aspect of homosexuality between teacher and student. This homosexuality returns with Mishima, and it is quite common that the bodybuilder is a secret homosexual, because the love of man is interested in the love of improvement.

It is a sad truth when man realizes that self-improvement can only be about the narcissistic self. His gain for recognition, especially from the opposite sex, can only lead to isolation. Man believes he must construct his body to become a cartoon character that the female and other equally envious men (or close homosexuals) desire. Instead of lifting weights to achieve the real-life anime girl, the Japanese porn actress, or any idealized cartoon desire of arousal, the man makes the mistake that bodybuilding and muscle gaining are the same as the traits of guilt tripping and condescending shame found within Christianity. His pursuit of an unattainable goal makes him more pretentious and shallow in his actions, coming to a slow realization of it.

Unfortunately, there still exists Mishima's delusional propaganda, as stated previously by the advocates of it. This urge to do better comes from a “nationalist” push for excellence, that what you own is apart of a “people” that tries to create a real existing utopia of collective desires. You can make anime girls real, it’s just that you have to build an “Aryan” society for it. And you can be the protagonist of an anime nobody is watching, so as long as you dress, look like, and show the muscles of the superficial cartoon construction that was crafted, ironically, by the introverted and skinny intellects who don’t bodybuild. This kind of “nationalism” is delusional, as the abstract concept of a “home” is constantly reassured as a dream that can be achieved, and not obtained in the present.

“Transformation” is another reoccurring gag. “Transformation” in this regard means to work at a goal and to become it. It plays with transhumanism and the assumption a man can be a woman. When technology becomes advanced enough, people don’t have to work anymore. A button can be pressed, and anyone can have the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The fallacy here is the love for manual work (“labor is the the source of all value”) over vanity. But without vanity, there would be no purpose for the bodybuilder! Beauty is really in the eye of the beholder when the purpose was something subjective in the first place.

The chase for subculture is more apparent than bodybuilding. The need to build and gain muscle relates to the birth of Socratic interest with Alcibiades. Later, it manifests in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, and manifested in Leo Strauss, until it became philosophical irrationalism that the world is out to kill humanity and that reality is a Darwinian jungle of winners and losers. There is no rationalism, only “the weak fearing the strong.” And yet, the bodybuilders and muscle-gaining relies on this philosophy as a foundation for their neurotic urge of self-harm and homosexuality. This deludes common sense logic, where everything becomes a “power” game of influence.

The liberal seems to not understand why the bodybuilder thinks the way they do. This can only fabricate evidence of an actual weakness that the bodybuilder is up against.

Threats of intimidation are recycled against those who criticize and exist as intellects without concern for bodybuilding. …Why should I ever bodybuild? From a lifestyle-anarchist to a crust-punk perspective, I just don’t feel like it. Why should I gain anxiety over the pain and suffering that is unnecessary with survival and my desire to accomplish other pursuits? If I die in combat, so be it. As Apio Ludd wrote in his 2013 article, “Why I Am Not a Communist,” Ludd is not a communist because he doesn’t want to join the team of communism. Why should anyone join a team they are not interested in? I am confident with my actions and I don’t have to build for anyone or anything. Bodybuilding is not about survival or learning to defend oneself.

In the punk hardcore scene, “tough guy hardcore,” or “beatdown hardcore” romanticizes strong men into hardcore physically fighting and beating up against liberals and straight-edge kids. The notorious hardcore band One Life Crew was all about beating up liberals, “minorities,” and offending the virtue ethics side of punk music. They too consider themselves “straight edge,” but only on the principles of acting tough and following the order of the bodybuilder. Ironically, a rival hardcore band, Charles Bronson, wrote a song criticizing them as fat, and not fit, in their song, “One Life Crew Goes On Slimfast.”

William Guppy, author of Ha Ha Ha Delightful, posted a Tweet of similar insight about the Mishima delusion. It gained over 26,000 likes of agreements.

Guppy wrote,

“Each large muscle of a bodybuilder represents a language he didn’t learn, a poem he didn’t read, a fun fact never memorized.”

This statement is correct. The harsh fanfare reaction was met with the bitter realization of the self-improvement fallacy. Paul Waggener and associates used intimidation and threats, while some cited back to the Platonic to Athenian tribal games of arrogance. If it’s true that our society is ruled by “cowards,” how come is it that the “warriors” in question do what they are told, and fall off a cliff anyway? That, a bodybuilder cannot refute.

It is unique that this taboo to be critical of the bodybuilder remains only in the realm of men, and not women. When there is a woman bodybuilder, her situation is unique. She can’t compete on the level of Mr. Universe, as a woman’s body is biologically different from a man’s. Not once in discussion is there the plausibility of a muscular woman and her desire to get men who are weaker than her. It is always about a muscular man, like Robby Robinson or Jay Cutler, who is the idealized attraction for any woman of any status. Not even female sexuality is mentioned in her pursuit to get a muscular body, as her biological dependence upon the man is questioned once she demands someone like her; or another muscular man. If virtue ethics were a moral pursuit, the strong woman would pursue that weak man and pursue the desire she wanted to obtain.

However, female sexuality often results in the self-destructive spirit of female masochism, where the woman demands that the man lead in the relationship and take control of her high demands. F. Roger Devlin contemplated this masochism in a 2014 article, “The Question of Female Masochism,”¹ where he concludes that a woman’s behavior is often pursued by unrealistic desires, influenced by other women or watching YouTube-to-television, which is also found in the influence of evolutionary psychology, or, found in the similar innate behavior of animals. As Devlin noted, “Feminism is a byproduct of peace and prosperity, not a response to patriarchy and oppression.” The woman will demand that a man fulfill her desires, even if they are out of touch with bodybuilding for herself. The man must then treat her as a spoiled child and constantly take care of her while giving up his entire personality, only then to get an hour of non-reproductive sex as a reward.

This Darwinian strategy relies on winners and losers. The “winners” get to reproduce, and the “losers” get nothing and die out. The elite are aware of such Darwinian games, and use population control, or eugenics, to get a better outcome for society. One such practice, Malthusianism, is about de-growth and non-production to save society for the elite (or the winners). This is done by advocating programs of non-reproductive policies; such as surrogating food with junk, advocating isolated and hedonistic individualism, and practicing psychological operations to get a certain soft genocidal agenda across, like making casual abortion fashionable for white women. If bodybuilders feel like they can do anything because they have muscles, think can also practice a degenerate lifestyle and have unlimited freedom without consequences.

Look at the great writers of analytical philosophy. They are Gottlieb Frege, Willard Quine, Michael Dummett, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, and Hilary Putnam. None of these “nerds” are built like a “chad.” All of them fall under skinny, ugly, fat, frail, and “weak.” But did they lift weights to accomplish some of the most abstract thoughts ever presented by the human mind? …No! Not even once!

Now take a look at “great writers” who are addicted to drugs. They are William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, Charles Bukowski, and Allen Ginsberg. All of them look like a complete mess without any interest in bodybuilding whatsoever. They would rather take a hit of dope and die from it than hit the gym! All of them are also skinny, ugly, fat, frail, and “weak.”

Did any bodybuilder out there accomplish the transgressive writing of these drug-addicted writers, or discover an analytical secret of the previously mentioned nerdy professors? Not once did bodybuilding or gaining muscle lead to the discovery of the quadratic formula or the ability to write a transgressive story of child rape. Again, good writing does not correlate with bodybuilding or muscle gains. One has to learn how to write in English and practice it, like any other artistic skill.

The image alone can’t do anything but present a commodity, a product, and a pretentious self. Actors and actresses are in the business of using their bodies as the commodity for the desire of the weak consumer. It’s quite evident in the industry of pornography, the body is judged as a tool. Fantasy is the only thing that matters, and creating a fantasy dream is the goal. The thought of transhumanism is also of concern, as transhumanism is about leaving the body or providing equal access to the same powers for everyone. If everyone had the technology to get a muscular body as cosmetics, no one would bodybuild anymore, as it became automated in a transhumanist communist society.

What is the ideology of bodybuilding? It’s to look good and pretend one has the values of discipline, strength, and endurance. All three things can be attained without the muscles or bodybuilding. The reality is that bodybuilding is used as an ideological tool based upon American meritocracy and individual liberalism, values opposed to the anti-liberal toughness of Mishima and his delusions. One such example includes Hasan Piker, who bodybuilds to “fight against fascism” and represents a new subculture of fitness around muscular threats and intimation against the “weakness” of anti-liberalism.

What do we make of gay pornography? Of muscular men, but then prefer to film each other having sex with other muscular men without frail ones? Isn’t this unfair and discriminatory to everyone and everything? How come is it we can’t celebrate queer sexuality or the sexuality of average people making erotic art or films?

So now, Hasan Piker comes in as a voice to legitimize the American liberal. Not through argument or logic, but through the sheer image of being a bodybuilder. What points are there? None. What’s stopping Piker from making gay porn too?

Strength is not found in muscles or bodybuilding. Nor is discipline correlated with a muscular body. “Strength” is a cultural trait. Submission, machoism, and obedience are one thing, but strength and discipline can be found in anyone, including the ugly, frail, or fat person. The real misconception is that being healthy would make anyone a good writer, but as noted before with decadent verse mathematical writers, this isn’t the case. The bodybuilder relies on his role modeling and image as a form of beauty. “Beauty” here correlates to the definition of art, and art, therefore, is the activity of the healthy, which is the misconception of the bodybuilder.

A "gymcel" is someone who has muscles, but doesn't know how to use them. What is strength or discipline if submission and masochism overtook his habits, not skills? What is left is appearance and the shallowness of an undeveloped mind. The gymcel can’t pursue women because he doesn’t know how. He is mentally retarded with a muscular body.

In addition to the gymcel’s dilemma, he can’t pick up the universal understanding of male beauty and female sexuality. A woman will always pick a man that aligns with her fantasy of being a princess in an anime or romantic comedy nobody is watching. It could very well be a skinny, sensitive white guy with a personal artistic interest because the women think this is sincere to his devotion to someone else. The woman wants to be the muse, and she chooses the cartoon man who can fulfill her subjective desire of it, even though it may be highly irrational. The bodybuilder’s real desire is to obtain the unobtainable anime-realist girl of his sexual imagination.

No matter how much grunting and sweating he does as he roleplay’s in a normie gym blaring Nelly’s “Dilemma,” the true dilemma is his retardation. It’s “going to the gym” for the sake of it, but as a means to get a rush of arrogance, and to imagine one is indestructible, like a little Chihuahua barking at a bigger dog. They assume the cure for autism is working out because no one would call a muscular man mentally or physically retarded. This fallacy continues the cycle of being pretentious.

What is a “good writer” is it’s all just subjective? That’s because if being “good” is objective, then what is bodybuilding is merely an aesthetic preference without logic or merit. Who cares if Chuck Palahniuk is a bodybuilder? That just adds to the fact he is a homosexual and writes deranged sadomasochistic fiction. Bodybuilding assumes that it will turn you into a crazy irrational beast, and not a rational fatherly figure. Even in the incel community, the slang term for bodybuilding for clout is called “looksmaxxing.” There is something ethically wrong with an action meant for narcissistic gain. Perhaps if everyone in the adult industry is considered decadent and depraved, all the men have to bodybuild to perform their profession. So the root of this accepted depraved rumor comes from the fact that bodybuilding makes you sexually perverted and twisted.

The true essence of exercise (not bodybuilding) is not “well-being.” This term is used by institutions to keep people in line. The true objective is endurance, which is outside the realm of bodybuilding and discipline. Endurance is the power to overcome difficult and painful obstacles. Exercise is a deliberate activity meant to get a result, which isn’t exactly bodybuilding or gaining muscle. That exclusive result is endurance, which results in the objective of overcoming physical challenges and resulting in being “fit” to a healthy standard. Like a boxer, he can take a couple of punches before he goes down. But if he can take twenty more punches the next time, his endurance has increased. This is both a physical and mental obstacle, that has to rely on both areas of the mind and body.

Learning a new language or new intellectual inquiry is to "study.” Studying is not exactly endurance, as endurance is about survival. No one is surviving the onslaught of the Korean alphabet. One has to learn from it and retain it in their mind, as to acquire knowledge. There is no knowledge acquired from bodybuilding, as bodybuilding can’t teach you Korean.

What is strength then if it’s a trait or power to withstand? Muscles can’t exactly offer you strength. Compare ten muscular men versus one hundred DPRK army men. Would would win? Depending. If the ten muscular men have a lot of power to withstand the onslaught of the army (endurance), then they could win. Yet the natural outcome is the hundred-man army, as strength comes in numbers, not elitist pandering.

I don’t think the Korean People's Army has muscles or bodybuilds like Westerners imagine they do. Everyone has to volunteer for the army, strong or weak. And if a majority of people are weak, that means everyone is weak in the army. But are they really “weak” if they form in larger numbers? No. The ten muscular men can’t win.

And the funniest part is that the Korean People’s Army is the second largest military organization in the world! All of them have to learn Juche and Korean socialism. This is strength, not "writing.”

And what sports does bodybuilding exceed in? The answer: none! As stated about the mental retardation of the gymcel, the bodybuilder can only show off their body in a contest. They can’t play a game. Every sport is different in design. Soccer requires leg muscles of arms, and a soccer player is not going to hit a home run in a baseball game. What are muscles if they can’t be used in a game?

Finally, the bodybuilder plays into the game of capitalism and liberal individualism and is not against it. The fake meritocracy is pushed against them as if they only gained muscles because of correct choices. You can choose to not be poor, just like you can choose a good major in college. But can you? This is an utter misconception, as mentioned previously, there can be ideologically different bodybuilders to show off a perceived mention of anti-capitalism, of “nationalism,” and whatever 1950s sweepstakes is up next. Exactly like in the Stanley Kubrick film, Full Metal Jacket, you are told what to do and are in pain for it. Why would that kind of slavery set anyone free? Forced labor is a serious punishment in North Korea, not a Mishima-inspired transformation. Wouldn’t we rather kill the officer and let ourselves free from slavery?

If you play for your high school team and get no results in play, what are you doing? You are wasting your time. You are on the losing team. Andrew Tate makes it clear that we have to be “winners” in this game. It is the level of arrogance of the muscular crying, "I'm strong, The world deserves to respect me!" This is exactly like blacks asking for whites for free stuff, simply for being black. The bodybuilder thinks he can say whatever he wants because he has the power to do so in his degenerate stance.

It’s quite evident that the bodybuilder can't prove that Marcel Proust wrote In Search of Lost Time or James Joyce wrote Finnigans Wake because they had muscles. Both of them were frail and never, not once, did they think about going to the gym. Bodybuilders can't assume working out will improve your logic or clarity. They have to learn the English language to understand these two great works of art. This requires studying, not lifting weights.

I don't even recall someone in the gym ever bringing a book with them. It's discouraging to lift weights or jog while reading a book. That's not the point of bodybuilding. It shows that literacy is not the purpose.

The bodybuilder works in vanity. He is anti-social and refuses to contribute to society. He thinks people are somehow weak and he is great. And ironically enough, the bodybuilder will follow the orders of the powerful “weak” to war and die for any liberal cause against his muscles. Violence is only a power move around his ego, and he will never escalates his threats to anything. He will die once he gets shot by a gun. The bodybuilder only cares about his fleeting life in an equally careless society in decay he has no remedy for.

I still question the existence of the “beta male” because this was a coverup against the man who was good and acted upon virtue ethics. Now the semantics have confused the anti-liberal faction with rat race schemes that only propagate their delusions and create idiots like Andrew Tate. No one is praising the goodness of fat people, and seeing all threats against which is “healthy.” It takes a cue from the mental health cult and its attack on the healthy, which now the tables have turned and they are burning anything different from the normative fantasy in their head.

Bronze Age Pervert said something about how death at a young age is romantic and beautiful. This was nothing more than a paraphrased quote from Mishima, who had a fixation on a youth he never had. There are only winners in this death. Do we say that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot up Columbine High School, are also a part of that beautiful death, or are they losers? At what point does the Georges Sorelian myth of the violent revolution include the good? The bodybuilder will lose his muscles one day out of old age, and what then will be his legacy?

This is the Mishima delusion. And it’s doing nothing for the cause of anti-liberalism. If one wants to be a good writer, write. Don’t lift weights or focus on the self. It has nothing to do with intellectualism or the sacrifice of the self against the state.

-pe

11-7-2023

1. See his book, “Sexual Utopia In Power.”