The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

I was not born with any defect. I was born like an
impossibly perfect human being, a perfect film
negative. But this world is full of imperfect positives. It
would be a terrible thing for them to develop me,
change me into a positive. That is why they are so
afraid of me.
The source of greatest amusement to me has been
the solemn injunction that I be faithful to myself. It is an
impossibility. Had I sought to follow it I would
immediately have been dead. It could only have
meant forcing the absurdity of my existence into unity.
There would have been ways if I had not had selfrespect.
It would have been easy, without self-respect,
to make others and myself as well accept all manner
of distorted images. But is it so very human to be
hopelessly monstrous? Though of course the world
feels secure when the monstrous is reality.
I am very cautious, but I am greatly wanting in the
instinct for self-preservation. And I am so brightly
wanting in it that the breeze through the gap
sometimes makes me drunk. Since danger is the
ordinary, there is no crisis. It is very well to have a
sense of balance, since I cannot live without a
miraculous sort of balance; but suddenly it becomes a
hot dream of imbalance and collapse. The greater the
discipline the greater the tendency toward violence,