A Love of Pain
The limitations of pain are held in the mind. It is important to note that a love of pain does not necessarily come from the moment of pain itself, but from the reprieve when it is taken away. Granted, the application of pain itself, at the moment the nerves are experiencing it is its own kind of pleasure, of appreciation, but the endorphin rush comes post-pain, when the body is given rest and floods itself with reward.

With muscles it is an interesting cycle. You stretch, pull, rip and tear down the fibers so that, when they repair they repair larger, stronger and denser, more acutely tuned to the action that originally tore it down. This brings an interesting thought to mind - if you beat, cut, burn, tear and rip a person's mind down, through physical and emotional pain, does it not regrow stronger, more resilient? It is likely...but like a muscle that is stretched too far, pulled too hard, or stressed beyond - the mind can also break, become damaged and dysfunctional. It is important then, that one be careful in the application of pain to the body and the mind. While I am just as guilty of extremes with physical pain as any other dedicated individual, I must be wary, at least conscious of the potential for premature self-destruction, leaving in my wake a broken piece of myself that sets me back from achieving total tolerance, strength - ascension as it were.

Can I safely draw the conclusion that a painful and extensive means of total self-destruction would result in a death experience akin to the endorphin rush of of the muscles? Now I'm stepping into the extreme fantastic...but it is worth considering when I read of Kiroaki, cutting open his stomach, with the sun exploding in his eyes at the moment of death...this is what Mishima hinted at, and what so many labeled as a sort of necophilious obsession.

It could be surmised then, that such a process of building a temple in the body is for a cheap and shallow reason - a lust to experience some sort of ultimate pleasure response, if only for a single moment before it and the continuance of one's own reality, of one's own "life" ceases to exist. In turn, it has been reduced to a purely sexual, perhaps purely sensual, moment.

This is throwing aside twisted interpretations of honor or glory altogether. Instead, this cuts through to the masochism involved, and just how strongly that underlines the pain/pleasure fascination. Therefore, I have to ask myself - do I follow this path because I am no different than any other addict? Do I weave my addiction up and into a veneer of honor, glory and inflated self-righteousness? Or am I truly following some sort of creed that puts me in the footsteps of the other greats? Am I hiding under a mask of ideals when the truth is that I am nothing more than a deviant?