A father is a reality-concealing machine, a machine for dishing up lies to kids, and that isn't even the worst of it: secretly he believes that he represents reality.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the role of fathers in shaping children's understanding of reality, suggesting that they often misrepresent truth while believing they are providing it.
In this thought-provoking quote, Yukio Mishima highlights the dichotomy of a father's role in a child's life—while he acts as a provider of truth and reality, there exists a tendency for him to shield children from harder realities. The quote emphasizes the irony that fathers, in their attempts to protect or guide their children, may unintentionally create a distorted view of the world, leading to the potential pitfalls of misunderstanding and miscommunication between generations.
In practice
In a discussion about parenting styles, this quote could be used to illustrate the complexities of truth-telling between generations.
What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.
a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.
When a captive lion steps out of his cage, he comes into a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds for him - the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. Yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage.
…the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.
Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done.
Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?
There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious outlook; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows.
The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.
breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.
Lord, where shall I find you? Your place is lofty and secret. And where shall I not find you? The whole earth is full of your glory! You are found in our innermost heart, yet you fixed earth's boundaries. You are a strong tower for those who are near and the trust of those who go far. I have sought to come near you; I have called to you with all my heart; and when I went out towards you, I found you coming towards me.
Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.
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