Mike Doan

March 31, 2021

Get-up-and-go

I'm trying to read more fiction because a great writer can reveal insight on the human condition or a universal truth about being human. Maybe that’s why Neil Gaiman says, "Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over."

Here's a seemingly "true thing" that jumped out at me when I read "The Sound of Waves" by Yukio Mishima(1):

"The only thing that really counts in a man is his get-up-and-go. If he's got get-up-and-go he's a real man...”

(1) Rather morbid, but interesting nonetheless, Mishima committed seppuku (Japanese ritual suicide) at age 45, after a failed attempt at a coup d'état in 1970.