Human beings, Isao realized, could descend to communicating their feelings like dogs barking in the distance on a cold night. - Yukio Mishima

True pain can only come gradually. It is exactly like tuberculosis in that the disease has already progressed to a critical stage before the patient becomes aware of its symptoms.

We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile death that knows neither flower nor fruit has dignity as the death of a human being. If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile.

Separation is painful, but so is its opposite. And if being together brings joy, then it is only proper that separation should do the same in its own way.