/lit/ - Literature

You want to know the saddest thing I ever saw? When I was a boy, my brother and I wanted a dog, so our father took in an old greyhound. A greyhound is a racing dog. Spends its life running in circles, chasing a bit of felt made up like a rabbit. One day, we took it to the park. Our dad had warned us how fast that dog was, but... we couldn't resist. So, my brother took off the leash, and in that instant, the dog spotted a cat. I imagine it must have looked just like that piece of felt. He ran. Never saw a thing as beautiful as that old dog... running. Until, at last, he finally caught it. And to the horror of everyone, he killed that little cat. Tore it to pieces. Then he just sat there, confused. That dog had spent its whole life trying to catch that... thing. Now it had no idea what to do.

>>13612747
>>he retreated to his room to think about her
>>In doing so, he fell asleep
Love is different than lust.
You've never felt it divorced from its lust otherwise you realize how that ideal is shattered by it. This distinction becomes more and more blurred as years go on and goes away for most men by say their 20s as sexual arousal becomes increasingly associated with the object in question, but it easily could have extended throughout his entire life, especially in a time where the Church dictated society. Especially Dante, that had he lived today would be easily diagnosed by me with scrupulosity. Dante was fervently religious and he probably felt a pure, unrelenting romantic attraction. To speak from experience, I recall a woman I was infatuated with many years ago, and contrary to what you might think, I never had one lustful thought toward her. She had a standard of perfection that was unmatched. It was like looking at a fine statue. Her aesthetic beauty, exceeded any sexual. I would dream of her, and she appeared angelic rather than succubustic. Years later, when she was gone from my life and actual loves had gone by, I discovered a porn actress was a falsified facsimile of her; similar features, ratios, but something was off, even satanic. And what may seem paradoxical, arousal was suddenly killed by the mere semblance of this creature to the angel and I turned immediately away as if I had insulted the mere memory of the woman I knew. The masses today accept lust as such a determining point of life that all other emotions and analyses are blotted out, and I find it somewhat sad that the overwhelming majority of other men cannot relate to what I and Dante have experienced.