Chương 20: Book 1; Chapter 19; Reunion (2)

"Is he your boyfriend?" Anniet asked carefully.

"No."

"Your husband?" Anniet guessed again. Rainee shook her head.

"Brother?" Anniet tried her luck once more.

"Nope."

"Then a good friend?" Seeing that Rainee was not cross or offended by her questioning, Anniet was getting braver.

"Did he sound very friendly to you?" Now it was Anniet's time to shake her head. She tried hard in her head to think about what relation there could be between these two. Surely he couldn't be her father, as they were more or less the same age, and also it was obvious that Rainee knew more than he did.

"Then who is he?" Anniet finally gave up and thought it was best to ask.

"He is my student," Rainee said with a smile.

"Student? He didn't sound very much like a student," Anniet was confused.

"He is probably in love with you…"

"On the contrary," Rainee disagreed,"in all this conversation there was not even a single drop of love, and even right now he is burning with anger and hatred. I think you could feel it by yourself. That's the opposite of love. You cannot have both in one place. Where there is anger, there is no love, and where there is love, there is no anger. Love is too big, and where it stays, there is no room for anger or hatred. Also, love doesn't come partially. You cannot half love.

So you cannot have just half of love being in you. Love doesn't share its place with anything. When love comes, everything else leaves." Anniet thought for a while about what she had just heard.

"But it cannot be entirely accurate," she said again with caution, hoping that Rainee would not get upset with it.

"Why not?" Rainee smiled. She didn't look upset at all; if anything, she seemed curious to hear more.

"Usually, people are often angry with those they love," Anniet said.

"Well, at least in the place I lived before. But even if you are right, then still, if you are loving, you are also caring and kind, and many other things. You cannot be just loving! Can you? Or when you worry for someone you love, then at that time you don't love them anymore? Because you said that love leaves if it cannot get all the place?"

"You are partially right in what you said, but also very wrong. When you worry, you are needy at that moment, not loving. It is not the same. Some people would say that love coexists with some feelings and doesn't with others, but I would disagree with it. For me, when love is present, nothing else fits. And you are right – a loving person is caring and kind, and gentle, and firm. But it is not because it coexists with these feelings, but it is a natural outcome of love. You can be kind even when you don't love.

Kindness is a very good quality to have. But you cannot be unkind while you love. It is simply impossible. Many people are caring without love. Caring is an essential quality of humanity. You can be caring for many reasons: because it is the right thing to do, because of responsibility, because of what you have been taught, and many others. But this caring is changeable.

It will change depending on where you grew up, on what you have been taught, on what people around you think, on your opinion, and on the opinions of others. If your surroundings and understanding change, caring will change too. Love is not essential for people to be caring. But when you love, it becomes impossible not to care. You don't have to think, or be reminded, or be responsible. None of that is needed – you just do.

To care or to be kind out of responsibility, out of morals, might be very tiring and draining. Do it out of love, and you will never get tired. And most importantly, when you care out of love, it will never change, no matter the surroundings, teachings, or any other circumstances. In fact, there will be a time when caring out of responsibility and caring out of love will oppose each other, as actions that should be taken would not match or might even be completely different.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Then, if you choose to care in a way that responsibility dictates, love will slowly leave, and responsibility will slowly take its place. You would still be caring and you would still be responsible, but you wouldn't be loving anymore. People might be saying that you are loving, and even you yourself might think that you are still loving, but it doesn't matter what people think – you either are loving or not.

There might be times when love requires actions that nobody around approves of; then it is up to you whether you abandon love to stay with others, or you stay loving even if no one around believes it. That is how the word "love" has been transferred many times, ripped away from things that are truly loving and placed on something that comes from responsibility or common beliefs. That's how love becomes unrecognisable to the masses.

That's why some believe that while one is loving, at the same time one can be angry or worried. You can be worried at the same time while you are caring, or while you are kind, and you can be angry at the same time while you are responsible. You can be even angry at the same time while you are kind, but only if this kindness comes on its own, not out of love. If you love, and the kindness you feel is an outcome of that love, then you will never be angry while being kind.

Because this kindness doesn't come as a separate feeling but is a part of love, an outcome of love. You cannot maintain it and be unloving, just as you cannot love and not have this kindness. But you can be kind without love. Then kindness is a quality on its own. An outstanding quality, but still nothing in comparison to that kindness, which is an attribute of love. Kindness on its own can be exhausted; kindness out of love cannot.

Kindness on its own is like a puddle of water that can be dried out, and for it to be maintained, you have to remind yourself or be reminded to be kind constantly; in other words, you have to purposely pour some extra water into that puddle for it to survive. Anger, hatred, and fear are like a hot sun, like an external heat source, that constantly keeps evaporating that puddle, and the more heat, the faster the water drains, and more effort is required to maintain this puddle so that it does not dry out.

Kindness that comes from love is like that pond you jumped into the other day. It is constantly refreshed with new water that comes from the waterfall, that comes from love. You don't have to maintain that pond, you don't have to keep pouring any extra water into it. The sun can shine on it as long as it wants, it will not evaporate it; if anything, it just brings you a pleasant contrast in temperatures that love brings and that heat brings.

And it is not only constant, but also a lot comes out of it, creating new waterfalls, creating never-ending kind actions that will never drain because your pond will never drain. The only way for this pond to drain is for the incoming waterfall to disappear. In other words, for love that feeds this kindness to disappear.

If that happens, then this pond becomes a pool that will suffer from external influences, which cannot be a source for anything else, because every time it does, it will get smaller, and your personal effort, or the effort of some external force, will be required for it to fill up again. If not maintained, it will become a puddle or even dry out. That's why I strongly believe that love does not share its place with anything else, whether it be good or bad.

But it brings with itself much more than anyone could ever have without it: many attributes, many outcomes that we value, just bigger and stronger than we had before, we don't even realise that what we had have left us and a new better version entered, but it is not a new or better version, as it is just an outcome of love. Love doesn't come without bringing these additional gifts with itself.

First and foremost, it will bring happiness to you, then a large bouquet of other gifts like kindness, caring, understanding, fulfilment, confidence, firmness, bravery, creativity, and many others. It will never bring any anger, nor guilt, no shame, no hatred or resentment, no feeling of superiority, it will not bring a desire to lecture, to change others, to teach others, but it will bring a desire to share, a desire that others would learn, would know what you already know too. It will never bring fear either.

That is one of the strongest false beliefs in humanity: that if you love, you fear for those you love, you worry for them. Worry is a shadow of fear, fear is the enemy of love, and only one of them can stay. It is the same as light and darkness – there is no light in darkness nor darkness in light, it is either one or another. Truth is the ally of love.

You can love nothing that is not true, as it would mean that you love an illusion, and as soon as the illusion disappears, this kind of "love" will vanish instantly. Love is very present; love is not about the past and not about the future, so it is not about what happened before, but also not about what will happen. And fear is only about what will happen. The past can have a huge influence, especially when misunderstood and misinterpreted; it might cast a shadow on love and might give strength to fear.

That's why I love history, true history, not what people thought or interpreted. Sharing a true history helps to take these shadows of the past away. Anyway, about anger, every time someone was angry with you in the past, they did not love you at that time. Maybe they loved before and after, I am not a judge to say they didn't, but definitely not while screaming at you in anger or punishing you or wanting you to change or forcing you to learn something.

They did it for many other reasons, but love was absent in that moment. Therefore, there was confusion about my and Marcus's relationship. That is another sad page in people's understanding. For some, or rather many, reasons, people believe that they can be more familiar, more rude, more demanding, and many other unloving things to those who are closest to them. There is a strong belief that those who are close should be more tolerant of abusive behaviour than those who are not.

Which is far away from the truth, but by believing it and acting as if it were true, people bring it into their lives and set it as a rule. Abuse of any sort is definitely not an attribute or outcome of love. Love flees away at the very first thought of abuse, and, on the contrary, while love is present and strong, no thought of abuse will ever enter a person's mind. When you look from that angle, it is easy to see how little love is present in family relations.

And for some reason, these relations are believed to be the most loving. Proper confusion for anyone who wants to understand what true love is. Hope I didn't bore you to death with my talk – it's not that often to find an audience who really wants to listen and understand what is said. It is difficult to stop sharing when there is a willingness to accept what was shared. One day you will understand. Here we have reached the place I wanted to show you.