From the author: “You only become Real,” the wise old Leather Horse inspired the Velveteen Rabbit, “if someone loves you for a long, long time.” Not just playing with you, but REALLY loving. Look for Love without exchanging for anything else. Lately I have been thinking a lot about what Love is. I am of the opinion that we cannot know for sure about what is not in our experience. Even if we thoroughly study the issue by reading the literature, trying to learn about it from people’s stories, etc. As an example, no matter how much you read about what an apple tastes like, you won’t be able to know about it until you try it. That is, you won’t get your direct experience of what an apple tastes like. It’s the same with love. What love is can only be understood by feeling it, even if just once. But I want to tell you about a trap that can make it even more difficult to understand this or that issue. Speech, words, are a great gift given to a person, it is an opportunity to explain and come to an agreement. But speech is also something that can confuse, bring suffering, and make interaction impossible. People have invented words as shortcuts to describe everything that exists, but how different is the meaning that we can put into words. A classic example from literature: I'm telling you the table. Imagine a table. And each of you will present your own specific table, not similar to the other’s table. For some it will be a school desk covered with pictures and inscriptions, for others it will be a glass table on metal legs that stands in his kitchen, and for others it will be a round, solid mahogany dining table that he saw once. then in the furniture catalogue. Everyone has their own table. And then what can we say about such concepts that can neither be seen nor touched. About things like friendship, patriotism, sympathy, love... So about the trap. When we were little, and were just learning about the world, we took everything that adults told us at face value. That's how we learned. This is how they formed their picture of the world. I often remember with pain one short story that an acquaintance told me. His dad often beat him. He was beaten for various offenses. He hit me painfully, hit me with objects. And when this friend, when he was still a little boy, asked his dad with pain: dad, why, why are you beating me, why? Dad said, “I don’t beat you, I’m just raising you to be better.” I’m just raising you. I'm just good and you're bad! I know what’s right, and I’m raising you! I'm raising you, Karl! Buckle across the face. I’m not expressing my aggression towards you, which seems to be over the edge, but I’M JUST EDUCING! But this grown-up guy still believes that he was simply raised. And just to this day, he almost doesn’t allow himself to be touched, even with a massage. And this substitution of concepts is a trap. It’s a trap when everything is mixed up in our heads, we are hidden from ourselves, and it is not possible to understand what we feel, what we want. “I love you,” the cold mother says tiredly, incapable of expressing any feelings, confusedly and mechanically stroking her baby's head. What does this baby, who has already grown up, know about love? “I want to play some more”! - says the enthusiastic little girl to her mother. “No, you DON'T WANT to play anymore! You WANT to sleep,” says the mother, who is used to following a routine. What does this girl, who has grown into a woman, know about her desires, how does she learn to recognize them and believe them? “Stop crying right now, I’m so tired of you with your tears!” Take it and be happy about something,” says the irritated mother. How will this grown girl express her feelings? There are a lot of such examples of messages, and you can probably create your own list of personal messages from your childhood. But these messages continue to influence us to this day, continue to guide our actions, thoughts, our lives. So about love. How can a person who, in fact, has never been loved know what it is? Or to the one».