Kindness as currency has become somewhat of a norm. We exchange niceties for things we need and then leave people hanging with empty promises of seeing each other again soon as go-to gestures of goodbye, because “see you later” is always easier to say. We say we value kindness, but many of us mean it only when it is comfortable or convenient, when we can benefit from it. Maybe we only exhibit it when we’re visible, up high on our soap boxes where people can see us. Some of us even take it as an opportunity to see someone else in a certain beneficial light: I did this for you and now you owe me.

Worse even is when we seemingly treat people kindly, exercise patience and all, but reserve none of that kindness when it comes to a certain person. It is as if we are calculating how much we can give and deeming this one person unworthy of any decency. Treating them like they are exempt from our belief in love, kindness, and our supposed want to carry these things out isolates them, makes them the outlier. Being cruel to none except one is crueler than anyone thinks. It tells the person that all people, except you, are deserving of love.

This is something I like to refer to as “calculated cruelty.” It’s just enough for you and your friend-group, claiming kindness all you like, to poke fun at one person. Just one person, because any more and you feel uneasy, like suddenly you are not all the good you project yourself to be. Usually this person is some sort of scapegoat, has a trait you don’t agree with, and you magnify this to unfair proportions that you pick at like a scab. Whatever this person does suddenly becomes some sick inside joke, a phrase you repeat amongst yourself, a name that everyone rolls their eyes at. It is calculated, just enough.

And for all the good you and your friend-group are known for, there is suddenly a space of cruelty. There is a place you avert your eyes from, turn away, as if your active spite can be ignored. “It doesn’t count,” many will insist. There is the silent agreement that this person deserves it. No one bats a lash. After all, you all agreed. This person isn’t worth it. It’s just one person. It’s only this one guy. The next day you all wake up and greet the guards at the gate, punctuate your emails to professors with pleasantries, hold the door open for a freshman, and then laugh at that one guy.

You will reason it out: At least I’m not mean to everyone. I CLAYGO, I bring my drunk friend home, I’m the guy who replies to sad tweets. “I’m a good guy,” you will say. But statements on the self require self-reflexivity. Am I really? That’s the crucial question. Because cruelty is not chiefly about number. Nobody counts on their fingers how many people saints were kind to, just that they were. Cruelty is not about number as kindness is not about exchange. To give is enough. It should be.

There is no gauge to how kind we must be in a day, how many people we greet, the number of people who smile back at us when we smile at them. We do not fill up a quota like it’s finite, like we’re trying to save some for something special or for ourselves. No tallies or counts. It is freely given without agenda or expectation, free from malice or hope for exchange. We give because we can. Because it is an expression of love and, when things are done with love, there will always be enough.