Love is possibly the most vacuous word I know. So much done ‘for’ and ‘in the name of’ love, that it makes you wonder – is there such an emotion? I am not here to provide a philosophical treatise – the scholars on love do not understand how the word has been candified, Hollywoodised and made artificial (right down to its glowing pink balloons). And how much has love been moralised by these ‘great’ thinkers? It has been chastised, sterilised, packed and procured; sold to us in nice pretty packages screaming “Buy me! Seek me! Fuck me!”

Without it, we’re told, you’re better off dead. You need this version, and this version only. A sexual act, not meaningful – not loving. We have forgotten how to love. To stay up at night because a friend is going through a rough time, to give a friend money because the system sucks, to prioritise friendship over a career… Friendship is dying, while all real love comes from it.

Friendship with all that is around us – earth, water, sky, fire. Suddenly to realise that life comes from death, that destruction is the same as construction. To realise the simple underlying truth of it all. That is love. Love for pain, love for ecstasy, love for anger, love for passion. Love seeps into it all – it is part of it all. Love is Being.

We have tamed that love. We have converted it into “relationships” as if it were possible to control such a passion. We have placed order onto our feelings, as if they could listen to ration. Emotions frame everything – even our capability to rationalise. We are clearest in love, we are happiest in love, we are ourselves in love.

And can we fall out of that love? We can fall out of lust, but love is entirely different. Real love is a bond that cannot be broken, no matter the distance. The bond is more than just idle chatter or sex, it is a friendship of minds, of bodies, of thoughts – you are connected by your capability to Be with one another. Make love or not, that connection is so profound it debases how you think, how you feel, and how you engage with everything.

That is love. We fear it, we avoid it, and more than anything, we desire it. Love is ours for the taking, as long as we try not to own it. Love, and peace flows from it.