Richard Hogan: Love is a powerful thing - don't be afraid to express it

Richard Hogan. Photograph Moya Nolan

Love is a powerful thing, it can change the world

There is no such thing as the cold. It is simply the natural state of things, in the absence of heat.

So, what is love? Is it the absence of hate?

We didn’t have to love. But we do. We could have existed as a species without feeling love for each other, but what fun would that have been?

Never making a mixtape for someone, never sitting by a window watching the rain after having your heart broken, listening to Bob Dylan.

Never working up the courage to ask the girl/boy you have fancied for months out on a date!

Never holding your child in your arms.

Boring indeed.

A question that has troubled philosophers and great thinkers for thousands of years is, what are we doing here?

I mean when you think about it, it’s enough to send you into some sort of existential spiral. We occupy a tiny scrap of area, in an incomprehensibly gigantic and ever-expanding universe.

We are, when you look at the scale of things, definitely physically insignificant.

We are simply on one planet around one star amongst 400bn in one galaxy amongst 2tn galaxies. Hard to even imagine that scale.

So, we’re small. We are a random collection of atoms, some of which are as old as time itself, others made in stars long ago, but for some reason have come together in a pattern that allows us to think and feel.

We are thinking and feeling stardust. Romantic stardust! And, as far as we are aware in our meagre understanding of it all, the only consciousness to put meaning on this universe.

That is no small feat. For billions of years, the universe expanded, with no meaning. Until we arrived.

So, our greatest achievement is putting meaning on this incredibly unlikely experience of life. The chances of you being born is 400 quadrillion to the power of 150,000. 

In betting terms, it is almost zero that you would be alive to make that mixtape or go on that date! But here we are.

Our greatest achievement of all? Being born, though remarkable, isn’t as great as the capacity we have to love each other.

That for me, is the wonder of our species. The miracle of our existence. It is easy in today’s world, with images of children dying in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, to conclude we live in a cruel, loveless world.

For many, they live in places where darkness thrives. But like the cold surrounded by heat, as the song goes, love is all around us.

Studying any Shakespearian tragedy brings you close to a world without love, where evil prospers and good people are eradicated.

However, goodness and love are not easily conquered.

In King Lear, even though Shakespeare is exploring suffering and darkness, love ultimately triumphs.

I fundamentally believe, there are far more good people in this world than there are bad. I work with families every day of my life and see them, at times struggle to communicate the love they feel for each other.

It is there, but mutated by whatever conflict is troubling them.

Sometimes all it takes is for someone in the room to say, “I love you” and all that conflict evaporates.

My grandmother lived with us for over 20 years. She was born in America, in 1912.

It was a different time, not one where people expressed their feelings.

She was never one to say, “I love you” but it was there every day.

In her brown bread, her lighting the fire, calling me in the morning for school, knocking into her room late after night clubs and sharing chips and chatting about life, I felt her love, though rarely heard her say the words. Love is often unspoken.

But its power is felt. I think of her now, like the light of a star that has long since died, her love shines on in me. It sustains me, in those cold moments when life kicks you.

Next Wednesday, February 14, is Valentine’s Day. The cynic in us may say it’s just a Hallmark holiday, another way to make money.

The reality is, what a cold and inhospitable place this world would be without love, without expressing it.

It is only a four-letter word, but my God when you feel it, it changes everything.

This Valentine’s Day, why not tell the people that mean something to you, that you love them?

Our time here is short, and we never know when it will end. But when we are less guarded and more open to expressing the love we feel for each other, what a better world we create.

Have a great day, let the lover in you run wild on romantic limbs.