This is a fanciful envisioning of how a scientist during the 1960s might have sketched up a concept design for a futuristic intergalactic communication device.

The scientist’s goal? Beaming messages from Earthlings to any distant neighbours who might be dwelling amongst the pretty stars floating out there in the great blackness overhead.

What would those messages be? Well, in this Utopian vision of mine, they would be messages of love, of course! The warm, delicious, uplifting and revitalising kind of love we humans are so lucky to experience pumping out from our chests when we are close a newborn baby, a puppy dog, the apple of one’s eye, a loved one after a long and longing absence.

Familial love. Compassionate love. Romantic love. Altruistic love.

Aren’t we just so damn LUCKY to get to experience it? The challenge as one gets older, of course, is to keep the doors open, to keep your love-light beaming brightly, even though painful experiences might try to snuff it out.