Tomorrow I'm going to … actually I can't be sure what I will do tomorrow - the future is unknown, it's un-seeable, like looking through opaque glass, but it has been well described as being much like the present - only longer and more expensive. Do you ever wonder about what's to come? Not so much to try to predict it, after all as Neil Bohr said "Prediction is difficult, especially of the future", no, rather just to see what you might do one day or indeed with the rest of your life. I know I do. Let me share some of my thoughts.
So, what do I want to do when I grow up?
When I grow up I want to stay up late, swim with dolphins, travel the world, fly in a glider and in a balloon, preferably over exotic scenery, and make love on a tropical beach with the sound of the waves in the background … at midnight on a Wednesday, with a young lady who … sorry, too much information. But while I'm on such a beach I would love to discover a message in a bottle, respond to it and save the life of a marooned sailor.
Is any of that so unreasonable? Well, hopefully not entirely so, at least some of it could happen, but that said, I am conscious that some of what I would like is frankly hugely unlikely. Never mind, even if some things are dreams, they are good dreams and, who knows, even the most unlikely things might happen. After all McDonalds is called a restaurant, some people think that Patrick Moore's tailor was a fashion icon and that Lady Ga Ga is a singer, however unlikely those things may be.
So, what else would I like when I grow up? I don't mean so much the everyday things like having good health a nice place to live, enough money to get by and a mortgage that will get paid off before I hit the age of ninety three. Nor do I mean one off miracles like winning the lottery; though doing that would be great, I am told you have to buy a ticket to stand a real chance. No, rather I mean things like meeting Einstein – yes, I know, too late – though Stephen Hawking would do if I had someone to translate or Brian Cox perhaps, someone who could discuss what's out there. Or things like seeing the Northern Lights, witnessing a meteor land (not too large, and not on me but near me), learning to play the piano, writing a hit song (okay, the last two are truly vanishingly unlikely as, much as I enjoy music, I'm tone deaf) and writing and having a novel published. Plus learning to juggle sufficiently well not to burn holes in the carpet if I do it with flaming torches. Perhaps when I am properly grown up I could learn to speak another language: maybe French, Spanish or Chinese (or whatever they speak on that tropical beach). Furthermore, if the timescale is right, one day I would like to get a thrill from seeing that mankind had landed on Mars; I won't put my actually going to Mars on the list, that would be silly, though a flight to experience zero gravity is more possible and that I would certainly like.
As I said when I'm gown up I would like to travel the world. I fancy Iceland, New Zealand and the Galapagos Islands too … and Paris and Hong Kong and Sydney … and … well, frankly the list of places I would like to visit is a long one and I could add small places too: like seeing the pyramids and the Taj Mahal, or visiting Stonehenge when no one else is there and understanding why it was built too if possible.
Of course, there are also things I would certainly like to avoid. However grown up I become I never, ever, ever want to walk over burning coals, abseil down a skyscraper, do a bungee jump or a skydive, the thought of falling through space knowing that any mistake made will squash me into oblivion is not something I fancy; with my luck the work-experience kid employed on a government training scheme to fold the chutes would be busy concentrating on his iPod and not on getting it right. Having rejected dangerous extremes like that though, it would be nice to think that I might ride on an elephant, go scuba diving, travel across Alaska in a dog sled or ride a Harley Davidson along the California coast road when I'm grown up.
Back to no-noes: I do not want to eat a curry, the very thought of it makes me feel sick, though let's put a visit to India on the list please. Plus I never want to take drugs, get a tattoo, shave my head, grow a moustache, have my ears (or any other part of my anatomy for that matter) pierced or swim with sharks, the latter is a no even with me safely inside a metal cage. Frankly there isn't a steel cage in the world I would regard as giving adequate protection. So, a big no thank you to them all, I can't imagine a later stage of life when my view on these things will change one single jot.
And finally I think that when I'm grown up I would take great satisfaction from growing old disgracefully. Yes, really disgracefully. But, wait a minute, something's wrong. Here I am telling you what I want to be and do when I grow up … yet at my obvious and admittedly advanced age that should logically be a done deal. Surely that can't be right, but heck, why not, there may be a little time for some of these things. I will grow older, of course, alright older still, but do I really need to grow up? No. I. Don't. Seems to me we should all be well advised to put off doing so as long as possible, no, better still, permanently.
As I will spend the rest of my life in the future, let's hope there is still some more in store for me there, though please make sure that beach is a deserted one and let me go first for something comparatively manageable: I have written a couple of pages here, multiply that by a hundred and I'll have a book. If it's published maybe I can celebrate by doing something that demonstrates convincingly that I'm definitely not grown up yet. All suitable suggestions welcome.