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| Metal Beard from The Lego Movie, voiced by Nick Offerman |
There are a few different things that inspired this post, starting with the fact that the title is one of my favourite questions, I think about it regularly, and I had a few conversations with people I met about this recently, and with my mom while she was visiting. She reminded me I wanted to be a bus driver or a helicopter pilot when I was a kid, which I remembered about.
Growing up is a funny notion. I remember as a child thinking about it as a definite state, somewhere I and everyone else gets to be, basically grown ups. Now I’m a old enough that my younger self would consider me a grown up, I realised growing up doesn’t stop. It’s not definitive. Actually I think the only definite next stage is death, and given I don’t believe in any kind of after life right now is really the only time I have to play with.
I also enjoy the question particularly because it’s formulated like a question for children, and for me at least, it sends me back thinking of that time, what I wanted to do without any of the considerations or information that can limit thinking, it allows me to make up new plans or revisit ideas and dreams I had in the past.
I finally caught up with the LEGO Movie last week and really enjoyed it. I used to play a lot of LEGO when I was a kid and really I loved the way they weaved the way people play with the toys directly in the plot. Without spoiling the movie, think of the way you can build by following the instructions, and then create and build models from scratch. There are a some fantastic characters as well, I loved Metal Beard pictured above because of the way he’s built up creatively using all sorts of seemingly random parts to make a whole that looks pretty awesome.
The question came back to me as it does, and as I was reminded of playing LEGO as a kid, though the characters in the movie and the journey they go on also made me ponder a slightly different version I don’t think about as often: ‘Who do I want to be when I grow up?’
Thinking in the area of being rather than doing can provide a new perspective, I recommend trying it out. It’s not rocket science, it just takes a bit of time and writing down the thoughts on paper or screen to get them out of your head. Neither questions are fixed, the answers evolve over time with new experiences, and there are no right answers either.
Being a traveller and a wanderer is something I’ve been cultivating these past few years, for example. I’m spending some time thinking of all this these days and jotting some notes down.
I don’t have any more answers for now, though I did come across this ad for Kona Brewing, I enjoyed the idea, particularly the last line:
