The Trip of a Lifetime
I watched the funeral of Phillip Mountbatten, long-time companion to Elizabeth Windsor, more out of curiosity than any allegiance to the Crown. As an unashamed socialist and devoted republican I can never begin to understand the anachronism that is monarchy. Like many, I sense, my sadness was for a lone widow, cocooned in black and sitting in solitude with her memories, mourning the person to whom she had been a devoted wife for 73 years. An extraordinary scene, yet in another sense so commonplace and unremarkable.
Once I was young, full of boyish vitality with a lust for life. I recall my childhood like it was yesterday. I had lofty ideals back then. Born into a poor working-class family I hoped for a future unconstrained by social class or wealth. Then life intruded with all the inelegance of an outsider, taking me in directions I never imagined, least of all planned. It was a roller-coaster - at times hopelessly fascinating, while at others comically forlorn. But this was it, I reasoned.
Growing up was a balancing act between obeying instructions and insisting upon finding my own unique path. Medicine proved to be an intensely cathartic cul-de-sac. During my initial year as a foundation scholar at the Royal College of Music I gave recitals all over the UK and Europe. Then, in the space of a few months, I was sacked from the College for complaining about teaching standards, worked with Peter Maxwell Davies as his amanuensis, was briefly, though falsely, accused of being a pedophile, fell rashly in love, started an arts festival in Sevenoaks, quickly fell out of love, signed a publishing contract with Edition Modern, and studied with Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger on a French Government Scholarship - the first of many such awards.
All in all the rise, fall, and rise again of almost any passionate 23-year old you are probably thinking. Well, not quite!
I always teased my mother that I could never decide what I wanted to do, or who I wanted to be, when I grew up. Apart from being myself of course, which turned out to be an even greater mystery. As it happens my jest was self-fulfilling. At times I have been a taxi driver, kitchen hand, farm laborer, milkman, waiter, dishwasher, sound engineer, paper-boy, served in a grocery store, cared for dogs in an animal welfare sanctuary, and sold encyclopedias door to door. Later on I taught in schools, colleges and universities. For one brief interlude I was out of work, which did absolutely nothing for my self-esteem.
More recently I have acquired considerable wealth twice, seen it vanish in an instant both times, lost my superannuation in the 2008 financial crisis, and been defrauded out of my life savings by my accountant. Today I live on the edge of penury. Yet in spite of that I am rich beyond my wildest dreams.
Over the years I earned a living as a concert organist, composer and conductor, and then lecturing, before turning my hand to management where I rescued one business from bankruptcy, led a national Film School out of financial strife, and twice started international strategy firms.
Along the way I mentored extraordinary individuals, gave advice to Heads of State, and the CEOs of multinational corporations, predicted world events more precisely than most, and helped numerous entrepreneurs and senior executives succeed in their innovative endeavours.
I have written around 350 provocative essays, published seven books, addressed literally tens of thousands of people, started the Asian Foresight Institute and the Centre for the Future, and co-founded several social enterprises, including one of the world’s leading blockchain-enabled voting and decision-making platforms. I am also a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.
I have lived in England, Australia, Italy, China, France and Thailand, and worked on all five continents. Along the way I sired nine children, who graciously gifted me with 16 grand-children, none of whom know my story or would comprehend the depth of my fragility as an individual.
I have marched from London to Aldermaston in support of nuclear disarmament, trained choirs, raced cars, flown on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser from London to Accra and the Concorde from New York to London, participated in the 1968 student riots in Paris, slept on the Orient Express, driven over the Swiss alps in a Land Rover, passed through Checkpoint Charlie  on my way to East Berlin, become a member of the Communist Party of Britain as a 21st birthday present to myself, and facilitated a cabinet workshop for Margaret Thatcher. I have dined with the wealthy, slept on a park bench, been mugged by a drug-induced thug in Melbourne, experienced an earthquake in Tokyo, given organ recitals in Notre Dame Paris and Bath Abbey, and presented ideas for reimagining the future of capitalism in Westminster’s House of Lords. I have crouched in Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island, been strip-searched at Heathrow Airport, forced out of a hire car at gunpoint in Michigan state, and narrowly averted death by missing a flight destined for Paris that crashed into Staines Reservoir on take-off from Heathrow.
In my spare time I co-founded a socio-political movement, entertained kids with cancer every Saturday for a year as Ricky the Clown, listened to my music being performed with staggering virtuosity at international festivals, and created several unique dialogical models that are now used in organizations around the world.
And if you can find any thread of continuity in all of that - apart from the fact that I have never attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, or been invited to a tea party on the lawns of Buckingham Palace - then you're a far better man than I am Gunga Din!
These days life is inevitably slowing. Although my zest for living is not in any way diminished, I can now only work for around 70 hours a week. I cannot walk too far without my hips pleading for me to rest. I am short of breath when towelling down after a shower. Like others of my vintage, sundry aches and pains signal my future fate. My skin is becoming noticeably flaccid in places, I have cataracts in both eyes, and my face is a canvas of creases and blemishes. The unmistakable scent of an old man follows me wherever I go. Oh, and hair is growing out of my ears.
Anonymity, and invisibility too, now beckon. The future has always belonged to youth, but sometimes it is far too easy to laugh and to poke fun at the elderly. It is true that I dare not change a light bulb, dust cobwebs from the bookcase, or run to catch a bus. Not that I am lazy. It is simply that my medication makes it safer not to jump on a step ladder, or run more than ten metres, if it can be avoided.
It is a fact that I drive the car more slowly, and never after dark. But such caution is wise in a country that has the highest road toll in the world. It is also correct that I do not always hear what is said to me. Not because I am inattentive or unnaturally grumpy, but because the tinnitus in my ears resonates more loudly than ambient sounds.
It is true that I sometimes have difficulty looking even close friends in the eye. Not because I am conceited, or diffident, but because I am still uncomfortably shy like most other people with Aspergers. I did manage to develop coping mechanisms to deal with most of life's little foibles. But these days I am far less inclined to feign civility or to remain courteous when confronted by stupidity.
And it is correct that I daydream. Not because I am senile or blasé, but probably because I am imagining how to end the article I am currently writing, or working out what to say to a young entrepreneur who has sought my advice.
All I ask is for those around me to value me for the person I have become today, and to respect the man I once was, with some recognition of what I have been able to accomplish. Appreciation of a life well lived, good humour, and a little compassion, rather than instant jibes and criticism, never go astray.
Life is full of unforeseen twists, turns, and unrehearsed intersections. Some paths are forever undulating. Others, so enticing and of least resistance, lead nowhere. Opportunities clamouring for our attention, so often fade into unfulfilled dreams. Meanwhile, the venture we never saw coming, and believed unlikely, can expand into a life-long endeavour.
Eventually of course the dusk falls and night beckons. You may well feel like me at that point. Life is so incredibly short, a mere 600 million breaths on average, and our final days not laggardly in coming. When those days do eventually arrive, uninvited and unsettling, you too may wonder why those around you become so irritable without good reason, treat you as if you are silly or demented, and insist on talking to you as though you were still in diapers.
Be patient with them. They cannot know your story, just as you cannot know theirs. Life's rites of passage are eventually shared by us all but in so many different ways.
It matters little whether we are spies, farmers, thieves, physicians or grocers, and whether we lead a life of self-interest or, like the widow in St. George's Chapel, in service to others. Ultimately, our trip of a lifetime is unknown and unknowable to those with whom we have shared the journey. Like us, they are attempting to do the very best they can with the particular hand they were dealt.