yeah, surfing just doesn't feel the same it used to. i use the whole 'cool' thing as a bit of a simplistic troll. sure, it's crowded like never before. that, i think i can mostly handle. but maybe something deeper is happening to me.godsavethequeen wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:55 amI don’t understand. Don’t you surf for how it makes you feel? How can your ‘stoke’ levels be affected by whether surfing is cool or not?
it's a good hypothesis: i surf bcos how it makes me feel. So i did some thinking!
right now to me, surfing symbolises gentrification. constant reminders how we're fucking the place with pollution, development, over population and plastic.
i read about a bloke searching for enlightenment ... he practised buddhism, he meditated. he did yoga. he ate clean, he cleansed his soul with hours & hours of therapy. Ultimately he stated his biggest progress towards enlightenment was cutting out things in his life which brought negativity to him.
he reckoned the single biggest stride was tuning out the news. he stopped all of his new consumption. some might call it apathetic to bury your head in the sand ... but for him, not watching & reading how everything is fucked around him ... and simplifying his life with what's directly in his line of sight made him an immensely more happier person.
... surfing is kinda like that to me right now. it's a constant reminder of how the gentrified kooks have taken over. my fave wave on the coast, the last time i surfed there; there was not one car under 1-2 years old parked there. it was all black rangers, rovers, landcruisers, hiluxes, everests, fortunas etc
in the water it was a fucking mess. people surfing horribly - but continually paddling inside and bombing waves, shithouse manners everywhere, heaps of aggression & in general just bad vibes.
i had this moment in the water when i genuinely questioned what the fuck i was doing.
maybe when i move to tassie i'll take up surfing again, but for now ... it's not even on my radar. i get buzzed after skating. like properly stoked out. i'm happier after meditating and i'm ultra content after yoga. i love my long ocean swims and there's my salt water fix. it's all positive!
surfing to me right now - negative.