Had to share this post with a wider audience… Hatchman is one of the RealSurf Forums’ more frequent contributors and I reckon this is gold…
Re: Bombora – History of Australian Surfing
Post by Hatchman » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:51 am
steve shearer wrote:Mostly surfers get to a certain age and quit, move inland, get fat or accept surfing as a part-time recreational activity to be done on the weekend, usually in crowds of other competitive individuals.
Hardly a spiritual pursuit
By that logic you’d say that unless you were going to church more than once a week you would hardly call it a spiritual pursuit?
No offence Steve but your “holier surfer than thou” rants are starting to get a bit tiresome. Like many I would love to be able to surf 4 or more times a week, live in a coastal shack looking over a barrelling point break and be able to take regular trips to Indo. Back in the real world (where most of us live) where we’ve got kids, mortgages and bills to pay 5 days (and sometimes more) a week (not to mention all the stuff for family and friends we need to do on the weekend i.e. we’ve got a lot of responsibilities) that 2 hour slot I and many other weekend warriors squeeze in at the sparrows fart on a Saturday or Sunday morning while most of the world is asleep is a damn fine spiritual experience and hardly one we consider a “recreational pursuit”.
Sitting in the lineup on a fine Victorian Sunday winter morning braving the wind chill as it howls in my ears turning the sea into a boiling choppy beast while rubbing my calf muscles to keep them from cramping into golf balls as the water temps drop into single digits does require a spiritual dedication bordering on fundamentalism I can assure you. Because no ‘normal’ person would do it after a week spent in a cube farm – coiled up in a ball on the couch with a coffee and a gut full of fried eggs and bacon watching the footy does sound like a lot more like it.
However rather strangely, like many of my fellow Vicco bretheren, I actually love it with a fervour bordering on fanaticism because I cherish every moment in the surf as a way of connecting, in spirit, back to the ocean as it is the place I love to be. I find it both deeply beautiful and profound sitting out at sea in a Victorian winter, coated head to toe in rubber, staring at the sky turning into various shades of darker grey watching the storm fronts roll in off Bass Strait as the rain pelts my face all the while saying gday to the occasional seal or dolphin that swims by before turning and taking the drop down a nice big fat wall.
Don’t tell me it is a recreational pursuit mate, I need my surfing to live and I’ll love it no matter how often I do it and in what ever conditions mother earth will grant to me. Because when you love it that much it goes much deeper into the core of your being and it becomes an essential part of you that can never be changed.
Absence or fasting makes the heart grow fonder and the devotion run deeper – maybe you need to consider this to understand the depth of spiritual feeling it can generate in people like me as well. 💡
