March8
…this is what my life feels like, right now. however, I don’t think I want that to change.
life is like riding a big glassy-fronted wave. one stupid mistake and it things get nasty, or awesome.
what is the human body made of? water. the physical makeup of all our bodily fluids and ocean is very similar. and, its glorious they find each other.
life is like riding the [a] wave. something is always changing. adapting to these changes is the challenge, just as the surfer must adjust quickly and accurately if a successful ride is to be realized.
Eckharte Tolle wrote that “if the primary focus of of your life is the now, then you will be free from pain and suffering.” thusly, when you’re on a wave, time ceases to exist, and you’re in a such an intense combined state of euphoria, peace, presence and excitement that it’s something you have to return over and over again. once you realize that, to live any other way would seem completely insane. - Srinivas Rao, The Skool of Life
that makes surfing, and life’s potential rather like feeling close to God. just like being in the arms of a woman you truly and genuinely love.
so… you can’t change the way it breaks, but you can change the way you ride it.
…seriously.
“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.” - Frank Herbert, Science Fiction writer (1920-1986)
we encounter waves in every minute of every day. there are light waves which make things visible and sound waves so we can hear. even solid physical matter is a wave that is vibrating at a certain frequency. if we observe the behavior of waves, we can see how energy changes from one state to another, and back again.
just like the ebb-and-flow of life. the analogies and potential for metaphor are boundless.
I love to watch the ocean waves. my Mom was a child of the sea. she was drawn to it. her best childhood memories speak to it. she took me there at any and every opportunity. when I told her I might love surfing as much as running (this was big), she just nodded. she got it. of course, she was born under the sign of Cancer, the sign of the crab, so she liked coastal areas like Merced, California, and sunny beaches. she would spend an entire day contentedly watching the waves, preferably with me atop one.
the act centers me. sometimes waves are big and strong and sometimes they are gentle and calm. a wave can throw us back to the shore or if we are not careful can suck us in. water that were waves have nearly taken me a number of time. here is an example: no body is home – by brian patrick cork
life is whacky. and, God has a wild sense of humor.
whatever wave you are on, one thing you can be sure of is that they will always come, crash and then smooth itself out. if we learn to read the pattern of the waves in our lives through our interaction with them we can understand the energy of a wave, how to use it to our best advantage, how to dwell amidst its awesome power, and how to avoid crashing into, or being overcome, one.
big waves are actually quite rare. just like HUGE, epic events are much too rare in other peoples’ lives. I crave adventure, the wild twist of fate, less the cruel mirth of a capricious God.
for perspective…
eighty percent (80%) of all ocean waves are less than twelve feet high, and forty-five percent (45%) are smaller than four feet. the largest waves, those measuring over thirty-five feet, require anywhere from six to nine hundred miles of unobstructed ocean, or “fetch,” to reach full size. by the time such an anomaly encounters a reef break or shore incline, it has become a powerful rolling mass of wind-born energy moving through the water at speeds of thirty to fifty knots per hour and capable of exerting forces of more than three tons (that’s six thousand pounds of pressure per square foot) as it finally curls up-and-over itself and breaks. in life that may read like a tragedy… or adventure. some might ride that wild wave, whereas others might cower from it. however, in an attempt to elucidate (look it up) just why the experience of riding a wave is so unique, author Daniel Duane writes in Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast:
“The climber never quite penetrates the mountain, the hiker remains trapped in the visual prison, but the surfer physically penetrates the heart of the ocean’s energy – and this is in no sense sentimentality – stands wet in its substance, pushed by its drive inside the kinetic vortex. Even riding a river, one rides a medium itself moved by gravity, likewise with a sailboard or on skis. Until someone figures out how to ride sound or light, surfing will remain the only way to ride energy.”
then, there is also…
emma jo rock climbing
for those driven to put themselves in the center of the “kinetic vortex” of big waves, the risk is incredible.
perhaps this is why being an adventurer, entrepreneur, provocateur is in my DNA. I’m “salty”.
being caught in the falling lip of a wave can send surfers underwater so deep and so fast that the pressure change breaks their eardrums and the capillaries in their lungs. there is the risk of losing everything in a heart beat. and, that is perfectly acceptable. dismemberment, fractures, or broken bones from contact with the ocean floor or from the seething force of whitewater are so common that Laird Hamilton – Big Wave Rider stopped counting his stitches after a thousand. both of his feet are disfigured from broken arches, but he claims that they may now be “stronger than before.”
how many times in LIFE have people around you said something like, “if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger”.
Derrik Doerner, another pioneer of tow-in surfing, and the man who launched Hamilton into the infamous wave at Teahupoo with a jet ski, was once hit in the face by a surfboard underwater. just before he went unconscious, he felt his cheek. “My hand went in, like, two inches,” he says. “The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a helicopter. I had a broken jaw, broken cheekbone. I needed 123 stitches in all.”
…ride your waves of life.
“I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in Heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot, As if a chart were given.” - Emily Dickerson, American Poet (1830-1886)
“Believe in love. Believe in magic. Believe in Santa Claus. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. If you don’t, who will? – Jon Bon Jovi
‘Tuesdays with Morrie’
okay… read this story to your daughters…
the story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. he’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. “my God, this is terrible,” the wave says. “look what’s going to happen to me!”
then along comes another wave. it sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, “why do you look so sad?”
the first wave says, “you don’t understand! we’re all going to crash! all of us waves are going to be nothing! isn’t it terrible?”
The second wave says, “No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.” - Tuesdays with Morrie, American Educator (1916-1995)
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.” - Henry David Thoreau – American Poet and Philosopher 1817-1862
“live your life darling. all of it. question everything. accept nothing.” – Barbara Anne Cork, Wife to one, Mother to all
the Chinese have a twist on the word, “interesting”. it’s a form of curse. but, it’s worth exploring.
there is a Muslim maxim that goes something like, “the promise is in the punishment, and the punishment is in the promise.”
I hope you all get hit hard by great waves. just don’t hold your breath too long.
peace be to my Brothers and Sisters.
brian patrick cork
recently someone appears to have decided to try for a prank and impersonate Charles “Bernie” Ecclestone. you know… the Formula One guy. there is more to him, of course. but, that is my immediate reference.
by the way… I like fast and expensive cars as well. but, mostly because they are typically well engineered, and they can get you places in a unique way that is often more metaphorical than literal. and, that will probably be lost on the person that tried their silly game. and, as most of you are fully aware, I am Racer X. it’s true… I am NOT Rick Astley, I am Racer X!
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