Infuriating. Frustrating. Eye roll inducing.
“You should have been here this morning.” Words accompanied by a look of pity that slowly creeps into a self-satisfied smirk.
It’s not just commiseration from a surfer who scored and one who missed out. It’s an attack. A dirty underhanded sleight of tongue that implies “if you were as dedicated as me you would really be having fun right now…”
Everyone has raged at missing good surf. Some of us even lose sleep when an early season hurricane swell hits Rhode Island and peaks during the middle of the night. Think about all the waves that have gone unridden due to a lack of light to see by. God above think about the crowds!
It’s flawed thinking and nothing more than comparison, that timeless thief of joy. It’s also an excellent example of what the Buddha was warning about when he said “the root of suffering is attachment.”
Attachment to things, stuff, people, and ideas is bringing us all down! That “lunar rock grey” 2024 Tacoma isn’t really a need is it? Especially when the ’03 Ranger gets the the job done just fine (with infinitely more sex appeal to boot). How many custom hand shaped boards does one really need? Why was there such an emotional connection to this $200 jacket that hardly ever gets worn? The list goes on and on and on and on and on.
Attachment to things is the bedrock upon which the consumer culture of the United States is built. Buy buy buy. You need the new model because it’s so much different and better than the old one and all of your friends have it and they love it and they’ll laugh at you if you don’t have it. Probably not the case and they sound like shitty friends.
As malicious as it is, material attachment is not all the Buddha was referring to. He was also talking about attachment to our own thoughts.
Thoughts flit in and out of our brains as easy as sounds or scents. Unlike (most) sensory input, and without proper training, these seemingly random uncontrollable events can elicit a powerful emotional response. Thoughts → Attachment → Negative Emotions → Negative Actions. Thus the thought that the crusty local just put into your head of “you missed out and it was better this morning” easily triggers a negative emotional response and ruins your session, if you let it.
The only reality that matters is the present moment and if you are giving ANY energy while you’re out there to “what could have been” earlier this morning, that’s a disservice to yourself, the ocean, and a direct affront to the gifts that Mother Nature is giving you NOW. Of course it’s been better! But you weren’t there! You weren’t there on Big Monday at Pipeline in 1974 and you’re not there now. Unless you are in which case, enjoy.
Ventura native and surfing LEGEND Dane Reynolds recently put out an edit titled “Glad You Scored.” It’s an exceptional film highlighting the highs and lows of making a surf movie in an age where fully funded surf movies are dying. Dane has always been tapped into counterculture within the sport and he is usually not the guy on YouTube chasing swells for content but in this film, he is. It’s a globetrotting production, his team scores, and they love it.
Dane has to level with “being a guy who scores” and the viewer can sense there’s some uneasiness to this. His judgements of the Gen Z social media surfers has always been implied in the past but here is, putting himself in their shoes and loving it.
The lesson is, there is not a finite amount of happiness in the world and we all have our time in the sunshine. The title of Dane’s movie is a perfect example of all you can say when your buddy gets back from a surf trip or one of the locals tells you how good it was yesterday.
“Dude that’s awesome, I’m glad you scored.”