An Ocean of Perspective

If you’re not connected, you’re disconnected.

The act of walking into the ocean and playing on the waves can take many forms. Some swim, some paddle, some sail, the lucky ones combine all three. The planet’s oceans appear in infinite forms to us humans, constantly changing through the forces of wind, tide, sun, and moon. The Ancient Hawaiians had it dialed; they knew it was the place to play, not just fish and work. Same with the Peruvians. But for modern humans, what does the ocean mean to us now?

I’ve been playing in the ocean since I was a little boy and riding surfboards since I was 12. I was lucky enough to be born in Australia, at a time when there weren’t that many people around, at a place where the ocean stunningly meets the land. A natural surfers paradise, so to speak. As a young boy in the 1970s, these men that surfed were sun-tanned gods to me. Like the Ancient Hawaiians, they were kings. In the ’80s, these surf punks let me enter their realm. The competition was fierce, aggression and hierarchy ruled, survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. In my twenties, I had become one of them, had earned my spot in the lineups along our amazing stretch of rock and sand. Then, the human condition kicked in, work, education, kids, responsibility beyond hitting that next swell, or the tide being just right, or the wind swinging offshore later meant I couldn’t just drop everything, run away, and play in the ocean.

In that time, the ocean has pressed, pulled, dragged, and scraped me into the shape I now form, both physically and mentally. It has been my teacher, my therapist, my trainer, my confidante, my assailant. So to, the other humans around me have been impacted by it, as they have in turn impacted me.

However, as surfers in this part of the world, even with the culture of playing in the ocean here being so strong, we are often looked on as “outcasts” or “rebels,” as “lazy surf bums” or “dole bludgers” and “hippies” in the mainstream media and beyond. These terms are a throwback to the counterculture era in Australia of the late 1960s and early 1970s, where people escaped the cities for a better life and often just to surf daily. They had long hair, lived on little, and prioritized “just living” over “just working.” These people, those who survived the police beatings and heroin, are now in their 70’s and 80’s and hopefully living their rewards for pioneering this unique lifestyle, sport, and art form that is “surfing.”

On the flip side, I live in a global surf city, a city built on surf tourism over the past 100 years, where speculators have made millions luring people with the promise of sun, sand, and surf, gambling on the rewards of a coast of gold. Often these speculators, these detractors, can’t even swim, let alone make time to play in the ocean themselves. The irony is oblivious to both speculator and purchaser of these promises.

These detractors of people who play in the ocean never quite get what a life in and around the ocean provides. Often, they see surfing as a waste of time, a pleasurable pursuit for weekends only, something to do with the kids on their annual holiday up or down the coast, or an “Instagramable” moment on the beach at Kuta or Waikiki to prove how hip their online self really is. These speculators love to use beach images, surfers and surfing to flog their product to the masses. Forget that surfing is a multi-national professional sport, which debuted at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Ignore the tentacles of the multibillion-dollar surf industry worldwide employing many. Professional surfers such as Steph Gilmore, Kelly Slater, and John John Florence are millionaire world champions in their own right, with a legion of followers on social media. These non-ocean-going folk only see dollars to be made from these images; they don’t understand the life or the sport, let alone the art.

What they are also missing is that we, surfers, are everywhere now. Surfers aren’t some freak sideshow scorned by mainstream society, living on the fringes. We are doctors, lawyers, teachers, truck drivers, academics. We are sitting in board rooms, call centres, parliaments, and ambulances. We are male and female, young and old. And we bring with us, to the mundane world of “work,” everything we have learned playing in the ocean.

So next time you’re at the Doctor’s and his nose suddenly leaks water all over his shirt while he’s examining you, cut him some slack; he might have gone for an early surf before work and still has saltwater trapped in his sinuses. Teachers — that kid with the red eyes that keeps falling asleep before lunch? Give him a break; he’s probably nearly drowned surfing that morning before school and is physically and mentally exhausted (almost drowning will do that to a person). That Courier Driver that just let you through in front of him? He’s probably still replaying that barrel he got this morning and was lost in his mind, so he shared the stoke with you and let you in.

Because that is what living a life playing in the ocean gives us surfers, perspective.

And while you may just see us as “surfie bums”, we see you as “disconnected humans” who are missing out on a whole lot of action, outside, in the real world, in the ocean.

I’ll see you out there.

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