Come ponder.
Dear brothers and sisters, what if I were to
tell you that surfboard shapers are evil creatures seeking to keep
the whole of humanity locked into embarrassing mediocrity so that
they can go to surfboard shaper conferences or hang out in
surfboard shaper bars and mock and laugh and laugh more until tears
come into their eyes and wash the foam dust off their cheeks about
our poor skill? Our hunchbacked rail bogging, slow top turns,
non-existent bottom turns and very bad lines?
Oh, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not
brilliant, but you know one can take everything as a joke. I am,
perhaps, jesting against the grain. But in truth, I am tormented by
questions; answer them for me. Surfboard know-it-alls, those who
know all about liters, rocker, concave, etc. want to cure surfers
of their old habits, ordering boards that are inappropriate for
their body shape or skill level, and reform their will in
accordance with science and good sense.
They see a fellow surfer in the lineup straddling a high
performance JS Monsta squash tail and paddle over, clucking the
tongue, saying, “You, sir, are not a professional and should be on
something with much more volume.” Or go on Instagram and comment,
“Too little volume, too much rocker” underneath posts of a fellow
surfer taking off too late and making an ugly turn.
But how does the surfboard know-it-all know, not only that it is
possible, but also that it is desirable to reform a surfer in that
way? And what leads him to the conclusion that surfers’
inclinations need reforming? In short, how does anyone know that
such a reformation will be a benefit to surfer? And to go to the
root of the matter, why is the surfboard know-it-all so positively
convinced that not to act against his real normal interests
guaranteed by the conclusions of reason and arithmetic is certainly
always advantageous for man and must always be a law for
mankind?
So far, this is only supposition. It may be the law of logic,
but not the law of humanity. You think, brothers and sisters,
perhaps that I am mad? Allow me to defend myself. I agree that
surfers are pre-eminently creative animals, predestined to strive
consciously for an object and to engage in engineering — that is,
incessantly and eternally buying new surfboard models with tweaks
and adjustments, following new roads wherever they may lead. But
the reason why a surfer wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may
just be that he is predestined to make the road, and perhaps, too,
that however stupid the “direct” practical man may be, the thought
sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always does lead
somewhere, and that the destination it leads to is less important
than the process of making it, and that the chief thing is to save
the well-conducted child from despising engineering, and so giving
way to the fatal idleness, which, as we all know, is the mother of
all the vices.
Surfers like to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond
dispute. But why do we have such a passionate love for destruction
and chaos also? For sucking so badly and publicly? Tell me
that!
But on that point I want to say a couple of words myself. May it
not be that surfers loves chaos and destruction and sucking so
badly and publicly (there can be no disputing that we do sometimes
love it) because we are instinctively afraid of attaining what we
seek and becoming good and powerful surfers?
Who knows, perhaps we only love that idea, becoming actually
good, from a distance, and are by no means in love with it at close
quarters; perhaps we only love pretending to become better surfers
it and once a surfboard we are riding makes us surf too good we
abandon and order a board from Greg Webber that looks like a
banana, tossing our other board into the yard for the use of les
animaux domestiques — such as the ants, the sheep, and so on.
Now the ants have quite a different taste. They have a marvelous
edifice of that pattern which endures forever — the ant-heap. With
the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the
ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to
their perseverance and good sense.
But surfers are frivolous and incongruous creatures, and
perhaps, like chess players, love the process of the getting
better, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with
certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is
striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other
words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which
must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two
makes four, and such positiveness is not life, brothers and
sisters, but is the beginning of death.
Anyway, surfers should always be afraid of this mathematical
certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that the surfer,
especially the surfboard know-it-all, does nothing but seek that
mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in
the quest, that magic board, but to succeed, really to find it,
dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will
be nothing for him to look for exactly like Kelly Slater feels,
filling his time with empty social media battles and faith
healers.
When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive
their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the
police-station — and there is occupation for a week. But where can
surfers go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about the
surfer that has attained such objects (see Kelly Slater again).
Surfers loves the process of attaining, but do not quite like to
have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd.
In fact, surfers are comical creatures; there seems to be a kind
of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all,
something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a
piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who
stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit
that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to
give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very
charming thing too. And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly,
convinced that only the normal and the positive — in other words,
only what is conducive to welfare — is for the advantage of
surfers? Is not reason in error as regards advantage?
Do not surfers, perhaps, love something besides surfing well?
Perhaps we are just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just
as great a benefit to us as surfing well? Mankind is sometimes
extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is
a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove
that; only ask yourself, if you are a man, or woman- a surfer- and
have lived at all.
As far as my personal opinion is concerned, to care only for
surfing well seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or
bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things and surf
like a complete Cro-Magnon. I hold no brief for suffering nor for
surfing well either. I am standing for … my caprice, and for its
being guaranteed to me when necessary. For paddling out on a very
throaty day, barreling and whatnot, on a surfboard not built for
barrels. Likewise, paddling out on a very small day on something
that demands perfection to perform.
Suffering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I
know that. In a “perfect world” it is unthinkable; suffering means
doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a “perfect world” if
there could be any doubt about it? And yet I think man will never
renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos.
Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I do
believe that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet
I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction.
Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two
makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing
left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to
bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation. While if
you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is
attained, you can at least flog yourself at times, and that will,
at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal
punishment is better than nothing.
All to say, there is no perfect surfboard for any surfer and
anything a reputable shaper produces, whether a custom order or one
that is pulled from the rack, is fine enough. Surfboard shapers
should not be blamed for our misfortune, our poor skill. We crave
it and need it and will never become Kelly Slater because Kelly
Slater is miserable. Also, the surfboard know-it-all should shut
his mouth.