The question that has been debated by the brightest surf minds for hundreds of years.
Ever since man began to get his think on, conundrums and paradoxes have presented. Unanswerable questions that hurt the brain and cause smoke to come out of the ears. If you replace each plank of a wooden ship one by one, is it still the same ship, for example. Or if a lightning bolt strikes a swamp and accidentally creates an exact atomic duplicate of you while vaporizing the original, is the “Swampman” you?
Well, former One Direction songbird Harry Styles just dusted off surfing’s most head-scratching enigma in a sit-down interview with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke for Rolling Stone Magazine.
Though the context is unclear (due paywall), Styles declares:
Someone once described it to me as like surfing, where you can practice getting up on the board. Sometimes there’s no waves. If a wave comes but you haven’t practiced enough, you’re not going to be able to surf it. When they happen, it’s a combination that you’ve practiced being able to capture it, and something is happening at the right time.
And there it is.
Now, every surfer knows that there is no way to “practice getting up on the board” on land. Those pop-up drills adult learners participate in are purely for the mocking entertainment of the surf instructor making them do so. No, surfing can only be practiced in the water, with waves and a board, and herein lies the great mystery.
When we are out in the water, with waves and a board are we surfing or are we practicing surfing?
The question has been debated by the brightest surf minds for hundreds of years, though we are no closer to any sort of accepted answer.
A real pickle.
Thom Yorke, in any case, replied, “Yeah, you’re ready enough. Or if I’m surfing, you’re not ready ever” for the record.
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When we are in the comments, with phones and/or devices are we shit talking or are we practicing talking shit?
I just wanna know how Sasha Janes going, haven’t heard anything about her for months on here
After giving your question much thought, I think some are talking genuine top quality pro-class shit the whole time due to skill, determination and application through much prior practice, and a few lucky breaks.
Some are still in the lesser grades, but practicing hard and with much determination, to increase their skill and hope to advance their ranking and make it through to the higher grades someday.
Then there are others amongst us who are just naturals, those who can’t help but spiel the type of shit looked up to far and wide by all in the shit-talk world as being in a class of almost godly untouchable, unattainable shit.
That rarest type who don’t see their shit as special and could walk away at any stage but still come back at will, and still have their shit praised for it’s pure majesty.
The ones who really are ‘the shit’…