Session 7156: Are You Looking For The End? Not!

My wife and I do not get to eat dinner together often these days because she is out to school two nights a week, and with her new novel just came out, she is busy giving talk to writers groups and signing books etc.

So I often eat alone, and when I do that I really don't feel like cooking just for myself, so I go out, and when I do, I'd be at the "bar seating." I have lately though finding this an interesting way to spend time alone to just listen into what various people talk.

Tonight, I was sitting next to two young women who were engaged in talking about their future men. I am going to bore you with the details, but the gist of the conversation was to finding the right men, at right suburb with a nice house and a golden retriever. I am going to be blunt and honest with you. But to me, that's basically is talking about the end; it might as well be the same thing as picking hospital, funeral home and the plot you are going to go. The conversation did not extend much beyond the golden retriever bit. The whole summary of the story was to basically find the end, and they'd want that end to last forever. And that's as I know it is the death. I know that basically that's what most people want, just wanting to arrive a comfortable, constant place.

And that brings to the sport of surfing, which is almost completely opposite. In this sport, there actually is not the ultimate comfortable place. We might attain that temporarily but then when we achieve that level, we'd want to get out of that and go for more, say bigger waves, other places, other buddies... whatever... Things are in a constant change, and we beg for these changes. It certainly is not a very comfortable stuff. A mere 5-second hold down can make us really appreciate that we can breath the air, and a wipe-out from a big break can really invigorate us that we actually are alive. Catching an overhead break (or even smaller), and riding it if you luckily caught it requires us to be fully awake, paying attention for the every moment. And when it is going to end? The only thing I know is that some day I will catch the last wave, but then I don't know exactly when that will be. I just keep on paddling for it as long as possible.

And I think that makes the surfers realize some important stuff in life. We should all appreciate what we have accepted as our life challenge!