Session 8043-8044

WavLOG

Day 43,44 My Take on Why People Are Inconsiderate or Selfish

I actually had a very invigorating session this morning with a clear sky, no winds and crisply cold thick water to duck through and a bit of punishing going down the falls. But rather than bore you with the same old "I had fun" or "I had not fun" type surf report. I am going to get a bit philosophical today.

I meant to write about this for a while, but today when I was getting out of one beach road-way, the traffic was jammed all the way, but it took 2 or 3 cars before they let me in, and that reminded me to write about this.

Whenever we encounter a situation like this, a standard reaction is along the line of "That person is a jerk." But I started to observe about this, and surfing, especially the lineup psychology, as well as being worked in Surfrider Foundation has really helped me to understand this a bit better.

First thing I have observed is that I personally know and met a lot of people who will act like inconsiderate people. Perhaps you might even think I am one of them too. But actually they are all nice people. They are helpful and they are fun to be with often. Or they related by blood to me in one way or another, and they are originally citizens, not engaged in criminal stuff or anything like that. Basically most are "regular" people you'd meet in any situations. They even complain about other people doing jerky things to them too.

The conclusion that I came with is that most people cannot think beyond their own worlds, and that manifests as jerky behavior. And I think that's actually pretty normal, and there probably are only a handful of people who have really and completely gotten out of that mode, Dali Lama and Mother Theresa come to my mind in that class of people.

I think that it is really difficult to really think and live beyond thinking our very own world all the time, and it really need a lot of self discipline and training. The pressure from our external world is also very high to prevent that. First we got to worry about our own jobs, then family, kids and bills to pay, and before you know it, we are all out of time to give thoughts.

So in a nutshell, if you I encounter a situation like this morning or some jerky surfer in a city break in SC, I think about that, and whether if these people have any other room in their mind to do otherwise. But I also think that it is a default behavior in all of us, and it does take a bit of effort to get out of these modes.

Next time when someone would give you a jerky treatment, perhaps you may want to remember this post. At least it makes my rest of the time more relaxed and focus on my own thing!

Have fun out there!

Over and out.

Session 8044: Nice, a bit mushy day this morning at "D" with only three other surfers. Wish I had a long board.