The Fear Topic. Again?

WavLOG

The Fear Topic. Again?

Well well well, my dear friend Ren has done an excellent article on on Surfing Injuries. As the mass media presents to us, the young surfers are continued to be depicted as "fearless" stupid people who are continuously under the "Darwinian Pressure" for the selection of our future generations (have we really gotten any smarter yet or are we still needing another 5 million years before we can laugh and say, we've leaned our lessons.) Then we also see bunch of old folks on Wall Street Journal ads about condos, retirement investments and such with photos of them clad in the black westuit with a shiny (short) boards. The picture here seems to me that "they've lived long enough, what the heck they can now be stupid." Do you agree with me or now?

But if we all look at this, it is all about the "fear within us." Isn't it? Here are some thoughts that evnoks me when looking at these situations.

The basic scenario seems to be that surfing is a "stupid" sport because we paddle out, risking shark attacks, hypothermia, drawning and (fill in the blank _____________).

Justifiablly, yes, these are something that we could be accused of being stuipd. "Stupid" because we tend to do something the "regular" people won't do, like sitting in the office all day, steal hour or two just surfing the wave for stupid YouTube videos of stupid surfers.

Why is it so "stupid?"

I think because you could possibly lead a safe life if you did not do these things. You could just sit in front of a computer, a satellite TV etc., and enjouy just watching us doing things that you don't do while you just wait for your final day to come. And that's what your parents told you to do. "Don't get hurt!"

Why?

Because we are all being afraid of the real world.

I totally agree with you too.

Just about every time I get out, I am actually quite scared of lots of things. Sharks? For sure. I always think about which angle I am going to shove my board to these suckers.

And even when the waves are just about head high, I always think about. "OK, if I screw this one up, am I going to head down into the sand or some rock?" 99% of the times that is unwarranted worries.

But the thing is this. I did go down head in to the bottom, and my neck hurt of a couple of weeks after that. Thank god I did not break my neck. I did break the nose of the board a few times. I did hit the rock or came really really close to it... like this morning.

So I am afraid of a lot of that stuff, like you do when you watch that surf video on Fuel chanell, but somehow that won't stop me going back to the water, and I will continue to be fearful.

The challenge to me is to be how relaxed I can be under these situations.