Monday, October 20, 2008

Spirit of Surfing


A great read at wetsand


A dear friend of mine once told me, “Surfing begins the minute you put the key in the ignition.” And it has taken me many years to realize not only how true this statement is but how easy to forget.


My personal overachiever tendency is to define surfing in terms of how many waves I catch, particularly great waves, and how well I do. I find that when I mentally restrict surfing to those criteria, my opportunities for a sense of joy, freedom, and peace, all the reasons I surf, are narrowed down to a few moments and to a rigid set of circumstances that I cannot totally control. Circumstances such as what the waves are like that day, how many people are out competing for the same waves, the wind, the swell, the tide, my own fatigue or distractibility. My sense joy is held captive by the smallness of my definition of what it means to surf....
Read the rest here

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Quiver Envy and the Meaning of Life

The more I look around, I'm beginning to realize that I am Quiver-poor. I see all these shiny, finny boards floating around the blogosphere. Photos like the one above (poached from surfysurfy) taunting me while I "make do" with 4 boards. I am very lucky in one aspect. My boards were gifted to me by either thoughtful people who gave out of their excess and kindness, or my pride and joy, the Pavel Speeddialer that my wife won for me at the San O Hawaiian Surf Club luau raffle a couple years ago.

One is a beautiful 7'0" Harbor single-fin that's actually not even mine, it belongs to a good friend who is living in Las Vegas, and lets me use it in his absence. My other two boards, a Ukulele Drifter was given to me by a customer of mine, while my shortboard was a beat-up extra owned by an old co-worker who is a OC bro who gets more boards given to him than he know what to do with.


My daily blog checklist taunts me on a daily basis, hanging tantalizingly sweet morsels of awesomeness in front of me through my computer's window. Showing me what is available, but not to me. Sure there are reasons that this could be my fault. I have priorities that keep the desired Hess shortboard, Grain log, Joe Bark paddleboard, Bonzer Bumblebees, misc. thumbs and hulls out of my reach that I could attain should I reorganize my spending pattern at the expense of my credit rating (and quite possibly my marriage!). Luckily all I have to do is go home to my wonderful family to know my priorities are in the right place. Turn on the TV and see the various clips in videos of beaming children in third-world countries perfectly happy surfing on discarded bits of plywood, or proud as can be of the patched-up discard left by a traveling surfer. This gives me a perspective into not just my surfing, but my life as a whole.


Surfing is a driving force in my life, something that helps me stay centered and focused through the fast-paced consumer-driven life all around me in Southern California. As I think about it though, while surfing is a driving force towards a better and more full life, it is not my life. this may seem sacrilegious to many, but it is true of me and I'm sure many other "normal" wave sliders out there. I still live the surfing "lifestyle" in some way, no matter if I'm in the water 1 day in a month or the good times where I'm able to go out several times in a week, or if I own one board or thirty.


The surfing lifestyle is a looking-glass into life, the good and the bad sides. While all of us desire nothing more than to be in the water, partaking in a plethora of surf-craft, we often have to sacrifice for those things that are intrinsically more important. Sacrifice is a dirty word in our modern society, instant gratification of our desires is seen as one of our inalienable rights. The way we keep ourselves truly centered and focused on what is important is not by how much of what we want we're able to attain, but instead being content in realizing how much we truly have. That little kid on the scrap of plywood probably lives a more true "surfing lifestyle" than any of us.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Out from under my rock (and Happy Belated B-Day!)


Where have I been? I think I may be the last Surf-Blogger to find this great site. All surf blogs under one roof. Great idea and a new bookmark to check daily.

On another note, I just realized that Everyone Surfs just turned 1 year old three days ago! Thanks to everyone who visits! I hope that I'll be able to improve on my content over this next year, goal one though is to just surf more.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Levi

To explain my extended absence from posting.  Here is a picture of my beautiful wife and our firstborn son, Levi Tyrus Kimo Maynor!  8lb 4oz of fury and cuteness!  I will do my best not to turn this into a baby photo-album but there's no guarantees...