The swings and roundabouts of life must surely even out in the end. The good events cancel out the bad, and so on. A very smart man I used to work for would always tell me: “Dusty, it’s never as good as it looks, and it’s never as bad as it looks.” To me, this seemed like an over-dilution of life; I wanted to fully revel in the good bits and scream the house down when I felt like shit.
Countless therapy sessions later, I have come to realize just how valuable this information is; even more so if you are a completely obsessed surfer who lives and dies upon whether or not they miss a swell.
Coming into this latest patch of swell on the Aussie East Coast, my inner zen was functioning at maximum efficiency. I had called old mates and organized to rally at a seldom-surfed spot to enjoy quality waves with the lads in minimum crowds. We followed our instincts and scored, surfing until the swell and sweep got too unruly for our burned out shoulders to handle. Totally blissed, we made our way back up the coast and into the heart of the crowd.
We were greeted with calls of “it’s better than Backdoor…best ever!” This, however, is where the pessimism of the “it’s never as good as it seems” theory works in your favor.
Regardless, we sprint-paddled around to the spot in question to find semi-windy six-to-eight-foot mush balls. Yes, my pessimism served me well again: I knew it wouldn’t be as good as Backdoor, and therefore caught one wave and didn’t go in disappointed.
Bring forth example two. My surfing idol is Kelly Slater. Having grown up heavily influenced by the momentum generation, he was a natural choice, closely followed by the power gaffs of Tom Carroll. So when my business partner and I got a text from a friend asking for a surf report, and also mentioning, “Kelly is here, let’s surf,” I found it incredibly hard to contain my excitement. Would I face plant in front of The King? Would the surf be complete crap? What if we turned up and it was packed and neither of us could get a wave? “It doesn’t matter,” my inner yogi told me. “Have no expectations, and you won’t be disappointed.”
After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we ended up surfing a lonely four-to-five foot beach break, with only two other guys out–not pumping, but good enough. We followed our surf up with a lazy arvo coffee at the local surf club, watching the peaks fire off in the background, with a group of friends… yep, it was all the ingredients for a nice day. And to my delight, I didn’t nosedive once.
