Somewhere Along The Road…
The Quiet American, Padang Padang, Bali, Indonesia, February 18, 2012.
So, I’m doing it. I’m back in Our Paris. I’m back in Bali. I’ve decided to go for it. I’ve decided to make a full fledged, make or break, go for broke attempt at changing my life for the better, to change my life from one reality to another. We’ll see if it works. I’m going after what I’ve always dreamed of, what we all dream of-a life doing what we want to do, what we love to do, living our lives the way we want to. I’ve decided to base my life around passion versus the pursuit of the mighty dollar. I’m performing an experiment with my life, an experiment in of whether or not a normal guy can change his life from what he always thought he should be doing to what he always thought he wanted to do.
For me, it’s surfing. I’ve always dreamed of living the life of a professional surfer. I’ve always dreamed of being at the precise location of the best waves in the world on any given day. But I’m not a pro surfer and I’m not wealthy enough to spend the rest of my life chasing swells across the globe. I’m too old and not skilled enough to consider surfing professionally, so endorsement deals typical of professionals aren’t really an option for me. So how can I live this life? How can I finance this life? Is it possible for me to live this life? I don’t know. Is it wise? Some would say no, others might say yes, and others might just want to see if I succeed or crash and burn, but I have been lucky enough to experience a taste of this life over the last eight months and I am magnetized by the idea of at least trying, and I have a plan. Perhaps more of a hypotheses for an experiment than it is a plan, but that will have to do for now.
How do you change your life into the life you’ve always dreamed of? I don’t know, hence the word experiment, but I’m going to do my best to figure it out. I’ve spent the majority of my post-college adult life in an office chasing money, and now I am pondering how I can spend the rest of my life chasing waves. Eight months ago I quit my job, sold all my things, and boarded a plane for Indonesia. What I was doing at the time is something I couldn’t tell you, and perhaps still can’t completely understand, much less clearly explain. There was a little voice inside my head, a little voice that I had been ignoring for a long time, a little voice that “adulthood” and “maturity” had beaten out of me, and for some reason I decided to listen to this little voice this time, and it changed my life in a big way. I had a round trip ticket with a return flight home to California after one month. But because of the kindness, and encouragement of some extraordinary friends that I met along the way, and through some extraordinary circumstances and events, one month in Indonesia turned into four months chasing swells to some of the best waves in the world in remote parts of Indonesia. I got lucky, and eight months after first leaving home I am back in Indonesia after having just spent three months in S Africa chasing some other world class waves. I’m off for Western Australia in a few days-home of some more of the world’s best waves. How did this happen?
I didn’t see it coming. I’m still not sure how it happened. Never in a million years did I ever think that I would end up staying in Indo for four months rather than one, nor did I ever expect to be heading to S Africa to catch some more of the ocean’s finest rides after that, nor did I ever expect to end up back in Indonesia on my way to W Australia after that. I thought I would spend a month in Indo, get barreled at a few of the big-name surf spots, and come home with the pictures to prove it having been reborn and refreshed from my theretofore unimaginably long one month vacation. Once refreshed from my ultra-long vacation (by American standards) I would re-enter the workforce and continue on my hell-bent struggle to get rich and live the American dream, somehow wiser by my four week adventure in surfland. Instead, I turned my back on my old life without even knowing it. I wasn’t running from my old life, I was being drawn into a new one. I did get drawn into a new one, and I still am.
It wasn’t until four months after leaving home-when the season climaxed with a huge swell only to go completely flat for weeks afterwards-that I realized that I had become used to chasing waves, it had become my life. I had become accustomed to letting a swell chart dictate where I would be and when I would be there, rather than the calendar on my Blackberry telling me what boring meetings I was to attend or who I was going to meet for lunch. I never noticed the transition while it was happening; I just woke up one day to see a flat ocean and an empty forecast. It was then that I realized something was missing-waves were missing. They were conspicuous in their absence and that brought something to the forefront of my attention: waves had become the governing force in my life. I let my guard down, I lived in the moment, and waves took over. That was a huge moment to realize that. That was a good moment when I did realize that. That moment put a big smile on my face.
