“Jaws Dimension”: John Severson’s fantastical watercolor of tow-surfing at Jaws, on Severson’s home island of Maui. (Artwork © John Severson/surferart.com)
Surfing is the antithesis of organized social behavior. Ethereal. Amorphous. Non-tangible. As we hang it with trappings, the outline becomes more discernable. The ride is everything, and then it is gone. Essentially the riding of a wave is all about the individual, “alone with the surf and his thoughts,” experiencing a profound sense of connection with nature, truth, life, and death, while having a ton of fun.
Ironically, that essence made it into a movement, then an industry. Surfers early on were a strange bunch of outcasts and renegades who rejected normal behavior to chase waves on cumbersome hundred-pound craft. Being human, they banded together with their brethren, becoming tribal in the process, and the non-conformist trappings came to represent their renegade style to the mainstream. What they did was non-productive, but also non-depletive. It is done of the sake of sensation, entirely for self-satisfaction—hedonism to the max.
Contrary to common perception, early surfers were not a dumbed-down bunch of irresponsible louts, but more often brainy types who exercised a curiosity to escape the herd and try different things. Operating to the demands of living comfy but staying free for when the surf was good required ranging outside the box. Being generally clever and resourceful types this was no problem. Surfers realized that outside the box were navigable waters and began to see society’s conventions as false gods. So, they made new rules.
“Lifestyle” was coined to explain their colorful and uniquely functional garb, specialized lingo, inventive forms of affordable transport, and an overall approach that said, “ride life like it’s a wave.” When surfing exploded from a few thousand eccentrics into “legions of the stoked” in the mid-twentieth century, surfer mannerisms became the topic of media attention. We were cool stuff.
The trappings of surf culture began to appeal to a broadening base of youth far from shore. By the end of the century, it had been exploited into a multi-billion-dollar industry. This imbued some surfers with a profit motive, but most still rode waves for the pure joy of it. True, it was harder to be alone with your thoughts when out in the home surf, but as conditions grew more and more crowded a travel mode revealed the globe to be covered with perfect curling waves and the search was on, in earnest.
As a tribe we have now probed the furthest corners of the oceans. Surfboards have become small, light, spontaneous, free-flying little spears. We have conquered ten-story waves and lived to tell about it. Our lifestyle is now a universal option in the kitbag of humanity. We are featured in movies. Our dance has been diagramed, choreographed and fed back to us. Surfing soap operas are on television and we cut-back huge on freeway billboards. Ironically, the riding of waves has become absorbed by the mainstream we once shunned.
Our saving grace is that the lone surfer is still free to paddle out to catch and ride a wave no matter how surrounded he or she is by other lone surfers. That is as it has always been and always will be. The ride is at the core of our culture, and the sensation of the ride is still the most bitchin’ thing you’ll ever feel. Better than sex.
This book is an attempt to explain, share, illustrate, and define that elusive mode of being, a surfer. Just don’t call me that to my face.
Steve Pezman | Publisher | The Surfer’s Journal