People surf the way they dance, the way they act. Personality is revealed. When you’re young and you’re surfing, you can’t imagine how anyone ever leaves it. You’re there early and you stay late, and the fire in your belly is geared around being there for the perfect moment. In truth, you’re there for all the moments, and you get the perfect ones and take full advantage only because you’ve been training through all the imperfect moments. Eventually you begin to master the wave — and yourself a little bit. Although surfing is an escapist, detached activity, as you gain chops you gain maturity as a human being. Unlike other sports, it’s very personal and not particularly social, even if you’re in the water with twenty other guys. To the uninformed, surfing appears to be a nonproductive act, but it’s also non-depletive. It’s just a dance unto itself. In surviving the wave circumstance you learn lessons that you can use to survive the life circumstance.
— Steve Pezman, All For a Few Perfect Waves
