What is so attractive about surfing a fifty foot rogue wave?
Why are some of us fear junkies? What is it about hanging
from a cliff a thousand feet from the ground, that demands a lifetime of the
same?
fear
’fir/
noun
1. an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or
something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
I caught the end of an NPR story about surfers who chase
rogue waves. Rogue waves are large and spontaneous surface waves that have
probably been at cause for innumerable ship disappearances throughout history.
The woman who was being interviewed was probably Susan
Casey, editor-in-chief of O, the Oprah magazine, who has written a book about
rogue waves entitled The Wave, but
I’ve been unable to locate and re-listen to that same article. The interviewer
asked if she had ever surfed waves as big as the ones they were speaking about.
The interviewee replied that she had surfed a forty foot wave. The NPR reporter
then asked if she was afraid. Her comment, which I’m sorry I can’t reproduce verbatim,
was very thought provoking.
First, let me lay out how these huge waves are surfed.
They’re too big for a surfer to enter in the normal way by paddling. Laird
Hamilton is credited with inventing a technique that allows the surfer to enter
these huge walls of water. They use a jet ski to tow the surfer who holds on to
a tow rope much as a water skier might until he or she is upon the slope of the
wave. Imagine standing atop an eight story building just prior to sliding down
its face.
Of the excitement of surfing one of these monsters, Laird
says, “It’s the moment where you totally relinquish any true control over what
you’re doing. There’s no place really in life that does it quite like that.”
Laird’s statement focuses on the fear/excitement of the
moment, but I wonder if the real joy comes not from the fear or the successful
challenge of the fear, but rather from a different kind of exaltation.
When asked if she was afraid, the woman being interviewed on
NPR paused and replied that in that moment, you don’t feel fear, you can’t. To
successfully surf the wave, there is no time to entertain fear. It occurs to me
that this must be the ‘zone’ that Olympic athletes describe. Being and not
acting. Fear exists only in the past and the future, not in the present. The
unfortunate truth is that we spend little time in the present. The moment fear
presents itself, we’re either in the past or the future. Rogue wave surfers
experience the present moment in all its brief glory. I wonder if that fear-free
instant isn’t the real bliss as apposed to the excitement/fear anticipation
before, or the satisfaction, after having successfully challenged death or
injury.
Perhaps our fascination with watching each other attempt
threatening things is not the “I’m glad that’s not me,” but rather a nostalgic
memory of our own moments of fear free bliss. I wonder.
