Are You a "Real" Surfer? | The Inertia

70-year-old Corky Carroll says maybe not.

In surf there are short boarders and there are longboarders. Beginners, and experts. Locals and non-locals. And, apparently “real” surfers and the opposite. At least according to one Charles “Corky” Carroll.

In the septuagenarian’s recent weekly column in the Orange County Register, he seeks to define what qualifies as a “real” surfer.

“Honestly, it’s probably pretty much anybody who surfs a lot,” Cork posits. “But going a bit deeper it is interesting to note that there are actually people who are surfers first and foremost, and the rest of the stuff is just filler and a means to get in the water. These could actually be the ‘real’ surfers.”

He says everyone else is an “other” – someone who may participate in the act of surfing but after leaving the beach becomes who they are – whether a doctor, lawyer, or contractor.

The point Corky meanders toward appears to be this: that a lawyer, for example, is either a lawyer that surfs or a surfer that practices law. Not both.

His column dips a toe into a hard-hitting philosophical question with a soft, unsatisfactory answer.

The questions who are we and how do we define ourselves, have been subjects of fierce philosophical debate since the days of Socrates. And, surprise, the jury’s still out. But as with all philosophy, the point is in the pondering. So let’s ponder, at what point does surfing actually define us?

In the introduction of his new book Surfing with Sartre, Aaron James explains that one of Sartre’s contributions to existential thought was the notion that one’s being is linked to what one does. A teacher is both a person’s identity and what they do, say.

But if you are a teacher that likes to fish, are you a teacher or a fisherman or woman? Are the two mutually exclusive?

I would argue you can be both. Someone who fishes with gusto every weekend can also teach with gusto during the week. How to define the “with gusto” part is where things get tricky, but in the context of surfing and to use Corky’s words, you can be a surfer and an “other” at the same time.

The idea that people are “surfers first and foremost and the rest of the stuff is just filler,” is true, but as with all things there are degrees of obsession. If you’re a surfer and a college student, at what point do you become a first-and-foremost surfer? When you miss one class when the waves are pumping? Two? An exam?

What’s more, the curious thing about people is their identities are a complex, constantly evolving, abundance of concentric circles. For better or worse, people are defined simultaneously by society and themselves by their name, appearance, associates, work, school, income, hobbies, etc., etc. You are infinitely many things all at the same time.

Circling back to Corky’s impetus for launching into defining “real” surfers, though, hints at surfing’s innate insecurity. He explains he used to work as advertising director at Surfer magazine, and any time there was an unfilled slot on the page, he’d fill it with a recurring bit about what real surfers do and don’t do.

Here are some highlights: “Real Surfers never wear pink wetsuits, don’t gyro spaz on the shoulder, don’t read GQ, don’t have green hair, don’t wear ear rings unless [they’re] chicks, meditate in the curl not on the beach, puke on trail mix, don’t wear shoes, don’t wear leather, don’t wear gold chains, gag on sprouts, don’t wear bun-huggers, don’t make beds, don’t jog or diet, don’t chicken out, don’t get caught, don’t wear designer anything, don’t sleep until noon and miss it, still surf when it’s blown out, don’t work, don’t care, just surf.”

Pink wetsuits? Ask Christian Fletcher. Don’t meditate? What about Dave Rastovich? Gag on sprouts? I’d guess Kelly Slater’s a fan of sprouts.

Point is, even if the intention of these little jokes is to get a laugh, they go to show that surfing’s tragic flaw is constantly seeking to define what’s cool, what’s core, what’s kooky, and who’s a real surfer, all while espousing a general apathy to traditional societal conventions. The last bit taken with the rest is laughable in its irony.

To use Corky’s words, maybe it’s high time “real” surfers “[didn’t] care, and just [surfed].”

Fonte: Are You a "Real" Surfer? | The Inertia
Are You a "Real" Surfer? | The Inertia