theinertia.com - Who’s Behind the Romanticization of the Surfing Life?
Was it the Endless Summer? Maybe.
ll be the first to admit that before I really surfed, I wanted to be a surfer. To be fair, I grew up in Maine, where surfing is a very different activity than it is in California or Hawai’i. The allure of walking around town in a swimsuit, ready to drop your towel at any time and jump into welcoming waters was something out of a fantasy.
You could argue that my image of what a “real surfer” consisted of was largely inaccurate. Real surfers are just people: they have normal jobs, they paddle out when they can, and they live (largely) normal lives. But, like many kids who dream of leaving their hometown in search of something greater, the portrayal of surfing fed to me by surf magazines, films, books, and well-traveled surfers lent itself to many a fantasy of driving alone through Mexico, boarding planes to South Africa, shirking all responsibility to live a free and easy life by the ocean’s edge. The choice to pursue surfing was hardly even a choice at all. What other activities warrant world-wide explorations and an easy out from traditional career paths?