4pm - Padang, West Sumatra - the Havilla Maranatha lobby
An hour before .... Covered in black sand filth and fully clothed but soaking wet from the highly questionable waters of Padang, we walked back towards the hotel dodging traffic and animatedly talking about the impromptu mini surf lesson I'd just be given by my new friend Ryan.
He hadn't given me a choice and told me if I didn't come with him in 4 minutes, he would drag me by my hair, so reluctantly I obliged as he grabbed a random surfboard off the wall in the lobby and off we went towards the nasty water on the coast.
We briskly trotted along the coconut trees and rocks on the shore...
I continuously tried to talk my way out of having to get into the water as we ducked under wires and shimmied past gudang huts with rusted roofs and palm frown walls selling fruit and nasi...
Insisting that we go further away from the river mouth where the Maura (which might be the dirtiest river in the world) dumps out into the Indian Ocean, staining the water putrid brown.Finally I started seeing some blue and realizing i was not getting out of it, I slipped off my shoes and agreed to paddle out into the little point break that was creating waves of half water, half garbage provided I didn't have to put my head under.
"Fine." he said. "Deal."
In under a minute a wave started to peak and he quickly said "you're going under" before tucking the nose of the little board under the wave and popping us up on the other side.
"Well now your wet, so get over it." and off he went on his unique paddling theory that he regularly teaches in Bali.
(As soon as i found this out I regretted telling him that I don't surf.)
Of course the lesson was over quickly when he realized that I completely know what I'm doing physically... That it really is just a bunch of mental blocks that prevent me from surfing out in the mentawais.
While heatedly debating on the walk home, shutting me down every time I pulled an excuse out of my heavy box of excuses that I tote around with me, we came to the crazy intersection where traffic goes in 11 different directions without a roundabout, stop light or single rule- just everyone goes and somehow it works out...
A little indo guy peddled up to us on his bicycle rikshaw flatbed thing.
"gratis?" Ryan asked as the man nodded and we hopped on, hitching a ride up the street.
Ryan stood up at first riding teen-wolf style and then sat down to talk me out of my head a little more as the hot midday sun beat down on our still un-showered bodies. (every minute that went by i felt myself contracting cholera or typhoid or something and made little puking gag noises.)
"You're pissing me off!" he said honestly but still with the encouragement and enthusiasm of a big brother who wouldn't be giving up any time soon.
"You are politely turning down opportunity while I'm grasping and clawing at anything I can get."
He explained what I already know and have heard a million times about how surfers all over the world are sitting in offices dreaming, aching, willing to give body parts away to be where I am and have the opportunities I have. He made it seem like I don't even know what it's like to struggle and want for anything...
And the more I thought about it, the more I think he's right.
He's from South Africa and has overcome obstacles and that as an American from Pacific Palisades no less, I just don't understand.It's a classic case of affluenza.
The sickness of affluence... endless opportunity that are presented to me while I don't take advantage of or grab onto because of the belief that there is so much more abundance, i don't NEED it, so why should i take it?
Easier to just cruise, right? But of course, this is exactly what I was confronted with in India, when trekking with my best buddy Baba Aaron who i debated a similar thing... -
(here's my piece i wrote on it last year)I had no desire or will to make it to the top of the trek.
I was perfectly happy just cruising and staying down below when it got too hard.My willingness to give up, despite wanting something...It's not a good trait to have.
A group of us huddled around Stanley's laptop the day before, standing and sitting in the lobby of the Havilla Maranatha in Padang as Ryan aka Bugsy aka Merman and the Naked Sea Life appeared on the computer screen playing a guitar while inside the barrel of a wave. (something that looks so unbelievably wicked, I can't even tell you.)
Ryan's smile was as big as the rest of ours... I was with 5 South African guys, 1 Aussie guest from Shayne's last charter and me.
Besides the overuse of the words "Bru" and "Shot" and other SA colloquialisms, it was a really fun day turned to night spent with the Saffer boys, sitting around the lobby drinking and laughing and telling stories.
They told me about the Wild Coast in South Africa, which sounds like a place i need to go to... the undeveloped, organic, alternative area of the country... well, at least thats how it sounds.
This is so the story of how i live my life... i spend some time with someone who excites me and tells me about a far away land and ZaniGo turns on the engine and is revving, ready to go explore and experience it.
Were I to have the money, I'd probably drop everything and go straight there before coming home to California... But thankfully, I have hit a low in my financial lifespan... It's nothing that i don't trust will work itself out and be fine, but I have no money left... at all.R
eal money or fake money (credit cards)...So its time for me to go home to my beautiful, affluent life that i am so blessed to have.
To live in the most beautiful, clean, gorgeous state of California... a place that will pay for me to go to school... live with my parents in their stunning home in Cardiff, San Diego and hussle for a bit.
I think maybe the only cure for affluenza is hard work.
I promised the Merman that I would work hard at overcoming by blocks and phobias about surfing... and i am committing to myself right now... I am going to make things work even when they are hard.
School, a long distance relationship, getting good at surfing, and making money.
Bye Bye affluenza, Hello hard work.
I think I'm ready
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