No Man's Land is Gone

Timing is crucial in surfing. In the water, fractions of a second determine success or failure. Timing means not only paddling for a wave at the right second but, nevertheless, being in the right spot on the right day. Especially for surfers who don't live at a reliable spot themselves, the hunt for the perfect conditions, for the perfect wave, can become a lifelong mission.

It is often said that the authenticity of surfing and its culture lies in the profound connection to nature. And maybe that is true because every surfer is mostly dependent on the forces of nature. You literally have to dive into, almost surrender, to the ocean in order to surf. Success relies on a delicate balance where you align perfectly With the breaking wave, in that fleeting moment that Hokusai once decisively painted in his Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Beyond that, it seems that there is another more abstract truth about surfing. And that is the ability to say goodbye, meaning, that through all these complex factors that influence success, and because of said delicate balance, a huge part of being a surfer is accompanied by the feeling that it will be over in the next glimpse.

The American writer Jack London must also have had an idea of this fleetingness when he was one of the first to introduce surfing into classic literature over a 100 years ago. His short story Aloha oe is one about the farewell that a young white woman takes to her Hawaiian companion and realizes that it is a farewell forever. She belongs to another world that has nothing to do with the life of surfers in Hawaii, but instead with the obligations of the English

upper middle class to which she belongs and to which she returns. With just a few verses, London manages to put into words a melancholy that is very close to the feeling of saying

goodbye to a wave. The song Aloha oe, which is sung during the brief moment that the action stretches in London's short story, really exists and itself tells a dreary story about farewell. It’s said that the last queen of Hawaii, Lili 'uokalani, wrote it as goodbye to her lover before she was overthrown by American Settlers. It’s not just a song about a goodbye between two lovers but also about a past that is taken away from the people of Hawaii.

Maybe it’s the concept of goodbyes that makes surfers so easily move on. It’s no surprise that traveling is such a big part of surf culture. We are haunted by a miraculous idea that tells us about the perfect wave. There seems to be one magic place where this wave appears, and we think that this place might be then only one where we feel truly present.

Maybe it is this magical thinking that makes most surfers feel trapped in ‘9 to 5’ and ‘do as you are told’ patterns, yearning to break open to search for an exotic place called ‘no man’s land’, where fare— well ends. Maybe it is also a longing for a long-forgotten place, that was once home and now is not anymore, as Hawaii was once the kingdom of queen Lili ‘uokalani.

But there is still another difficult truth and that is: ‘no man's land’ doesn’t truly exist. As a symbol and an idea, it might be true and powerful. The perfect wave is only real as a metaphor, also, no man's land is merely an idea.

This is even more true today than it was 100 years ago, when people like Jack London first saw surfers in the waves off Hawaii. Today the whole world seems to have become volatile or ‘liquid’, as the Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman puts it.

The surfers' lifestyle seems to embody a model for modern societies in general. But deep down, we know, that ‘no man's land’ is not a place on planet earth, and nevertheless, we

continue to move and our knowledge of farewell helps to say goodbye and to cherish all the experiences on the way, as fluid as they may be.