Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

by William Finnegan

Surfers have a perfection fetish. The perfect wave, etcetera. There is no such thing. Waves are not stationary objects in nature like roses or diamonds. They’re quick, violent events at the end of a long chain of storm action and ocean reaction. Even the most symmetrical breaks have quirks and a totally specific, local character, changing with every shift in tide and wind and swell. The best days at the best breaks have a Platonic aspect—they begin to embody a model of what surfers want waves to be. But that’s the end of it, that beginning. Bryan had no interest in perfection, it seemed to me, and his indifference represented, among the surfers I’ve known, a rare degree of realism, maturity, and philosophical appreciation of what waves are. I didn’t have much interest in the perfection chimera myself. More than he did, though.