Introduction

Only the ephemeral has a lasting place.—Anonymous graffiti

Balance. It is what brings about success in love as well as in a tightrope act; it is as fundamental to philosophy as it is to science. It makes our planet Earth dance in the galaxy or looking closer in, it is that which, if we cry too much, makes us laugh, and also laugh until we cry.

The still, pivotal point of being and the universe, equilibrium is what brings about the moment of stillness and thereby at the same time defines movement and change, the only thing in our lives that can be said to be constant.

From harmony to the state of rest, from calmness and communion to fullness and serenity, there seem to be many advantages to living in a balanced universe. It's like this: if two elements that are in the process of finding equilibrium exchange and share their differences, eliminating whatever makes the scale tip to one side, they give up some of their individual qualities, do away with a relationship of domination, and refuse to get stuck in a condition that is distorted and unjust. In this sense balance is a letting go of identity, perhaps a step toward freedom.

If there is one concept that sums up the challenge that faces humanity in the new millennium, it is balance—the balance that gives us peace instead of war, the balance between consumption and respect for the precious resources of the earth.

The kind of balance that interests me is the kind that human beings experience between themselves and the environment. My wish is to show a manifestation of balance that can be realized in perfect complicity with the sometimes mysterious forces that seem to rule the elements of nature.

Surfing can provide a harmonious and artistic example of the intimate link between Homo sapiens and these real but invisible forces. It can provide proof that this animal can understand the power of the sun, the energy that awakens, the ultimate fire, the circle of intense life. My first objective in writing, then, is to stimulate creativity, to encourage reflection, but it is also to recall the refreshment and satisfaction that is found in the simplicity of the accomplished act. This little book, above and beyond its involvement with the world of surfing, aspires to be a tool that will permit travel in a universe where, for brief moments, this freedom we long for so much can become more than merely a dream.

There are many activities that make it possible for us to engage in what I'll call riding and experience its delights. It might be downhill or cross-country skiing, hang gliding, or parachute jumping. I have chosen surfing because it seems to me to be the ultimate metaphor: a true poetry of harmony, staggering in the relationship it sets up between the immensity of the scene and the smallness of the actor within it, somehow disturbing because of the ancientness of our origins and at the same time our nowness; ultimately making of us an image of the future.

Riding is action and movement, but first of all it is a moment, a doorway into the space of time where the person, once having abandoned him- or herself to it, has no choice but to engage in the present moment. The moment of tasting this juicy experience is natural to the conscious being—it is the sensation of being alive.

Surfing is an activity that anybody can watch, either on a beach or on television. Surfing in the sense of "free riding" can be experienced by anyone because the water is not the only place one can ride. Passing from one state to another, continuous movement desired or imposed—riding is the art of edging your way in, entering, slipping into the flow.

A surfer is not just someone who owns a board and polishes it because he or she loves it and it helps to define his or her identity. The surfer is first and foremost a human being who is really alive . . . because riding is essentially feeling yourself animated by the force that feeds the wind, existing at the limits of space and time. To ride free, surfers have to be in a state of attunement, engaged, and at the same time, detached.

Still living in a privileged relationship to the elements of nature but caught fast in modernity by the bonds of commerce that bind them to an entire industry that is devoted to them, surfers live on the borderline between two paradoxical worlds: they are trying simply to be, but at the same time they often live on their image alone, feeding on recognition that is based purely on appearances.

They are a social enigma, a dynamic example of human beings who are looking for fundamental balance at a moment in history that sometimes seems to be massively cultivating inertia.

Acting in the midst of dissipations of energy that manage to keep a part of their mysteries hidden from the masterminds of physics, surfers themselves form a part of the archetype of modern mysticism.

In Quebec, though we are far from being immersed in a world of palm trees, it is not hard to observe many activities that have surfing as their ancestor—snowboarding and skateboarding, for example. Not a single week passes without our being presented with some image from surfing or some reference to it in advertising. From what the commercials tell us, it is no longer necessary to get your feet wet to surf: people "surf" on the Internet seated comfortably in their cozy office chairs.

Surfing is big. At least on a superficial level it is pervasive; yet in point of fact it is not easy to get at the root of this notion—the free riding of the surfer and its history—the simple visual presentation of which evokes all its richness and power. This is why I have decided to enter, as by osmosis, through the doorway of surfing into a discussion aimed at attempting to convey the ineffable, to recall to mind the experience of hopupu.