Putting Fun First

I was so sick of looking for meaning in work and coming up empty. I wanted to look for meaning elsewhere. Yet it felt wrong—or somehow overly self-indulgent—to focus on surfing. I had the college education and the handful of skills. I was supposed to be making the world a better place or whatever, not selfishly spending every spare moment chasing waves.

This essay was striking for me because I can’t imagine putting fun above everything else. It takes a lot of courage to get over what others think of you and let yourself become “unreliable” or flaky or seen as unambitious because you are so dedicated to your priority of fun. I’m too much of a worrier to ever be able to think like this, but it’s interesting to hear a totally different perspective on how to live and reject the life capitalism expects of them.

Surfing felt like being alive. Working did not. My skill as a surfer didn’t matter—what mattered was my willingness to structure my life around the pursuit of fun over work in some small way. It was a break from the drudgery, a way to imagine a life in which the center of existence was not production, but pleasure.