111 Surfing, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning: Longevity & Adventure with Aaron James

Podcast - SURF MASTERY

What if the key to how to surf better wasn’t just in technique, but in how you think about the sport? Whether you’re a beginner surfer learning the pop-up on a surfboard, a traveling surfer chasing bigger waves, or a weekend warriorlooking to refine your surf positioning, your mindset shapes your experience in the water.

In this episode, host Michael Frampton sits down with Aaron James—surfer, philosophy professor, and author—to explore the deeper meaning of surfing beyond the pursuit of perfection. Aaron shares how he evolved from high-performance surfing in world-class waves to embracing adventure surfing—a mindset that prioritizes connection with nature, uncrowded waves, and personal fulfillment over competition.

Their conversation dives into surfing tips for longevity, movement, and mental resilience, touching on how surf trainingcan extend both your physical abilities and your love for the sport. They also explore the psychology of surfing positioning, the social dynamics of the lineup, and how surfing parallels music and dance as a form of self-transcendence.

• Shift your mindset on how to surf by redefining success beyond competition.

• Learn how philosophy applies to surfing, from the psychology of localism to the joy of riding waves for their own sake.

• Discover how surf coaching, surf workouts, and surf training can keep you surfing stronger for longer.

Hit play now to rethink your approach to surfing, whether you're just starting out with beginner surfing or refining your surfing positioning in pursuit of bigger waves.

https://learn.surfmastery.com/the-philosophy-of-surfing

www.surfmastery.com

Aarons' books:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Aaron-James/author/B007CL9J5M?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Other books mentioned:

The Mature Mind - Gene D. Cohen

The Mindful Body - Ellen Langer

Transcript:

Intro

Aaron is a professor of philosophy. He is an author—you can check his books out on Amazon; there will be a link to his Amazon in the show notes. James is also an incredibly good surfer.

James spent decades chasing perfection in the water, from Lower Trestles to Indonesian surf trips. But in recent years, just like myself, his relationship with surfing has shifted. He is no longer trying to find the perfect wave and seeking performance but instead embraces what he calls ‘adventure surfing,’ which is a mindset that values connection and attunement over competition or dominance—putting pure stoke before social status.

In this conversation, we explore how surfing shapes our lives, our philosophy, and even our longevity. We talk about one's philosophy of surfing is the foundation of your experience in the water, and how it even affects your performance.

Is the surfing that you do coming from you, or is it influenced by the surfing industry and the surf media? Are you a product of surfing as a sport, or are you a creative surfer seeing surfing as an art form?

We take this deeper—we talk about why surfing is so meaningful. We talk about how surfing not only satisfies our animistic, primal nature—the need to move through and attune to the environment—but also our higher self, our spiritual selves, our desire to connect to something bigger than ourselves.

We liken surfing to music and dance, showing how surfing is not just movement but rhythm and flow, much like how musicians and dancers think with sound and motion.

We discuss the meaning of life and, of course, the meaning of surfing. We touch on the concept of God, and how surfing can bring you closer to God. Why surfing isn't a pointless or selfish pursuit but can be selfless and an expression of something deeply human and transcendent.

We also dive into the dynamics of the lineup—the democracy, (or the lack thereof), in surfing. The psychology of dominant surfers, and how lineup hierarchy shapes our experience in the water.

Finally, we talk about learning to love surfing simply for the love of surfing and finding your own unique way of enjoying a wave without it being dictated by external or internal pressures and expectations.

So, if you've ever experienced shame and frustration with surfing, questioned your relationship with surfing, wondered whether you're chasing the right goals in the water, or just love thinking about surfing in a deep way, this episode is for you.

This episode will get you thinking, and I have created a mini eBook—a workbook—to help guide you through developing your own personal surfing philosophy. That is available on my website. Not only is it a great companion with practical exercises to go alongside this episode, but it is also a great way to support this show itself because it is about the price of a cup of coffee. The link to that is in the show notes.

The other best way to support this show is to share this episode with a friend.

And without further ado, I give you my conversation with Professor Aaron James.

Michael Frampton: [00:00:00] Hey, how are you?

Aaron James: Yeah, pretty good.

, thanks for accommodating the time change. I had to get the tide window on my spot. Oh, really narrow tide window. What's your podcast about? What's the idea?

Michael Frampton: The surf mastery podcast, it's inspiration and education for better surfing performance and longevity.

That's the tagline.

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. I'm super into longevity stuff.

I started the show like 10 years ago where I was really interested in shortboarding and learning how to do a better turn , and get barreled. And since then life is, , that was when I was living in Australia.

I lived, we spent four years surfing little doom living in Malibu as well. Oh, okay. , got three kids now, , been through a lot, lost a wife, lost a job back in New Zealand. So surfing has, the show's become quite eclectic and it's more, and [00:01:00] it's more about, , what's your relationship with surfing and how does surfing affect your life and how does it make it better or worse and that sort of stuff.

, yeah.

Aaron James: My relationship to it has changed in the last year or so. So

Michael Frampton: . Tell me about that.

Aaron James: Oh yeah, sure. , so I spent for my teens on, so now I'm 53. So for over 30 years, I was doing, what I call perfection and looking for perfect waves.

And performance, perfection and performance, trying to perform in perfect, as good ways as I can get, right? So, became a good surfer, surf traveled my whole life, went to all the hot, the highest points. Started going to, , Indo a month every year, but others, other good world class spots. I'm a, , academic, a professor, so we have our calendar.

We have , a lot of free time, totally free and flexible time. So, it's totally accommodates surf travel easily. So, I've done that the whole, since my, you know, twenties. Since I was in grad school, even college, but, so, but then I just got to, and then [00:02:00] at home, the, at home , the way to finesse living in Southern California was, as you know, the crowds look at the good way to crowd it.

Surfrider Malibu is a nightmare, I made lower trestles, my home really got it wired. I don't know everybody and I just sort of grasped the nettle and just learned to get good, the good, get good waves at a lot of good ways that most crowded I've learned. So I did that for 20 years and then I, and I just got burnt out, totally burnt out finally on it after about 20 years of doing that.

And then I was going for over a decade to Neas for a month at a time. I throw in some mental wise in Bali also, but I got burnt out on surfing Lagundry Bay. But I really was really dedicated for a decade. Like

Michael Frampton: yeah, I've seen footage of

absolutely ripping out there. I've seen the footage.

Aaron James: Oh, cool. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I did that and I just just cut. I mean, it was just the. It's partly like, um, it's harder to keep up the per level of performance. You're always, you're kind of sliding and then you're trying to make up the deficit and the downward trend is, the trend is down, but you're trying to keep [00:03:00] it, keep the slope as, as general as possible.

And that was like a goal. It was fine. I did that for, , still did that for a decade. And I'm still proud of myself and still had, , sessions that are really , Peak of my life and surfing career. And, , but I just got so over the crowd, , the usual crowd dynamics and stuff, you know, originally inspired a book about , that's called assholes.

I have a theory about assholes inspired by surfers, probably. And some of my colleagues is academia and servers, but like surfers did it really well. And every surfer is , knows the asshole and lineup like really well. So I just got totally burned out , on the whole thing. I just, , just didn't feel like surfing lowers. I didn't care about surfing Lagundra Bay. , it's fine to go into the mental wise, like less crowded zones or whatever, but the thing that I, and it took me a little while there.

Sort of figure out to redefine.

I feel like you don't discover the fountain of youth. This is a longevity point. You don't discover the fountain of youth and just decide to just don't go drink from it anymore. You know what I mean? So it's like all these sort of incredible benefits from surfing, this effortless fitness and health and like [00:04:00] great attitude towards life comes all this this existential bomb and all these good things just come if you just stick with surf, if you just surf.

Or live your life around it. So it's , it's pretty stupid to just not surf. So it was like, that was, and it had never been thinkable. I didn't ever live that way. So I, but I didn't know how to renegotiate my relationship to it. Trying to figure out, how to do that. But I, it helped, I sort of redefined.

So for the first time in my life, I rethought of what I was doing before was. It's not just any kind of surfing. It's not just surfing. It's specific surfing, specific goals, getting the best waves you can and surfing as well as possible. It's perfection performing. That was the abiding goal. And I decided there's lots of different kinds of surfing and I can do a different kind of surfing, which has different goals and different standards of success.

So if I do a different kind of surfing, I'm not doing a shitty job of. Of surfing. I'm just not doing perfection and performance. I'm not doing that. There's a different game, right? It's not if you change the game, you're not doing bad [00:05:00] moves in the other game or change the dance. You're not doing bad moves in a different dance.

You're just doing a different dance, right? Or different game. , so I decided to redefine a different way of surfing, which has its own standards. And I just worked that out for myself. And then, and I call that adventure surfing. And the goals there to connect, just be out in the water, be in the ocean, surf beautiful places with light crowds and interesting, tricky, difficult waves.

Like where there's a little bit of a challenge, just something interesting about it, you know, you're out surfing, but there's like a weird reef that doesn't break that often, no barely surfs, but you're the only one on it, but you're getting it wired, you know, kind of thing. The regular spot I surf now at Crystal Cove, , I used to walk my dog there, , every day before I went to lowers, and I'd call it the shit wave, because I was like, what's that?

Because I just, like Just shows my attitude towards it. Now I surf the shit wave all the time. I don't call it the shit wave anymore. But it has a fun, it's a reef with a fun bowl, you know, so I've got this bowl really wired. So now, and it's kind of, and I like, like the wonkiness of it, , , and it can be fun.

And you're [00:06:00] not, I'm not trying to, I don't get the same, like open face and do the same open face turns. Like you can do it lowers on every wave, but that's not the goal, right? So the goal is just to get the interesting waves, to just try out new things, be on it when the window's on. And then it's never that crowded.

It's totally beautiful place. It's incredibly and that's the closest place to my house anyway. So it's super easy. And then it turns out at Crystal Cove, there's in winter, there's other way and summer too, there's, there's some spots that get really, really good occasionally. So, and a lot of people who don't, don't check it all the time.

Don't score it. Right. So now , I get those spots when they're on. And, so I've kind of recreated this different way of surfing, but it's. Like my friends who know me, like knowing how I lived and how I surf, like they kind of look at like, what do you surf out there? Oh, just a little left, just that left.

They go over and over. , they don't get it, , but I'm like, it's a different thing. know,

anyway, so now, now I brought back the sort of child, like teenage joy of surfing back. , I was just , so stoked to surf again and just, and, , and , [00:07:00] there's less sort of chase about it.

, I mean, as usual, I have to wait and stuff for waves, but there's less like the thing that kind of become more palpable as you're chasing waves is you're waiting ever longer, it's harder and harder to score your standards go up because you surf a lot of perfect waves. And then, you know, it's not just any good waves.

It's , these are the most perfect, perfect waves you've ever, and then you're now, and then you see all the times the way now you see all the waves, you're not surfing all the time. So no matter how styled out you are as a traveling pro, you're, you're missing waves somewhere.

So , there's this whole kind of cruel, it's made the chase aspect harder. , and then lowers got worse. Cause I used to surf a certain window where I could get it relatively crowded and then the cam kind of screw up that window and then the. The professionalization culture and then the, the e bikes and all this stuff just kind of screwed it all up.

So it's a nightmare now. I mean, I, I love it. I love the place and I'm grateful for, you know, for it. , but yeah, so I've totally renegotiate now. It's totally different kind of server. I just don't have any temptations or flowers. Even though I, you know, I check it, we'll see it [00:08:00] occasionally, but I just.

It's fine. Or even go back to Lagundry Bay where I don't have any temptation, just inclination. You know, I'd want to go to other spots. They're just less, could be lesser waves, but just less crowded.

Michael Frampton: I love that. I can relate to it a lot because that's, that basically describes my relationship with surfing now.

Aaron James: Oh, okay. Right.

Michael Frampton: And it's been like that for the past sort of five years to kind of happened when I was living and I spent, you know, good four years living in. Australia, shortboarding, wanting to get better at their performance style of surfing, traveling to Indo and then living in Malibu, tried long boarding first points and shortboarding Zuma and traveling down to Nicaragua.

And then I surfed with Devon Howard one day out at little doom.

Aaron James: And I know I'm from lowers. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. And

Aaron James: yeah,

Michael Frampton: he had quite a profound influence on me and suggested, well, why don't you get a glide? He just saw the way I was surfing and what I, the kind of waves I was looking, he's like, why don't you get a glider?

You just, [00:09:00] I went down to San Diego and got an 11 foot glider off Josh hall. And then that is the board that I've been riding ever since. And I'm just looking for little unique waves that are hard to serve or getting it and just surfing away from crowds.

Aaron James: Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. And I love it.

Aaron James: That's really cool.

Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Back

Aaron James: to the simple joy of surfing and not exactly,

Michael Frampton: I think it's still a pursuit of surf mastery because there's a different kind of challenge within that.

Aaron James: Yeah.

Michael Frampton: , I'm a big believer of, any sort of relationship, whether it be with a human or the ocean.

If it's not growing, it's dying has to be growing in some way and surf mastery doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to master surfing. It's just the path of improving in some way, whether that be mastering a different board or learning how to ride smaller waves, or even just maintaining your surfing standards as you age is a form of that.

Aaron James: Yeah. I think about it in terms of attunement. , [00:10:00] it's a skillful activity and what you're going for is attunement with wave. But the way we do that is by. By constantly like automating certain skills and then paying attention to new challenges. And that's the way we stay attuned and develop our skillful practice, and one version of it is , you're trying to be the best server you can be, but it doesn't have to be that at all.

It can just be, it can be just switching up challenges and trying different things.

Michael Frampton: Yeah.

Aaron James: But yeah.

Michael Frampton: There's something you said there, you , you said you, I don't know if you use the words specifically, but you changed your surfing philosophy. Let's say, , is that something that you sat down and thought about intentionally?

Yeah. important is that process?

Aaron James: I don't know how other people go do it. , but I'm a philosopher, so I'm a cogitator. So I use my philosophical skills. I mean, the skills really. Help me. So I defined the old thing I was doing the old activity. I couldn't I read that point.

I said internalize the standards of that activity. So I had a hard time shaking the feeling that anything I was gonna do is just gonna be an inferior version. It was gonna be I was [00:11:00] doing shitty surfing, a shitty surfer, low standards, subpar crap waves, not surfing. Well, I had to sort of takes a certain amount of reframing Intellectual and cognitive reframing to think, no, wait, those are good standards for a different activity, but then that fills up with thought is like, but if you're doing a different activity, it can have its own standards and then you don't apply the standards across. you don't judge, you don't judge pop music by the standards of whether Vivaldi and Mozart are great classical music,

you're just judging apples and oranges if you say no, if you ask what's the best song or who's the best art musical artist ever, it's , that's not even an intelligible question, right? , you could be asked, what are the most. Important genres of music, but then you're going to say, well, there's classical and then there's, jazz and, that kind of thing.

But these just have, they're different types of things. So you and you assess them by their own standards, right? And it's not clear if you're just talking about the like music period. If there's any set of [00:12:00] standards that are specific enough to just sort of pick out the supreme form of music. I mean, some people have those views, but it's fairly silly.

I you're just saying, no, look, it's all, it's Beethoven's knife. That's the pinnacle of music. ,

Michael Frampton: Surfing is far more like music than it is like tennis.

Aaron James: Yeah.

There are a lot of different kinds of surfing and they're all good in their own very different ways and you assess them by the standards appropriate to the genre of surfing. So those kinds of thoughts like what I had to go through to just feel differently about.

This new thing I was doing. Because then when I had a thought like, Oh, well, no, these are shitty waves . No, that's not, this is successful adventure surfing. This is good adventure surfing. I'm doing well. This is a good goodness of a kind,

Really rethinking that then gave me, freed me up to just enjoy it for what it is and, and suddenly I had all the affect, just the pure stoke coming back and this the connecting to the sublimity and beauty of it. The stuff that really, you know, that surfers know, but don't ever, don't really talk about that much, but that's what Stoke is all about.

Being caught up in the confluence [00:13:00] of skill and changing circumstance. That's the way I think about it abstractly, but that's what Stoke is about. And like that, it just brings, it brought all that back, all that sort of sense of things came flooding back.

Michael Frampton: Yeah.

Aaron James: I already had that broad idea of what surfing is, even though when I was still in the perfection performance mode, but there was like further intellectual work to do to reframe it.

But then I, once I thought it through, I just felt permission to go and just enjoy, just never go to lowers anymore and just surf crystal Cove every day. And just whatever. I don't care if my friends think that this is. I'm doing something dumb. I'm really stoked. I'm like down there by myself surfing fun ways.

I'm like, what do I care? It's beautiful. , I'm having a totally pure surfing experience, doing the same thing I loved when I was, 12. Yeah, so

Michael Frampton: sounds like the adventure surfing is a, as much of a journey within as it is without,

Aaron James: ah, well, it was for me to get to there to start to that.

Yeah. I mean, where the, [00:14:00] where it goes, I guess

The venture serving might require doing some adventure, actual exploring weird waves, you know,

Michael Frampton: every wave is different. So it's always, it's the, if you always, yeah, you can,

Aaron James: you can

Michael Frampton: always. If you're trying to get closer to the center of now , and be present, then it's, that's part of the adventure.

Right?

Aaron James: Well, some people could do adventure surfing and never have done anything else and never really thought about it. That's just the thing they always did. And that's the thing they were always at peace with and that, and they, and that.

They love, always love surfing. They're always, and they never had to think, rethink it, or they just saw the other things as forms of surfing has never had any appeal or whatever. So they could be at adventure surfing, but total unreflective about it. So there was never any internal journey. They just fell into, sorry, I'm a philosopher.

So I think that's a possibility, but for me, making a transition from one kind of another, or at least having a new kind, different kinds of surfing is like within a repertoire. Right. That did [00:15:00] require an internal change of really a journey of rethinking things. And then it was a journey too. Yeah. I mean, it was a journey for me, intellectually to rethink that

Michael Frampton: Do you think that all of your background in philosophy helped you to do that process? And are there, are there specific questions that you'd ask yourself when you're developing a personal philosophy that crossover to developing a surfing philosophy?

Aaron James: Uh, yeah, the thing that philosophy makes you good at is, identifying assumptions. That you're making or other people are making and then thinking about, wait a minute. Is that true? , what it would be for to be different.

What's the best way of thinking about things such that that's not true. And then what are the merits of it? And then, and oftentimes that's really not obvious to yourself or to others or, , and you have to really think that through. And I do that all day long is professionally like for academic work,

and I've done that now for decades. So that's my, that's a big part of my life. , [00:16:00] but I don't often need to do it that much. And sort of, I didn't have to rethink. I mean, there were some adjustments in my earlier relationship to surfing, but it was still within, it was within the same sort of frame form of surfing.

And, uh, I, I made adjustment to it and there was lots of frustrations that came out of that, but I, I, the frustrations I always found ways to manage. I, they were never rose to sort of needing to rethink the, the identify the enterprise that was us taking for granted.

I never

Aaron James: did that before. But it was only once there was sort of a crisis, personal crisis, which is I suddenly just don't can't tell it.

Just hate this now, you know,

you

Aaron James: Okay, wait a minute. And then the crisis was, well, I don't want to just. quit surfing, you know, for the reasons I was saying, so how do I reconcile? And that was not obvious. In the way you're working on an intellectual problem, oftentimes you just pose the question.

Oh, well, look, here's another way thing. It's just obvious to you, or you're having, I'm having a discussion with someone else. And especially if you know the terrain and they're, they're making certain assumptions, you, you just, it's just obvious to you that you're, they're making assumptions.

Something you just pointed out. And [00:17:00] then that wasn't obvious to me. It took a while to figure out. I had to sort of just stare blankly, and not know. But I guess the way that being a professional philosopher, a skilled trained philosopher helped me too is I thought, well, I'll just wait, you know, I'll wait.

I'm just going to think I'm going to try to think about this. I'm going to wait and see, , see if something comes to me to think through this more, you know, wait, try to understand what's, what am I, what's bothering me, what are the alternative ways of thinking about that, gradually letting myself be patient with that process as opposed to just

being rash and shutting it down, just quitting and doing something else. But good. Yeah, no, it's helped. It's really big. Good. I went to, I didn't go to Indo this year. I went to South Africa, see a friend and we just surfed the Durban South coast and a bunch of adventurous waves.

I was doing adventure surfing there. So it was. I've been there before, but this was like, and I didn't really care about scoring. That gets, it gets really, really good there. And we got good ways, but not anything like what it really, how it gets. But it was, I was like, this is fine. This is adventure surfing.

This is [00:18:00] what I want, you know, so that was cool. So it still applies to travel and stuff. Well, it's really freeing because you just don't need to score perfect waves all the time. Yeah, you can just find a cool little cranny and go get it, get it wired. And anyway, so yeah, is this, this sounds up your alley?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was intrigued by the longevity stuff. Cause I do have a bunch of ideas. I'm like, I got into the, I'm into the longevity biohacking stuff. I, I'm thinking of working some of that into a book project as well. Like, so I have some ideas about that.

Michael Frampton: Or philosophical, like the Dave Espey

Aaron James: sort of world.

That world, yeah. I don't take him very seriously, but, um, but other

Uh, David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School, who I think was a more philosophical kind of researcher, uh, Peter Atia. . Who's a more hardcore. Wet blanket kind of guy,

he's a wet blanket. I mean, I, I like those two, I, I trust both those guys and they have [00:19:00] philosophical differences and that there's a kind of interesting difference in how they think about longevity, you know? And, uh, I think there's things you can say philosophically about how to, how to finesse it, , that kind of connect to surfing as well.

Michael Frampton: I read, I just recently read a book. The title escapes me about how the brain gets better as you age. Oh, okay. And another one by a Harvard professor, female psychology professor, I forget her name, talking about the, basically the extreme version of the placebo effect.

Aaron James: Oh, okay.

Michael Frampton: Fascinating books and backed up, backed up by studies as well. , yeah, one study in particular where she put a bunch of 80 year old men into, into a house where everything in the house was dated 30 years ago. And they were only allowed to talk about things as if it was the present tense.

I think I heard

Aaron James: this. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: And their vision improved and their walking improved their health markers improved just simply by that. So I think, yeah, longevity has to do with the state of mind as [00:20:00] well as, as well as. Yes. And so the

Aaron James: social contact, the social context and what's taking. That might be like, yeah, I think that's part of why some of the blue zone communities.

White people do well because it has to do with people being , like everyone's old and kind of on the same page but still being active and social and there's still a lot of like present oriented things to live for, that are joyful, exciting, lots of opportunities for social connection, doing things together, you know, about walking, games, , sort of the way that surfers get together chatting out in the lineup, it's all about like, the timeframe shrinks.

Cause it's not like you're six months, one year, two year, you know, it's like, it's all like. What was it like a low tide? Maybe it'll be better tomorrow, you know, like, you know, it's all really short, like within hours or days, you know, like, you know, like a last one was so good. If it was a really good as well, that might be point of conversation.

But otherwise it's like last. Well, you know, it's like, you know, everyone's like, is it, you know, it's like days out or whatever, you know, like. The window shrinks really well. I think I've always thought of that's a big part of why [00:21:00] surfing it draws you into a present a really narrow frame time frame that that's why, um, part of why it's a joyful the social side of it.

One of the philosophical thoughts. I mean, like, uh, is Like in the David Sinclair, he's got sort of a theory. About why longevity, why longevity work might work,

so the, I really like this idea. The idea that the commonality for what makes exercise so good, and, but also fasting, and also, , why are all those things, why do these things, , work in, in terms of promoting lifespan, healthspan? They work because they're putting stress on the body and on the cells, right?

And so they're basically your cells, once stressed, when they're not too comfortable, because you feel like you've got food, or, then they have, they're forced to make do with what they've got, repair themselves. Use the lower quality proteins, like synthesize that stuff, stuff like that. So the cells like, and the, the different, and so you can stimulate that with like the, with, um, best thing is [00:22:00] exercise.

Um, you know, fasting is good, but then you can also do with supplements and stuff like, but this is all still pretty supplements, but this is why I like, I mean, sorry, it's pretty speculative in the sense that it's like a nice theory and it's a philosophical, it's a theory and there's a philosophical thought.

And which is tied to like the idea that well, maybe if you, maybe if sort of the science progresses quickly enough. then and if you get on if you if you get on the bandwagon doing these sort of speculative biohacks, then , you'll stay ahead of the learning curve. And then maybe you can get not just like an extra six years, but you get extra 1020 years of lifespan or whatever, maybe even potentially could be even longer if you're resetting, resetting the body clock is something like that.

So this is all totally pie in the sky, like not even a bad sense is a philosophical idea about like That mortality is not as fixed as we think, right? And that there's a value in trying to shoot for as long. And there's a risk proposition is like the value of living longer [00:23:00] is so great that it's worth taking, uh, even a stuff that is, has a low probability of working.

So there's a lot of philosophically there. And so what I like about, , what I like about Peter Atiyah is he's , just, he has a very different philosophical view, right? His idea, he's just , he's Mr. Coldwater. He's look, If you just look at what we already know, then none of these supplements really are gonna make, , we don't know they make any real difference, they might.

He says, look, it's exercise and it's certain kinds of exercise. That's the only thing that we know moves the needle on longevity, like by in randomized control trials, good high quality studies, the rest is super speculative.

And David Sinclair's message is well I do a little weight lifting like once a week I do a little exercise for a few hours, but mostly I just fast and take pills and that's how to live long and age backwards or , and and his and atia's good point is like look if you just do that stuff, you're not doing the thing that we already know.

We already know promotes longevity, which is [00:24:00] exercise. And it's not Danny exercise. It's exercise promotes strength over time to prevent you from falling down while walking down a stair or a curb, because that's a killer. Right. And if you survive, the recovery can be that you got to stop that. So you need strength training.

And then after that, you need VO two max. You need to get your capacity to process oxygen. And what does that is sitting on a exercise bike for three hours a week, right? And maybe a little high interval training can help,

The low hanging fruit is the stuff we already know works.

Aaron James: And that's just exercise doing certain things, exercise regime. If you're not doing that, you're not serious about longevity. There's a way, one way of thinking about the stuff that, that, um, this is going to connect, this is a long way around to a point we were making earlier in connection with surfing.

So here's my thought. So there's something in between there, which is like. You don't have to, , do a risk, you take a risk calculation now on the bet of longevity or some extra big, like, boom in lifespan, big extra lifespan, [00:25:00] because, and, but you also don't have to think all you're doing is eking out a few extra years doing arduous things now.

There's a way of thinking about this, is is, what's the value of, what's the value of living longer, a long life? Well, it's that it's what it well, it's that you've lived a life. What is it to be a living thing? Think about this. You're an animal. Okay. What is it to be an animal? Well, like at the low, at the lowest, lowest level, what is it to be a living thing is like at the cell level.

It's to be a thing that, it's to be a thing that has a, there's a, a boundary between what's inside of it and outside of it, like membrane walls, and it moves through space. And it adapts to its senses and adapts to its surroundings. And, um, it internalized, it takes in resources from that to create energy, to move through space.

So it's basically something like a relatively self contained body that senses environment to move through space. So it's movement is the, is like the very essence to be as [00:26:00] an animal, like now it is to be an animal and animals, just a self moving. Creature being self moving just it is what it is to be an animal. And so what it is to live like a bio have biological life or be a biological animal just is to be a self Reproducing a being that whose ongoing existence, my existence in the future only happens because right now I'm doing these things, I'm sensing an environment, responding to it and taking in resources, converting those to energy.

That's the only way cells or any animal perpetuates itself. So that's what it is to live. To be alive. Okay. So now if you think, okay, I'm an animal, what is it? I'm a human animal. What is it to do that? Well, what is it to animal? Well, what is it to animal? Well, it's, it's, it's, here's what it is.

It's to move. It's one of the most basic things to do to be a [00:27:00] good at animaling to be a good animal is to move move around. It's the sense in moving around an environment that's changing your sensing and responding environment and then you're moving in response to it. That's like what is the fundamentally do well as an animal.

That's what all animals naturally do because they're looking for food reproduction, but they're like, you have to rest, but that's a temporary state, right? And most animals don't have chairs. It's no surprise on this view that chairs like are a curse from a lifespan and Healthspan point of view.

you a sedentary life is like a disaster. But we and our self conscious so the worst thing to do to be a for being an animal is to sit around a lot, but so human beings who forgotten what it is to be an animal to do well, just decide, well, I just want to be comfortable, so I'm going to sit around a lot.

I'm going to eat whatever foods available. That is not fast. I'm not going to have any feelings of scarce. There's not going to be no sort of temporary food [00:28:00] scarcity. , there's going to be, I don't want to have to exercise. I want to be fit and live long, but if I'm going to do that, that's just a means of getting this bigger benefit, which is longer life, like a longer life.

Okay. For a long, for living forever, I'll. Okay. Maybe I can actually, most people aren't persuaded because they're not going to actually do the thing. The science we already know will give you a longer lifespan. Most people aren't going to do it. They're not going to get there. They're not going to do figure out their VO2 max, get up to the, get up to the norm and then ride that ride that down and doing like increasingly like with increasing marginal gains in their exercise regime every year.

No, almost nobody's going to do that. Only a really hardcore people. Nobody cares about living long enough to exercise that much because they don't really. So the idea is like, is there some other way of thinking about why you would exercise? Um, and the idea is yeah, that's what it is to live well now, today, what it is to do well today as a living human being is to move it's at the end and more to do well [00:29:00] is to do it, to move in the face of challenges.

Like, well, this is what we were talking about with surfing. So like, yeah, so it's, it's, it's the skillfully navigated environment. And now you can think of , what surfing is, is just like a beautiful exemplification of this thing that, what it is to be an animal, but it's now being done. For all kinds of reasons, not doing for food or for sex or, you know, for or for shelter or whatever for for survival.

It's being done for the joy of it, but it's still not sitting around just to relax, right? It's it's being moving. It's acting was responding, sensing, being attuned to the environment. And so it connects and has maybe, you know, connected to larger things and, you know, all this larger. Meaning as well.

So like this is a way of thinking about what's beautiful and surfing connects with not just the bigger stuff like what Freud calls oceanic feeling, but like just what it is to be an animal. What is to be a living being? It's just a move and adapt and skillfully attuned to your environment. And so like the idea on the longevity thing is like, look, so here's why you should exercise now.

Here's why you should eat well now. Here's why you should put your body under [00:30:00] stress by fasting. , by exercising, because that's what it is to do. Well, now as a living being, you're not doing that to make, to try to get this extra 10 years or 20 years or 50 years of longevity you're doing is this, what it is to do well now this year to live well now during this week, this month, this decade.

That's living well. So, okay, I'll do that. And if I can see the beauty and the joy and find some way of making it fun and like worthwhile for its own sake, cause it's a challenge or, , because it feels good or whatever, then, now that's self sustaining. And then the idea is you could do that and keep doing that.

And now if you get lucky and science, your stay ahead of the science and science serves up some discovery such that the things you're doing, gradually adapting to it, let you live an extra five, 10 years, 20 years, then yeah, that's all to the good yet. Why not be open to that? , but it's not like.

You're forcing yourself to do a bunch of shit now for this promise of a long, way extra long life. That's not really, so, so I [00:31:00] think that's kind of like an in between view. And then surfing is one way of thinking about how to do it, like, and everybody's got to find their own surfing, but I've had to supplement all this.

So it started supplementing with other exercise to, uh, surfing. So, yeah.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. . One of the surfing doesn't really put much, unless you're high performance, big waves. It doesn't really put much load , through the system. Yeah.

Aaron James: Not enough. Not enough as you age. Yeah. But anyway, .

Michael Frampton: It sounds like Atiyah and Sinclair should start surfing basically.

Aaron James: Yeah, I imagine , Atiyah, maybe he would, but, , I don't think Sinclair would, he's just kind of, he's a scrawny guy. He's not an athletic type. He's just a nerd guy in the lab. , he wouldn't, he's just like, just does the minimum amount of exercise.

I'm hoping you can get by with fasting. I'm not saying you won't live longer or whatever, but maybe you will, but Well, there's two

Michael Frampton: ways of looking at longevity too, right? There's , yeah, let's try and live longer or there's no, let's try and get more living out of what we have.

Aaron James: Yeah. Let's try to live.

And then it just turns out that a lot of what it is to live now [00:32:00] also will make you live longer. And that can be a welcome side effect of living well now. And that means move your ass, get off your ass, move around, like find new challenges, exert yourself. You know, um, just what we were saying and finding new challenges, like not stagnant, not seeking comfort, seeking comfort, which you do more and more as you age, right?

You know, cause you'd be like, I'm tired. I don't have energy. What I want to do. I want to sit around. I want to relax. I'm going to, and so basically that's, that's the curse of prosperity. The curse of affluence and prosperity and which you have in spades once you're middle age and have a comfortable life and, you can find any and even develop your maybe Interest in some, so you can spend your time, I can spend all day doing philosophy without exercising or surfing or whatever, what were you going to say?

Michael Frampton: Well, I think that those who seek comfort for comfort's sake, it's, it's never enough. They always have to supplement it with a, with a cocktail or some [00:33:00] processed food or something. But if at the end of a day, you've been surfing, you've been to work, you've spent time with friends. Yeah, you can sit down and relax.

Aaron James: Yeah, sure. . I'm all for lazing and lounging and stuff, but like in its role, but I even still lazing and lounging can be like lazing around the house. It doesn't have to mean like sitting on the couch, like mindlessly scrolling through your computer.

Social media feed, it can be like doing different projects around the house, trying planting something or something you read on social media, trying it out in the house or fixing it, it's like, so, and that doesn't have to be like a getting stuff done kind of thing. It can be you just following your attention, wherever it naturally is drawn in a kind of totally free flowing, relaxed, creative way

as

Aaron James: well.

So it doesn't have to be like a disciplined kind of thing

that's

Aaron James: really, I think really valuable. That's really important part of creative activity for me anyway.

Michael Frampton: I'm gonna ask you a philosophical question. Okay. What is the meaning of life? Oh,

Aaron James: I, I funny, it's funny. I have an answer to , this question.

So it's [00:34:00] super simple answer. , so here it is. So let me ask you this, let me, let me put it this way first. What is it? What first? So this is being a philosopher. First, let's ask a little bit, slightly different question. Okay. What is it for life to have meaning? So what is it for there to be a fact of the matter about whether life has meaning or not?

What kind of fact is that? That it has meaning. Okay, so that doesn't tell you what the meaning of life is. It just tells you what kind of fact that consists of. It will point you the way to know what to look for. So , here's the answer. What is for life to have meaning is just for, it's like for any set of events that occur is for there to be a, a story that's true enough, an app story that's true enough of those events.

Okay. Okay, it's the best story of those events. So the meaning, what is for meaning of life, is for there to be a true app story of the events that occurred in life. Okay, that's part, partway there for meaning in life, I think. But then the other thing you need is that, the story has to be a certain kind of story, not just any story.

It has to be a story that, , has a function. , it [00:35:00] reconciles you to being alive rather than not, and to your life events having gone a certain way, having gone one way rather than another. So it's a story you can tell that's true and apt about a lot about the events of your life. That, um, that you're feel like you're glad that you lived.

That was your life. You're glad to have that left. That's what is for it to be meaningful. It's you can be reconciled to if it's your life is subpar left has lacking in meaning. If there's not enough there, you can't be reconciled to it. Like it can be all I did, like end of life. Well, I did get a hole in one once, but I don't know if there's any, I don't know if there's what story, what does my life amount to?

Like someone at a nursing home, they're like, what is my life? Well, I don't know. And , they could go out dying kind of in despair because there's not enough meaning there in their life, you know? But, but what people do when they're finding meaning is then they'll just tell stories.

They're , well. My, my kids didn't grow up to be assholes and my, my grandchildren are beautiful people. And that's sort of, that's the story. That's the thing [00:36:00] they did. Like, that's how they're going to tell there's the story of their being a father, grandfather, grandma, you know, kind of thing like that.

Or, it doesn't have to be about accomplishments either. It can be a story about a failed efforts, what had serendipitous, consequences that are interesting. That's how I think about my midlife. So I just wrote a memoir about my forties. About my charity misadventures and behind Lagundry Bay, I did a bunch of charity projects there with a local guy and then, , so I told the story of those things as a story of like misadventure and serendipity, but not a complete success.

So if you're asking what's the meaning of my life, , well, what's, what's the best story you can tell about the events of your life? And does it let you reconcile yourself to having lived, having lived that life? So that's it.

Michael Frampton: The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Aaron James: Yeah. Maybe that's, that's way better. So far as , well, I don't know if it all live, it wouldn't work for all living creatures cause it's not because the other animals and all the cells and stuff aren't storytelling creatures, right? It's the humans that are the [00:37:00] story that are really prone to tell stories.

It's part of our sociality. I mean, dogs are incredibly social, but they don't tell stories to each other. I mean, it's part of what's distinctly human, that we can represent the world in various ways and coordinate our different attitudes around, um, through language and these stories. And that's a really, really big part of human social, sociality.

So, I think that's That and sort of narrative. Aspect of human that is it's definitely part and parcel of human life. So what is it to be meaningful? It's just like drawing from that way of being like, what is it? You know, it's just you're already in on the stories. I mean, stories also have other functions other than being what constitutes meaning life like.

Explaining yourself to someone, making yourself intelligible to others, so you're not dangerous or not too unpredictable or, you know, you could have a relationship with or, , be a friend , or, uh, someone asked, Why did you do that? You just, you tell a story about why you did that.

It could just be a rationalization and maybe it's not a true story. You're just making something up on the fly, but it's good enough in the [00:38:00] moment to like, make you feel like you understand what you were doing and that they can understand it. Maybe it's passable. So it flies as a rationalization, but it, so that wouldn't call that meaning.

So then bad views about meaning in life are just these are rationalizations, right? There's stories about life, but they're just not, they're not good stories. They're not the best stories. They're just stories that are getting told, told for an existential bomb, you know, like, don't worry, everything will work out in the end or something like that.

, what does that even mean? I don't know if there's really any, there's not even any super cosmic story with the, in which everyone, everything actually works out. I mean, like even the big one, like eternal bliss in heaven for, for the elect, you know, like there's a whole crowd of people that are burning in hell.

Eternal damnation doesn't work out for those guys. Karma doesn't work out like, you know, for the people that go down the hierarchy, the karmic hierarchy, they wind up, they were human, then they became dogs and then they [00:39:00] became insects and then they just killed and they became worms. That, that's not, that didn't work.

Things didn't work out for them. Uh, so these are bad. Those are, so you can criticize these, these are claims about what like is meaning, but they're not, they're not good stories. That should reconcile you to. So anyway, yeah, that's my new take on, um, that aspect of it. But actually I don't think that's all of meaning because of the basic, the basic meaning is still the meaning of surfing is just attunement, attunement to the world.

And I think that's a primitive that doesn't have to have a story to it. So the animals do that. Doesn't have a story aspect to it. And we do make stories out of it all the time, , and that's what we're sort of celebrating and we're trying for,

Michael Frampton: is the attunement of, a lion have to do with surfing?

Aaron James: So the stuff I was saying about what animals do before animals, like sensing, responding, sensing an environment, [00:40:00] moving, moving through it. In light of what it's like, what opportunity, what opportunities for action it affords, affordances is the way people talk about it, and then differentially skillfully responding to it, you know, for, for purposes to adapt, adaptation.

So like, this is like basically evolutionary stories about adaptation, about animals developing, being attuned to an ecological niche. So they can survive and reproduce in it.

Michael Frampton: You saying that the active surfing is just basically satisfying our animalistic nature?

Aaron James: I don't think it's, well, it depends what you mean basic.

If you mean something like that's all it is. Then I don't think it's all a lion is doing, or a dog is doing. I think it is what a lion is doing and an animal is doing, but it's also something more. For example, here's something that's definitely attunement. It's here, , and it's something animals don't really have in the way humans have.

Music. Making music, listening to music. Me hearing a song, you hearing a song. I'm attuned to the song, you're attuned to the [00:41:00] song, we're attuned to each other because we're both listening to a song at a concert. That's attunement. Okay, that's human, that's like deeply human. level attunement. Like that's part and parcel of every religious tradition, music, part of every culture.

Music's really important. It's one of the best things in life. Everyone agrees, but nobody, almost nobody hates, almost everybody loves music and things. It's like the best, right. And then dancing to music is all part of this playing music, like celebrated in the culture. You're like, Oh, you know, so, okay.

What makes that meaningful? Well, there's something that's a distinctively human thing, but it's still a kind of attunement. That's like what the animal, the lion, the dog is doing in attuning or a worm is doing in the tuning to their environment. I mean, it's, um, I still think of that as all different forms, ways that.

We're attuned, do attuning. And that's like a master value that explains why truth is valuable, why poetic metaphor is valuable. Why skillful practices are metaphor. There are all forms of attunement. This is like a master theory of it. So that doesn't have to be a [00:42:00] story-based thing that's call that basic meaning in life.

And then, and there's a distinctive thing that we humans do 'cause we're storytelling creatures, which is we attune to ourselves in each other and the world through telling stories about the events. Um, to make sense of them, right? And , that's, I think that's an essential part of meaning in life is for, for people, for humans,

Yeah, this is my grand theory.

Michael Frampton: Yeah, no, that's a good point. This is new, by the way, compared to Okay. It makes sense. Yeah. Because I, I mean, it just, it's more of a case for surfing because not, not only does surfing satisfy that animalistic mammal that has to move in a tune with nature, it also satisfies the, the, the dancer and the musician who wants to be at sync with the sound waves of the ocean that are coming

Aaron James: in.

Absolutely. So it's not a surprise that surfing is all about waves. With and wavelengths and being attuned to waves and [00:43:00] waves like and so is music and so is dancing and it's all attunement. It's pure attunement. I mean, it's not it's not pleasure. This is the thing to think about to it thing to get past is not to make it too subjective because it's not about the pleasure you get from music or pleasure you get from dancing pleasure you get from surfing.

The pleasure is as as Aristotle is proper to a virtue. It's proper to a skillful activity. . It's an in an activity. That's a response to an environment. And the response to the environment where you're, you're in sync with. Larger things. You're synced with wavelengths, with waves, you're, you're harmonizing with waves and wave, the wavelengths, that's ocean waves, the way that they refract across on a bottom in a song, it's the, it's the frequencies in a way that they're relating and dancing.

It's moving your body and saying, you know, it's, these are all ways of mixing forms of conversation or ways we sync with each other as well. So I think these are social forms of attunement. So I think that's like a master value, but it's a lot of what, like, every religious tradition is after, [00:44:00] what are they trying to do?

It's , well, an idea of how you can commune with God or nature or, , I think of that as, even if they don't use the word, if they think it's a They're, they're trying to be attuned to the world, to the larger, to the universe or to larger things. It's grandiose to call it the universe or whatever, if you're just being a surfer, but it's , so pretty big, you're a surfer.

It's like, I'm the ocean Pacific ocean. I'm thinking about the storms circling around below New Zealand. That's sending waves up to me. , you know, same super storm down there, sending waves up to the Indian ocean. I just talked to my friend in South Africa. He's going to surf those waves, you know, JB this week or whatever,

so you're attuned to large things, so there's the sublimity, that's the sublime of large things in the traditional sense, that sort of God is. Um, associated with, if it has to be super cosmic, like backing out, looking at the whole universe or whatever, then it's I'm not even sure what it's asking, it's too, it's getting too big or whatever.

It's getting greedy or whatever. Cause it's the earth isn't big enough, like this, the Milky Way galaxy, which is a [00:45:00] piece of shit speck of dust in the middle of the no way from the universe, you know, but it's like the idea that there has to be something, but then there's a whole.

set of galactic attunements that are out there too. So that's all this bigger thing that we have have some kind of cosmic place. It doesn't have to have any further meaning other than there's just this thing, the sublimity of it is, you know, there, um, we are connected So this is what I think of as so surfing is Right on the cusp there of what I like about it this way of thinking about surfing is that it's on the cusp of the low with the animals, even the worm is doing, but it fits with whatever religious tradition or spiritualistic tradition is doing to, you know, like at one level of description, right?

Michael Frampton: Yes, not on all levels. Yeah, right.

Aaron James: Think that's the true level. The ultimate truth is that all the truth is about attunement and why it's valuable is that's, those are like the ultimate truths. So that's the, that's my own story about meaning, you know,

Michael Frampton: Is there anything that surfing can't give?

Aaron James: Yeah, [00:46:00] I mean, it doesn't by itself, by itself, the act of surfing doesn't give you all the need for social connection. This is really important for humans. I mean, like,

Michael Frampton: well, it depends on where you surf and who you surf.

Aaron James: You have to bring friends, you know, you have to, you have to, friends have to be , I don't know, around, alive, not have family commitments so they can post up with you and.

Whatever sort of spot you're in. I mean, you know, like, uh, I mean, it wouldn't, there'd be something lost, even if you'd like had Tavarou all to yourself and no one was coming and you just had it for the rest of your life, , like John Rose, I mean, it was the resort, you know, he, he got it, say he got exclusive rights back and he just closed off everyone from being there and just decided to live solo, you know, like surf, surf, cloud, Rick.

I mean, he's. You know, I mean, it's not, it doesn't sound insane to a surfer, but like, he's going to miss out on all this, all the life of a surfer. And in fact, he spent, he can be there anytime. And he spends a lot of time in La Jolla where he's from and he's got, you know, relationships and, so like the social side of it and all the relationships and connection to human [00:47:00] society, man's a social animal, like Aristotle says, and so that surfing as such doesn't get you like writing, surfing, good waves.

Doesn't get you that by itself, bring your friends. Okay. But can you, how long can your friends stay? But the, you know,

Michael Frampton: the car, the car park is part of, and that's a social. Yeah, I agree.

Aaron James: Yeah, I agree. So that's a way you can sort of create a little forms of society around surfing and surf breaks. And like that adds a lot of meaning, I think, but that does it, that adds it in its own way.

That's, it's sort of premised on surfing and appreciation of surfing and love of surfing, but it's not, that's not the act of surfing. No,

Michael Frampton: just, surfing encompasses far more than the act of surfing. It's the culture of surfing.

It's the discussions about surfing. Okay.

Aaron James: Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. If

Aaron James: you want to, if you want to sweep in. Culture, the whole culture of surfing. Yeah. Well, I, but then the, but then the point is that the culture of surfing involves a lot more that's valuable. That's just, that goes beyond the act of surfing itself. It, for as beautiful as it is, it is.

I mean, the culture of certain [00:48:00] surfing wouldn't be cool and awesome as it is if that weren't, if surf, the act of surfing weren't this incredible thing, but it's still not the whole thing. The sociality is just a separate thing, you know? I mean mm-hmm . I mean, there's still part of it. You know, you can get like.

You can have be a surface solo sort of session in the best ways of your life and get one of the best tubes of your life come out of the barrel and have an ecstatic, you know, sense of bliss. But then be like, I wish somebody would see that. Yeah. I wish I had one friend who I could even tell, like, just talk, tell about it, tell about it, you know, like paddle back out and go, Oh my God, you know, like.

The best tube of your life doesn't provide that it doesn't provide the social connection.

Michael Frampton: That's right. And I would hazard a guess to think that a lot of people who do surf, the social aspect of surfing might be quite a large part of that because they know, they know if they are out there at 7am that so and so is going to be there to catch up for.[00:49:00]

So surfing is very it's a unique thing for everyone. We all get different things out of it.

Aaron James: Yeah. And actually there's a longevity connection here, by the way. It's like this fits why the way, like just surfing and sticking with surfing is an ace, as a biohack, basically like for a longevity point of view.

But the other reasons we mention health exercise. But the other thing that cor, that fits with the longevity studies, like the Harvard's Longevity study, that was like over 50 years of tracking people. And , the number one thing that correlates with longevity is, incidental interactions with people that are outside their narrow circle of trust.

So the second, the quality of intimate relationships was the number two factor. And that was defined as people you were close enough to, to ask, ask for a loan from,

then there's this broader set of people that the people who live long all had like, well, There's a correlation anyway between people who live long [00:50:00] and people who had lives rich and people they would just bump, bump, bump into. It could be at a coffee shop, maybe, or it could be like a third place, a library or a park or the beach, but surfers have it in droves.

They stick with the regular surf spot. They have all their friends chat about the waves, surf tales, surf stories. They're like in effect doing something that that correlates with longevity , even if they never surf. Just by being part of the, the regular chatting and surf chats and, which was all about the love of waves, you know, um, so that's like, and it's crazy.

Cause that's more important, correlation wise than marrying the right person. That's one number two, or not, or having good relationship with your kids. Is all these people down to the beach , the people that live like surf, are in one sense, I mean, I don't know what the causal relationship is by the, the longevity study won't tell you that, but , you could speculate about what it is.

We may, maybe it's something to do with what we were saying earlier about the social [00:51:00] socializing in the blue zones, but something about the sense of meaning and connection and social connection and feeling like you belong maybe is. That's what it is, and that's what surfers get all the time if you're just participating in surf culture, and they don't get that from just riding waves, it's it's the social, it's the socializing around riding waves that provides that.

But I would

Michael Frampton: suspect the people who you trust enough to ask for a loan, you'd get all of that from them in a far safer way. What you're getting from people who you don't know that well is a little, little bit of mystery, a little bit of, Chaos, maybe even it's still human interaction, but there might be an element of anxiety there as well, which is, which is a stressor, which is, as you know, it's like exercise, stress is the body, you know, maybe need that randomness of stress to as well.

Aaron James: That could be. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I'm thinking it's more like the element of surprise and serendipity and the sense of life is magical. [00:52:00] That, that was what I would think of like, I mean, like you, you bump into somebody and then you don't see him for a while and then you, you had the, you thought of them and then you'd like the next day you saw them down at the beach.

Hey, I was just thinking of, like that sense of serendipitous connection. There's, we have a lot of meaning about that. And I think that's like, it does feel magical, but it's also fairly predictable because it's like a relatively set number of people. Showing up to the same kind of place repeatedly you're not.

You don't predictably meet any one person, but you will meet you will encounter a lot of the different people pretty reliably over time. But this is , just part. It's part of the way of thinking about the value of communities organized around life. What? A lot of people organize their lives around a common place that creates a sense of community because it creates this serendipitous Interactions.

I mean, it's predictable, and this is why we organize around common places, but any particular given interaction is serendipitous and like it makes for friendship. You know, you bump into somebody three times and you're like, Hey, let's go have some beers, [00:53:00] It even feels uncanny, and it's meant to be, and magical.

There's just a lot of way that life feels meaningful and enchanted, just from that, , yeah, so I think that's, , you kind of belong, you feel like fortune is on your side. You belong to the world, fortune's on your side. Just, , all these little interactions really bring a lot of meaning.

Magic is the term people talk about it, but it's not woowoo magic, not woowoo magic, it's, but it's, it is a certain sort of magical way life can be beautiful and sublime and yeah, so, um, so I think that's I think that's part of it, then just part of the incidental friendship. So surfers are getting that.

Yeah. But you can get that by other sort of sets of relationships around common interests, but you don't have to be like in a blue zone or old folks,

you know, you're out in nature and beautiful place. And you know, yeah, you can do it for a long time.

Michael Frampton: You mentioned [00:54:00] religion and God. What's your definition of God?

Aaron James: Well I like this um, Spinoza has this kind of, it seems like he's evasive because he, he talks about God or nature, he has this super surfer view.

So this is Spinoza, this is like, he's a super heterodox. , Jewish philosopher and like heterodox and like, he's , he's accused of both being an atheist and a pantheist at the same time, because what he, what he thinks is that it's basically that God and nature are kind of one in the same thing. That doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

It exists. It's all nature, you know, like, uh, um, so he gets called an atheist, like you don't believe in God. He's like, no, no, I believe in God, you know, but, but, oh, you're a pantheist. I mean, you think everything that is is God, , and then it's like, maybe that's his view, but it's, but it's, but he uses this phrase, the Latin phrase, God or nature, and he's kind of evasive about it.

And, but his idea is that [00:55:00] through skillful activity and including things like cooking and exercise and like joyous conversations and dinner parties, by doing that, you're gradually getting closer to nature. And therefore closer to God. So, you're a part, that's like a perfection, increasing skill in these ways, is perfecting in activities is, is it being closer to God , and closer to nature, closer to God.

And that's all the same thing. So I think this is a very surfer, put it that way. That's not the traditional monotheistic definition of God, on which God's a separate and independently existing. Being your entity aside from the universe, which might've existed or not.

Michael Frampton: That

Aaron James: was an ancient

Michael Frampton: way of thinking and it's been bastardized over time as well.

I think maybe they thought about it differently than you. And I think they thought about it back then. Oh, it could be a closer to what you're saying now, mother nature. [00:56:00] The skill thing points to maybe like. If you're getting better at something, then you're envisioning yourself as being better at that in the future.

And that's what you're looking towards is God is you tomorrow. Who's a little bit better than, than you were today.

Aaron James: Oh, okay. I'm not sure that would be. I don't know if that's Spinoza's view anyway, but like, but I think it's supposed to allow the idea. I mean, it could allow the idea that there's some self transcendence in the activity like that.

You can think of through your activity. It's not just your own perfection that you're striving for. It's like excellence in the activity and that's connecting you to. Like the excellent excellence in surfing and waves and riding waves, you know, like, um, you know, so, and there's self transcend, you can think the value of that goes beyond your value of your performance.

And that is what surfers think. This is why you can go and hang around the car park and share the love of surfing. Even if you've Stop doing it. Well, you have an injury here,

you

Aaron James: Your better days are behind [00:57:00] you. It's still not about your own perfection, but still your, your appreciation of the activity.

I mean, a lot of times this is a point aerosol made, but a lot. One thing that appreciation and enjoyment of an activity often comes with. greater level of expertise in your own skillful practice, the more, the better you get at something, the more you often enjoy it. But on this view, it's not like there's still an element of self transcendence that could come from that appreciation, becoming a good as a better and better as a writer, which is a difficult thing to do.

I write and it's a really hard thing to do. And I'm Your standards are always rising faster than your ability. You don't ever get to feel very satisfied. You might grow a lot as a writer, but you, what you really come to appreciate is the craft of writing, you know, which is, a longstanding human tradition and piece of culture and constantly being practiced and, you know, appreciating other people's writing and, great works of right.

, more than your own, something like that. You might appreciate it and enjoy that as much as. Your own progress in [00:58:00] writing, um, you know what you might take it when you can get it. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Back to surfing , and God is surfing is surfing

Aaron James: purely selfish. Oh no, no, no. I don't think at all. I think it's about attuning to larger things in that connection.

Yeah. I think a lot of surfers, but that's within your own

Michael Frampton: experience.

Aaron James: It's selfishly. No, no, no. I think the value of this experience of surfing is that the server is attuned to the natural world to the ocean wave formations and the bottom bathymetry and the breaking waves. They are attuned to it in a harmonious way.

That's a real fact about the world. They are experiencing it and they are enjoying the experience of it. And they, but the value of it is, is, is that, I mean, it wouldn't have the same value if they were just. On an experiencing surfing experience machine on a VR headset and a lazy boy [00:59:00] like someone could have the qualitatively exact same experience and enjoy it sitting that lazy boy and have all the same pleasure, but not be doing the activity and that they're not they're not succeeding, and they're not doing well in life in the way that the surfer is who's actually right in the way they're not.

It's They might be indistinguishable even experientially, but you're not, you're not surfing. Yeah. If you're in a lazy boy, you're not surfing. You're just having, you're having a sort of similar,

Michael Frampton: I can grant you that surfing a wave is less selfish than sitting in a lazy boy. I give you that.

Yeah. No,

Aaron James: but you're trying to achieve something. I mean, it's, it does involve you. Cause you're, if you're the surfer, right. You're trying to be attuned to a wave in a certain way. So that makes itself referential partly, but that doesn't have to be really, your sense of self can also blur as often happens like on good waves.

[01:00:00] Right. You're, you're attuned to , so as you go along the wave. You have to adjust, constantly adjust body position and like responding to the next moment of the wave what it's, you know, and you have to do that spontaneously and that's often involves drawing you out of your awareness of yourself.

Like you might be think one part of your body position or another part, but in the in the limit like a really good long tube. You might completely lose all awareness of yourself temporarily, you know, but then realize, see the lip, realize you got to like twist or something that, but then, you know, back to total absorption.

Experientially, the boundary between self and wave and world can be pretty fluid. In the experience of the surfer, it's still you doing it in some sense, right? There's a surfer riding the wave, but you're doing it for surfing and it's you surfing the wave and, and it's surfers

Michael Frampton: isn't surfing pointless.

Aaron James: No surfing's worth doing for its own sake.

Michael Frampton: [01:01:00] It makes me think of it. If you're having trouble catching waves, don't try and catch the wave, except the waves invitation to dance.

Aaron James: Yeah, right. Sure.

Michael Frampton: Point I'm trying to make though, is like, it's selfish in the terms of, when you go surfing, you're not helping other people.

Aaron James: Okay, so yeah, so things don't have to be there's out there's altruism in the sense of altruistic motivation or altruistic actions in which are just the goal is just to benefit someone else.

Michael Frampton: Society as a whole.

Aaron James: Sure, yeah. Society, right. Contribute to society, contribute to someone other, some other person.

Is there anything wrong with friend, a friend doing a friend, a friend's doing something together because it's mutually enjoyable? Is that selfish? There's nothing selfish about that. Two friends having a nice chat, two friends seeing a movie together, two friends taking a walk. You do, they're doing it because it's, they're both.

Benefiting from its [01:02:00] mutual reciprocal benefit. Is it selfish? It's not selfish. There's nothing selfish about it. This is like a wonderful thing to do in life for its own sake, walk, take a walk with friends, chat with friends. , if you're really have someone's friend and you like doing stuff together, you don't think, why do you do this?

Well, cause I enjoy, I enjoy walking with. My friend, that's not quite, that underscribes what you're doing. Well, cause, no, cause talking with friends is great. It's worth doing for its, , we do that for its own sake. I mean, because we value friendship, we value friendship for its own sake.

You value your having friends, but because you value friendship for its own sake, you also value other people having friendships. So you might respect their friendships because you know what kind of value it has. Surfing, you surf for its own sake, and especially when you're the surfer, but you're, you're valuing surfing its own sake, means that you really appreciate seeing surfing done well, when your friend gets a good wave, or when a stranger gets a good wave.[01:03:00]

Stranger has been waiting a while, finally nabs a good one, you're like, yeah, good on ya, you know. Maybe the guy's kind of an asshole, but you're still like, yeah, I'm still happy for him. You finally got one.

Michael Frampton: I like that. That's a good perspective.

Aaron James: Yeah. So that's, it's, it's not the motives are not, I mean, there are some people that are just completely selfish surfers, you know?

That's possible, but I don't think that's the typical motivational profile.

Michael Frampton: Yeah, no, I agree. I also think that, if you're a surfer and you love surfing, if you make surfing, uh, one of the priorities in your life, you're actually a better person in every other aspect of your life.

You're, you're a better husband, you're a better worker, et cetera, as well. , it's not selfish in that way as well.

Aaron James: Okay. Yeah. So those are, side effects. I mean, there's one way of thinking about it, which is there's side effects like you're more easygoing and you're more relaxed, you're less stressed out.

And so you're better able to [01:04:00] fulfill other obligations or provide benefit other people or society. I think that's real. But I think there's might be something more than just accidental side effects. But I mean, it's , being a surfer means loving surfing and caring about something for its own sake and like engaging life for its own sake in a really robust way.

That's itself really valuable. And that lets you that lets you be the kind of person who engages other things in that same way. Like you're good. You can get because, you know, stoke is a surfer. You can get stoked about lots of other things. Surfers get stoked about lots of things. They're just prone to get stoked about stuff, right?

I mean like not things like arduous labor or whatever You know, but surfers are like the kind of people who can find Find a lot of joy and stoke and like activities I mean, a lot of surfers take to golf or, don't know, , maybe there's a lot of similarities in like the body movement or it's individualistic or something like that.

It's not just incidental bend, a [01:05:00] way of valuing activities or a way of valuing life or engaging life. Like flows over immediately to all kinds of other doing ways of doing other things, including being in a relationship, being a lover or friend or, you know, like you can be really stoked for somebody else's, you know, stoked to serve them or help them or support them or whatever, contribute to them, invest in them, really stoked about that in a way that's It can be totally altruistic, where, the boundary between self and other doesn't, doesn't really matter that much.

And you might be that kind of person, precisely because you're the kind of person who values surfing, and the boundary between self and wave blurs there too, and you have, and you have a sense that that's a supremely beautiful thing to do in life. , so you do it. You do it in a partnership as well. , yeah, so I think that I don't know.

That's , that's a little bit more than just sort of an accidental battery, , accidental connection. , surfing really recharges the batteries. And now I have more energy [01:06:00] for other things. It's , it's not just instrumental. There's something there's still a way of valuing activities.

It's like you're doing the same thing as surfing at one level. And when you're doing these other things, . A way of living life

Michael Frampton: I've never thought of it like that. I like that though.

You must have some different, uh, thinkings and definitions on what selfishness itself is

Aaron James: oh, yeah. I do in the sense that I think, the one that comes up pretty significantly in this, well, here I like Rousseau, Rousseau. Was a pioneering philosopher on this that had huge influence on psychology and stuff like, and so he thinks there's one form of It's caring about yourself.

That's just totally innocent. It's just the way every animal cares about themselves. You're looking out for your own. You feed yourself. You , say, shelter, you do things that you need to survive. And that's what he calls, , amour de soi, it's French, you know? So, and then there's a different thing that, that there's a different thing, which is of caring about yourself is, [01:07:00] is your sort of, is what we might call status consciousness or he calls amour pro.

That's caring about. How you measure up in the eyes of other people and especially so that you how you rank relative to other people so that you are either superior or inferior or there's this Comparison and status between you and others and Rousseau's big idea Is that this innocent thing that we do with the animal self innocent kind of self love is fine There's nothing wrong with it's totally natural normal healthy.

This other thing a more probe status consciousness is the root of all evil It's the root of all evil in social relations and our personal vices. It ruins us and makes us unhappy. It ruins social relations. It makes democracy impossible. It's the cause of political evil. So he's got this robust story about this.

And by the way, this is, this is his early work, his second discourse on inequalities. This, this story was where he first told us, and there's a later book called the social contract, which was the first modern version of [01:08:00] democracy that in fact had a big influence in Europe and instigated the French revolution.

And then the American Revolution. So it actually, we'll just really quickly, the idea of his one way of thinking about his idea of democracy was that it answers to this fundamental form way that we're self conscious. Uh, it solves that problem. Our status consciousness means is basically an unstable, normally an unstable situation because If we're competing if we're competing for status, there's no way like I always have to rank myself.

I can't love myself There's the idea. I can't love myself as though unless I rank myself as your superior You can't love yourself unless you rank yourself as my superior Or if you do accept yourself as my inferior, then you're living dejection. You can't love yourself. That way you're conflicted So all these evils and vices come out of this kind of status relation, but there's a solution There's a way out of this sort of This the status contest, and that's that have a form of political community democracy, [01:09:00] which everyone is sort of just sort of regarded as an equal.

So at one level, we're all political equals. So we have a republic of equals. Everyone gets a say in our political decisions at one level, our rights. And our rights and freedoms and prerogatives are all the same, and we all count as equals in that regard. So it confines our status contest to like, who's a better surfer, who's a better artist, who has more money, or who, you know, like, kind of, it contains the problem.

That's the idea. That's his idea of why democracy could last. When it never had in the past. And, , so far, like we're doing the world of storm historical experiment. We're seeing how long it can last and that, like it's on the ropes, right? Not the experiment, but uh, but that's the big idea. But you see it in droves, the status consciousness in the surfing lineup.

So this isn't just about the act of surfing the wave, but it's surfers competing for waves in the lineup. A lot of what they're competing over. Is [01:10:00] is well, just to get to get a wave, but it's also about their status position in the lineup, whether they're getting the respect they think they're deserve either as a local or whether they're getting enough good waves or whether they're getting their fair share, and then they go to blows and fight or fight over this.

, and, , what do surfers fight about? I mean, they pass all the time on good waves and let the other guy go if it's the other guy's right away showing respect, right? But they go to blows and have fights, altercations over perceived violations of the rules of right away all the time. And what are they fighting for there?

Well, it's for status and respect, right? They're trying to exact respect from the others. And like, they, they're in a status contest because they're not going to give it to you. Who belongs? Who's really an equal? Localism is about creating a hierarchy. We're not all equal. Some pigs are more equal than others.

To put it in terms of George Orwell Animal Farm, you know, like, all pigs are equal and some pigs are more equal than others. You know, like, so all surfers, all surfers, [01:11:00] surfing is for everyone. This, the beach belongs to everyone and some surfers are more equal than, we're all equal, we're all equal before the ocean and some surfers at this break are more equal than others, meaning we have a right to whatever ways we want and then you just get the scraps and then amongst the people within the hierarchy they might have their own pecking order.

That's all about status. That's a social hierarchy that's run on status. Now, I think that leads to a lot of behavior that is totally self regarding and self interested, but what people are fighting for is not just getting in more waves. Cause somebody might still fight, even though they just got a shit ton of really good waves.

Like, and they might even be tired. They like, they don't need another wave as it were. They're not even that worried about it. They might, but they're still worried about defending their position in the hierarchy. So they might still, , not let someone go or call the other person exercise their local prerogatives.

To just get a good one or get another good one yet another and they know [01:12:00] everyone else is human because they get this this guy just got another fucking good one, but he doesn't care because he's like, yeah, you bet you deserve. You're beneath me. Get get used to it.

That might be his point. That's why he takes off. And so dominance relations are can be a big part of surfer motivation, surfers will go out and say they want to go dominate, they want to go get a lot of waves and dominate. So that's way more than self interested, that's not just like for the love of waves, that's not just wanting to get your share, it's not just ego, it's not just egoistic, it's like of a deeper, darker kind of thing that's behind a lot of, a lot of life social, society's social ills and vices.

Michael Frampton: And so I think

Aaron James: that Rousseau story works for the surfing lineup, like it works really well.

Michael Frampton: The dominance, do you think that stems from caring what other people think?

Aaron James: Yeah. Uh, I mean, it does in the sense, I mean, in different ways. , It's not just [01:13:00] vanity wanting to be seen for being, you know, beautiful, good surfer or whatever.

It's wanting to be seen as having your proper, , place in the hierarchy recognized. So if you're, if someone's a top dog wanting to be seen as top dog, right? And that's what they call getting respect they deserve. They're due getting their propers, right? That's what they'll fight for. They're going to fight to not lose dominance.

You know, if they're, if they were previously dominant, like local, and they're starting to lose their ability, they can't surf as well, then they might become a more of a barking dog. They're not giving up. , this is like the silverback who's being chased. It's what is, this is more of the animal kingdom.

You know, higher apes do this in droves. This animal kingdom behaviors, that does apply over, but in humans, it takes a more insidious form because we . We tell all these rationalizing stories about why we're entitled. You know, I live here, la la la, I've been surfing here 40 years, la la la, , I'm the better surfer, la la la, , we make all these stories up, right?

And some of them [01:14:00] might have some, only the slightest real justification, and the rest is just rationalization, I think there's something to say for localism, the people that have invested a lot of time there, , in a break, they know how the break works, and they, they have, they have a stake in preserving it so that it's protected and preserved, and there's ways it can be degraded and they have a stake in and they're often the ones that are best positioned to know how what orderly wave sharing looks like.

And so they often have more should have more authority and disputes about what that is, those are sort of fair prerogatives that locals people who serve somewhere a lot have. Okay, local privilege goes way beyond all those sort of good sort of justification.

Yeah, it's complex. Just preserving healthy order, yeah. And it's all these complex stories, which we tell ourselves to go so far as to justify violence. Local guys justifying violence, like literally going and kicking someone's ass or ganging up on some surfer or , having a fight in the water,

so then that, so that goes pretty quickly to a lot of what. [01:15:00] Humans, that's not animals hurting each other either because animals do hurt each other, but often they, mostly avoid each other or they hurt each other. Sometimes there's a prey relationship and sometimes it's status, but, but humans go out of their way, humans go out of their way to kill each other at great cost to themselves.

And it's mostly murder rate around the world is mostly men killing men, mostly, and in one study of murder worldwide, the causes were, and they put it in this nice phrase, altercations of relatively trivial origin. Okay, so this is men, one man killing another or trying to kill each other. And they're doing it over for trivial reasons and which is to them not trivial because it's slights displays of disrespect and then they're fighting or they're fighting over status or fighting over keeping their place in a hierarchy.

They can't walk away, they can't just let it go, because they got to fight and they fight to the death they put themselves at risk of death, getting sued for their house and they're more losing their life [01:16:00] or going to jail, they do this, and they, so surfers do that. , but men around the world do this, right?

, and that's distinctively human. That's not, that's way beyond animalistic killing. Yeah. That's a deeply human kind of evil and it's, and surfers know it all too well. You grow up figuring out how to manage that shit. What's your place. You're just going to avoid it.

You're going to be cheerful and just let it all slide over your head. You're going to try to work up your way up the pack, your hierarchy. You're just going to be such a good surfer that everybody defers to you. You're going to try to. Become the local asshole, cause your uncle was, so now you can do, they got to find their way.

And that's , these dynamics.

That's selfishness, but selfishness isn't really, it's too crude. What is selfishness? I mean, it's too crude. It's like, there's nothing wrong with going in and getting waved. enjoying attunement to the wave. It's, you can do that partly for your personal enjoyment, for the love of surfing.

That's a mixed thing. Nothing wrong with that. You can just as well enjoy someone else surfing a [01:17:00] wave, seeing someone else surf away for the love of surfing.

But that's not, that's less selfish, more altruistic, but there's a self you're still enjoying being part of it. But then, the really sort of pernicious form of selfish is like status consciousness and aggressive attempts to.

Preserve your own place in a hierarchy or put other people in their place to preserve a hierarchy you identify with. Now you're getting into dark selfishness and that's not just one surfer greedily, yeah, not just greeting greedily trying to get away, out jockey someone else for a wave. So you get the good wave and they don't, that's contest for waves.

This is way beyond, this is like a pulling a hierarchy, a dominance hierarchy. Um, and that's going way beyond that selfish in lots of ways, but in a Darker, morally darker.

Michael Frampton: Yeah.

Yeah. Are you also saying that it's selfish in a way to compare yourself to others and it's less selfish, like if you're surfing to be better than [01:18:00] someone else or catch more waves and someone else that's selfish.

But if you're just surfing to be in tune with nature, then it's different, even though it might look. Even though it might look similar to someone else is what's going on within you. And the reasons why you're surfing is what really matters, which brings us right. So

Aaron James: that's, that's a good way of thinking about how our own attitude towards surfing can corrupt the act, the very activity we're doing.

Yes. So two different surfers surf, similar waves, each one, one surfs it just for the love of the wave and love of like, not comparing, just enjoying stoked. They want to share their good fortune with friends. You know, naturally, there's no, there's no more probe. There's no status consciousness there, right?

Another surfer surfs a very similar wave in a very similar way, the very similar style, but they're doing it to like, to be, , to surf better than this other guy to get more waves, to get another guy out from under another way from out in front of these other guys, stuff, hold their position in the pack hierarchy.

Now that status [01:19:00] consciousness, those comparisons. Are now those that's pernicious. And now that's going to undercut the value of the activity. So you can think of this is Rousseau's idea of what a lot of our activities are conflicted in this way. So our motivations are conflicted. And so status motivation can corrupt.

Are the value of the other activities that were otherwise doing. His famous in the second discourse, the early signs of status consciousness catching on are so he's got this idea of the settled associations of these hunter gather groups where they learn to cooperate and they get enough resources so that they have time for leisure.

And then, so then they gather around a campfire just to relax together and communal activity. But then people naturally, what do you do around a campfire? Well, one person starts singing, right? And then, oh, that's a wonderful thing. They sing in music and sharing a communal experience. But then one person has a really great voice and the other one's kind of pissed off.

They can't sing as well. In that comparison. Already.

He's

Aaron James: , that's man. He thinks that's manageable. It's not really a big problem, but that's already, [01:20:00] that's the beginning of, that's the beginning of status conscious of remote probe. And that's the thing that later, once you have a system of property and money and comparison status comparisons, that gets radicalized and undoes society, um, and leads to a dictatorship kind of tyrannical dictatorship.

But it's this, that's the, it starts with this at the campfire. So the, in other words. Like the thing that the group enjoys, the society enjoys together, which is communal activity, gets corrupted by status consciousness. And it sort of leads to this uncontrollable downspout. And one way of reading it is that democracy can help resolve that.

And give us a way to be, relate as equals, and then at least consolidate or isolate our status comparison. So they're limited to sporting contests and stuff like that. And, but, how well that's working is, debatable. , we have this, we have this mix of motivation.

Some of them are natural and good, like self concerning and other regarding, um, but then there's status consciousness and that [01:21:00] corrupts these other motivations and corrupts our activities. That's a really central Rousseauian idea and it's surfing totally fits. I mean, it might be arguably if it's competitive surfing as well, too.

I mean, maybe this is a debate about this, you know, because competitive surfing does have lots of advantages in inducing greater performance, but for a lot of surfers themselves, if they are surfing to be the best or not, you know, get a ranking they're essentially that's comparative. Like kind of status comparisons.

It's literally scored as a comparison and that can, they can lose their own appreciation of the value of surfing.

Michael Frampton: Yes. I

Aaron James: think I remember Mark Ocolupo saying , so he'd already succeeded. I think he'd been world championship champion too. And he said something about how he didn't, um, he didn't really learn to love surfing until he surfed, just surfed for himself now.

, so this is , so one way that sounds selfish, but it's not, it's less selfish than him surfing to win him surfing to win is surfing for status. [01:22:00] Right. He had mixed motives. Like he always loved surfing, obviously, , when you don't get to be as good as surfers, he does what I'm loving surfing.

. But, but he, and he acquired status in this sort of like kind of mixed, , just by his natural gifts, you know, and he did win a year world champ, , but then, , he wasn't enough of a competitor maybe to really sustain it, you know, over, or year after year or whatever.

And then he sort of gets burned out on competition. He learns to surf for himself. But that's that way of putting it. I would say he's learning to surf himself. He's learning to just surf for the simple beauty and joy of surfing, which is about a loss of self and connection communion with the waves.

You're surfing and that's learning to surf for the love of surfing, which is involves valuing something for its own sake. So it's that's a much less selfish In one sense, way of being then, then the status conscious way. No, I don't actually have anything against professional surfing either, but it just, I think it has its risks.

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: For most of us, surfing is an art form for some people it's a sport [01:23:00] and a competition, but I think that's a, but that's a nice way to round it off and to finish the conversation here is, which is where we started, which is surfing for yourself and for, you know, the attunement and. Just keep it simple for the simple act of surfing and

Aaron James: yeah, yeah, surfing for yourself and surfing for surfing don't have to be, that can be just a blurred thing.

Self and surfing blurred. So it's not inherently selfish. It's self, self transcending.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. Aaron, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I appreciate it.

Aaron James: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: Great

Aaron James: to be with you.