i went surfing

Today I went surfing and it wasn’t the best experience of my life. But I learnt a lot from going out there.

Firstly, I need practice. I am not a natural born surfer even if I have all the clothes. Most of my own faults make me a lousy surfer. I have no sense of balance. My arches are too high. Lots of physical problems but you know what… I’ll keep on trying… I’m in Hawaii, dammit…

Secondly, surfing is all about choosing the right wave and riding it. That is something I’m not great at too. It means waiting for what is right for you and taking full advantage of it. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s letting opportunity slip through my fingers. And the other thing I’m good at is choosing the wrong thing to jump onto. I’m the only one I know who jumped on Star Trek cards when everybody else was doing Magic™. Yeah, making the wrong decision is like my ™.

You see, everybody here looks for the perfect wave and from what I gather from my lit class, perfect means complete. In other words, we are all looking for the wave that completes us. Let’s now apply this to life…

We are all looking for something perfect. Some of us are looking for the perfect guy or girl or the perfect religion. Well, if it completes you then it is complete. I’ve been looking for the perfect girl since like forever and you know what, I have yet to find her. Maybe I have yet to find a girl to complete me.

I guess the best thing I can compare it would be a jigsaw puzzle. If you were one half of a jigsaw then when you meet your other half, he or she would complete it. The problem here is, what does it mean to complete yourself. The funny thing for me is that today, my lit lecturer told us a story about a guy name Aristophanes and his theory of love from Plato’s Symposium.

The story goes like human beings were all made with four arms and four legs and two faces and we were all very powerful and wanted to overthrow the Gods on Mount Olympus. But the Gods figured out the plan and Zeus decided that instead of destroying his beloved creation, he would just split us into two. So we were all split into 2 which is why we often refer to spouses as our better half.

I guess we all just need to ask ourselves constantly what completes us. My answer is I don’t know but I will when I feel it and I guess that’s it. I once told some people that I had a list in my head of the Perfect person and in reality the person who completes me is the person who throws that list right out.

Same as in surfing. There are many waves out there and the perfect wave for all of us is the wave that compliments our level of surfing. The perfect wave for a novice like me would be different from the perfect wave for a seasoned pro. Thus, whatever is perfect for us is what completes us and nobody else but us.

So, Let us go and search for whatever is perfect for us. Whatever completes us and makes us whole. Like Jerry McGuire, Let’s search for that one thing that makes us go, “You complete me.”