How 2 Weeks of Bali Surfing & Digital Nomading Changed Me

Bali Surfing — October 2022

I have been struggling with a difficult question for the past year. Many in philosophy have tried to tackle this question to help others live their best lives, but for me, it has been more of a selfish conquest. Here’s the question:

With the short time I have here on earth, how can I maximize my human experience?

Could this question be the result of a quarter-life millennial's crisis? An existential dilemma brought about by being inside too much during the last 2.5 years? Perhaps it is, perhaps not, but I flew to Bali with this question well in the front of my prefrontal cortex. So after landing at Bali Airport and painfully passing through immigration, I sat my ass down on the beach searching for a cold coconut and a good solid surf session.

Socrates Didn’t Have a Surfboard & Laptop in Bali

I looked around on the beach and saw hundreds of people begging me to rent a surfboard for the rest of the evening, and I’ve always found it funny how no matter where you go in the beach world there are always guys with dreads and washboard abs. It’s as if surfing molds people into the “chill surfer dude” motif with very little deviation. But I digress.

After scoping out the beach, my friend and I picked one of the many surf shops that had friendly staff who weren’t too pushy to rent us surfboards. A laissez-faire style of business always attracts me quite a lot, so we shelved out 50K Rupiah (~$3.50 USD) per person for a couple of hours before the sunset would start at 6:15 pm. Perfect. Let’s do it.

Now I’d done a few surfing lessons before, but I wouldn’t say I was good at it. I can’t ride big waves just yet, so I was scared that Bali’s beaches wouldn’t be for me. But wow, I couldn’t believe how great Kuta Beach’s wave sets were. The entire beach was filled with perfectly-sized waves for beginner and intermediate-level surfers like me to gain confidence, and it had enough larger waves for more advanced surfers. I knew it would be the perfect sandbox for me to…