Skateboarding
I've never dreamt of skateboarding as a kid. Growing up in a hometown devoid of skateboarding culture, I can't recall seeing a single instance of discussions about this sport.
More than three decades later, the sport was still unattractive to me as it had always been. That is, until one fateful day during the Covid lockdown, I decided to buy a skateboard.
Haruki Murakami once recounted the moment that he realized he could be a novelist, after hearing the resounding crack of a baseball being struck at Jingu Stadium on an afternoon in 1978:
"The satisfying crack when the bat met the ball resounded throughout Jingu Stadium. Scattered applause rose around me. In that instant, for no reason and on no grounds whatsoever, the thought suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel."
Of course Haruki Murakami is a famous novelist while I am but an engineer who out of the blue starts skateboarding. Nevertheless, I, too, had that same pivotal moment, the moment when I questioned: why not?
// A Form of Tough Joy
It brought me a feeling completely distinct from a computer game joy and a reading joy. If there is such a thing as tough love, I believe skateboarding is a form of tough joy. It's a joy that demands perseverance and acceptance of failure. Skateboarding is challenging, and even the best skateboarders may struggle to land a trick.
Yet, we keep pushing. We fall and get back up. Fall and get back up. And slowly, a sense of vision starts to build up: we inch closer and closer. Days blur together, but THE DAY will come. The pain suffered gradually accumulates, like lava flowing into a volcano. Then, in one extraordinary moment, everything suddenly clicks and the trick is conquered. It may not be flawless, but it serves as the tipping point of the eruption of pure joy—the joy of feeling invincible and transforming suffering into something meaningful. It's, indeed, a tough joy.
// Finding Purpose in Friction
The modern society easily deprives us of purposes and meanings, by making us feel irrelevant and replaceable. We don't have a goal to fight for, and we live everyday without getting hurt. Skateboarding definitely hurts me (the skateboard once bounded up and cut my jaw), but it also provides me a purpose—to go uphill with joy.
As Friedrich Nietzsche beautifully captured:
"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
