Past tense offers authority, distance, and present tense offers emotional immediacy.

What I'm saying so badly is we're bred now to believe we're in control and should be in control.

Surfers are the canaries down the mine. Those of us who surf spend more time than anyone soaking in whatever the sea has become. We're suspended in consequences, you might say.

The health of our seas determines the future of humanity.

Whether you're in the water staring up at a looming set or standing in front of 15000 people at a demo, you have to manufacture some courage and a sense of optimism in order to get through the moment, the day, the rest of your life.

Every great moment of social change was once a confirmed impossibility. People's determination in the face of overwhelming odds has, time and again, triumphed over what seems impossible. This is what you tell yourself.

I don't believe there's anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help.