When you're surfing you're not thinking about where you parked the car or what you're going to do when you grow up or what you're going to buy when you've got lots of money. You know, you're just there. You're in the moment. And I think in a contemporary world, that's a rare privilege.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of being present and enjoying the moment.
Tim Winton's quote highlights the beauty of living in the present, especially while engaged in activities like surfing, where one's mind clears of all distractions and worries about the future. In today's fast-paced society, finding moments of pure presence is becoming increasingly rare, and Winton suggests that embracing these fleeting instances is a valuable privilege.
In practice
During a motivational speech about mindfulness and being present.
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.
I just sit here and tell the story as though I can't help it. There's always something in the day that reminds me, that sets me off all hot and guilty and scared and rambling and wistful, like I am now.
The night is full of stories. They float up like miasmas, as though the dead leave their dreams in the earth where you bury them, only to have them rise to meet you in sleep. Mostly the scenes are familiar, but sometimes everything is strange, the people unknown.
Hunting and gathering are in my blood. But I've lived long enough to witness a diminution in the seas, and to notice a fragility where once I saw - or assumed - an endless bounty.
The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast approaching end of a journey-double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day.
The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled.
I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.
I'm not the type of person who likes to look backwards. I've always felt compelled to move forward and I've never been one to dwell in the past. All the people I've met, all the places I've been, and all the things that I've done have simply been part of who I am.
How many years have slipped through our hands? At least as many as the constellations we still can identify. The quarter moon, like a light skiff, floats out of the mist-remnants Of last night’s hard rain. It, too, will slip through our fingers with no ripple, without us in it.
I feel it's important to be active. People who retire, sit by their swimming pool and golf course and plan to relax have a very empty life.
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