Photo: Timo

What does all this tell us? Perhaps nothing.

People will always do people things, surfers or otherwise, being responsible for the greater good is not always something that surfers, themselves dedicated to an essentially selfish, solitary act are very good at.

If you’re new to the sport, you’ve begun the hunt for a resource that surfers have long believed to be rapidly diminishing.

As Hardin observed, a shift in thinking may be helpful, and in our case, some believe that rather than treating the waves themselves as the resource, treating time in the ocean spent in their pursuit as the resource and striving to optimize that could help reduce surfer/surfer tension.

Shift the struggle or conflict to gaining maximum time in the water, and then let the waves come to you.

Your allocated time (over a lifetime) would be a factor of your own skills, decisions, preferences, desire, luck, and several other things.

But while we’re righting the evils of the world, let’s maintain a touch of perspective by sparing a quick sentence to the third of the planet’s human population that are locked in a to-the-death battle with each other for water, food, breathable air, education and medicine (according to UNICEF some 30,000 children die every day due to poverty), while we’re screaming injustice because somebody paddled inside us on a 2ft wave we so badly needed to flap along.

You can read up on all the codes, learn the different handshakes, head nods and shakas to try to be cool.

But you don’t really need to throw your arms around the world, nor anything else.

Just try to dedicate as much of your time and energy to the ocean as you possibly can, keep in mind how lucky you are to be doing so.

And perhaps, above all else, try not to be a dick.