Surfing is a sublimely beautiful, profoundly meaningful, indeed totally awesome thing to do with one's limited time in life, just for its own sake. It is, by itself, reason enough to be alive rather than not.

There are ways of coping with the seeming meaningless of existence, such as eating a cheeseburger. If you must be alive, why not? Surfing has the opposite existential purport.

Being open to serendipity, watching for it, celebrating it, and even bringing it about is a meaningful way of moving through the world and finding more meaning in life.

The act of riding a wave, a fortunate coalescence between skill and circumstance, is a sort of serendipity. The stories su...