A Good Day
54th Edition
Happy Spiritual Monday!
Over my time of thinking, contemplating, philosophising and the like, I have aimed to do my best at avoiding using infinites, definites and similar stone carved phrases. At another time, I will go deeper into why and how, suffice it to say there is pretty much always subjectivity involved in any declaration. But I hear people say things like “It’s a good day” or “Such good weather!” and the opposite of “This is shitty weather,” or “What a shit day!” and this gives me reason to chuckle a little bit. The reason is subjectivity.
While we’re on the subject…
I love how often people use the term “objectively.” It’s laughable to me, as I find people who stand behind the objectivity of their arguments amusing, when clearly there is going to be some inherent bias towards what they are saying. Sometimes, definitions can help, so here’s a quick one for the word objective from our friends at Merriam-Webster:
“Expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations”
There are usually examples given to emphasise the point of the definition, and in this one, I laughed a little bit out loud to myself:
an objective history of war.
Wow. If you’re looking for a definition of impossible, I’d say there you go! Objective is impossible to convey, for once a subject interacts and recounts, there has immediately been a slant to the original beauty of whatever the initial thing was.
Subjectivity is sometimes referred to as illusory, not real, or unique to the individual. It could even be argued that in our daily lives, there are many of us running around aiming to influence others with our subjectivity in hopes that they might adopt our perspective on life and agree with us on topics.
Anyway, I didn’t want to get too deep into this today, just a base line for where we go next.
A Good Day
What constitutes a good day? If you’re into football, perhaps it’s watching your team win the World Cup. If you’re into sprinting, perhaps it’s running the 100m dash in the olympics and shattering the world record as you win the gold medal.
Whatever the activity or action may be, there is a feeling that one associates with a good day. That is a feeling of goodness. But how do we quantify this? Again, we are relegated to the debate over subjective and objective experiences… But, all I can do is share my feelings on the matter.
For me, a good day is one where I feel overwhelmingly present for the majority of my time awake. I would add that I experience the good day as usually a build up or a contrast to the build up of time that has preceded it, which I find is important to share in my own defining of the subject. For example, if it’s been raining for a week, then a clear, sunny day occurs, most will experience a good day simply due to the contrast in weather, but also due to the nearly objective agreement that a sunny day is a good day. The same would occur if it was sunny, humid, sweltering days for a week in a row, then a storm broke and the rain cleared all the moisture from the air. Many would feel relief, that it was a good rainy day.
This sense of “good” can come through many avenues, but I will illustrate with an example from my recent weekend, because it pertains to this point exactly.
Good Surf
To anyone who surfs, you will know that we have an incessant hunger to chase good surf, good waves. Yet again we are faced with the questions, “what is good surf and what are good waves?” Again, subjectivity appears. To the beginner surfer, small crumbly whitewater is fantastic. To the big wave charger, 50ft mountains of water are the only thing that will suffice. And there are other variables that will shift as time goes by.
For me, this past weekend was an illustration of these variables. You see, my best friend has flown into town, and I haven’t seen him in 3 years, so Im’ already stoked to be hanging out with him. Day upgraded. We have taken a road trip up to the Northern Rivers of New South Wales to visit friends in paradise for a few days, which, again, adds to the pie. Over the weekend, we spent the entire day at the easternmost point of Australia, which is magical by its nature, and the weather was postcard-esque, there were plenty of waves, and good friends, and to top it off, my best mate in Australia drove down with his family to join us for the day.
Naturally, we were gonna surf. But there were options. A big, fat crumbly roller way out the back on the far east peak, a beautiful peak in the end section with a moderate crowd, a pumping peak at the rarely alive mysto section with a decent crowd on it. Decisions. And what board to ride?
Well… Long story short, my best friend found a sneaky in between section where nobody was surfing, and I watched him get about 5 waves in a row on the log with no competition and a high fun quotient. We went there. It was literally me and two of my best mates, surfing clear blue water, with stunning scenery, nobody else and huge smiles. The waves were fun, too. They may not have been the best shape/ size for the beach, but the fact that it was just the 3 of us on repeat made it one of the best surfs ever. It truly was a good day.
So, it came down to quality of experience. We could have got down to the more perfect shaped waves and that would’ve been epic, but we wouldn’t have had the same connection between us, or wave count and fun quotient. We had a blast, got some little barrels and all with no need to fight for a single wave. It was a fucking great day!
In Reflection
As I reflect on such an epic session, I feel to just leave it there, as I feel that is enough, even though we continued on to a glorious dinner with friends all around us, with my little prince sleeping like a champion.
I suppose what I wish to convey through the recounting of a good day is to stoke the fires within you to get clear on what you define as a good day. Then see how many you are enjoying recently and if the number is low, consider what you might change so that you can have more good days in your life.
Remember, the time is always now, so don’t wait for tomorrow to be good, today still can be!
And so it is.
A Good day