The Philosophy of Skating and Life

[theluke55]

Skating is not only a lifestyle. Skating is life. In life there are stages, trials, celebrations, and you never know what will happen next. Skating is the same way, and it is intrinsic to who we are as humans.

Stages:
The first stage is the discovery or birth stage. Its a time to learn and create, and explore. Every possibility is thought of and everything can be attempted. Everything can be touched. This step is critical as it marks the beginning of the journey. After that is the stage of battle where personal progression fuels and drives yourself to do bigger better nastier tricks in your mind. This is the stage where the limits are pushed and where abilities are unlocked. The next stage comes when skating takes on a bigger meaning and skating for yourself isn't the only important thing. There are causes and things greater than yourself that pushes this stage. In this stage, you are part of a team, or you are doing something in the community that makes a difference in anyway. The next stage is creating your own way to make an impact in the community as a whole. Which leads to the final stage of helping those who are younger keep living life the way it was meant to live, free of rules, and expressing yourself in the best way possible.

Similarly in life, you are born and need to be nourished. Then when you get older you start to test your abilities. Then you find a community and a bigger meaning to life. Then you decided to make a change to the bigger meaning of life. Then you encourage and provide a pathway to those who are coming up to find the right paths.

All these stages are interchangeable and you can still have an OG pushing his/her own limits in whatever way that is, or nourishing their creativity.

Trials:
Skating has unexpected injuries, roadblocks, and difficulties. But it is the best feeling in the world to get through all that and do something you had in your head that you wanted to do. Similiarly in life, there are gonna be difficulties and unexpected things happen, but when you finally get what you worked so long and hard to get, its the best feeling.

Celebrations:
Life has many things that also present unexpected awesome things. They can be very simple like looking at a flower and feeling the warmth of the sun, but in everything there can be some kind of celebration. In skating, that feeling of ecstasy can present itself in the most small and random things. The feeling of pushing down a street, or the survival of missing cars can be enough to give that feeling of celebration. Finally landing a trick that has been with you for so long can be such a healing thing. Eating pizza with skate homies after a long bad day, can spark the healing of celebration.

In my opinion, there is nobody that knows life better than a skater. Because when skating, we are living.

[MRCK]

you always have some good hindsight and a solid understanding of things man ! always enjoy reading your little essays

[NoSwitch]

Nice thread bump. Wonder what Luke's up to and if they still skate..

[Rev J]

Lately I've been thinking about how for me skating, playing music, my exercise routine, interest in Buddhism, meditation etc. have all started bleeding into each other and effecting each other. I was thinking about starting a blog about it and was wondering if anyone would be interested.

[MRCK]

Nice thread bump. Wonder what Luke's up to and if they still skate..

haha wow. i swear for some reason his message showed up in my unread posts of the day, so i didn't even question the date. been on this site for 10 years and never had the accidental thread bump thing happen to me. not a bad post to unearth though

[rulesoferick]

This is like a good essay I enjoyed reading, thanks

[MaryBlogger]

I enjoy reading your article. I am a blogger, mostly i write about technology and live skating.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[Rev J]

It's interesting I just ordered a book off eBay called "The Tao of Skateboarding A Skateboarder's Philosophy to Life". It seems like it will be an interesting read I've always been interested in looking under the hood so to speak.

[wbaker]

There's literally a book about everything lol.

[rockst*r]

There's literally a book about everything lol.

Are you also on Skullandbonesskateboards.com?