lightness about being.................

     This brings us to the main result of our inquiry.  Sartre seems mistaken about human nature.  He puts freedom before flow.  The surfer suggests that flow comes first.  Flow is a matter of attunement to what lies beyond the self, and it is through attunement that we find full freedom and contented peace.
      Angst is not our natural state but socially induced, by a cultural requirement such as the Protestant work ethic.  For Sartre, out anxious culture simple reflects our anxious selves.  Our need to be seen, loved, validated, and Instagram "liked";  our ceaseless preoccupation with self-presentation in social media postings, fashion choices, and displays of wealth, of sex appeal, of intellectual plaudits, or of taste—these are mainly public expressions of our "being-for-others" that anyway would haunt our private thoughts.  We each hope to recognize ourselves in the gaze of others but find ourselves in fraught, even hellish, conflict, always denied mutual recognition and lasting peace.  For the surfer, our natures and our social dynamics are less fixed.  Our attunement to others or to our natural environment can certainly be spoiled in a confused culture.  But it can equally be eased and drawn forth in cooperative practice.  Our driven, time-is-money work culture is a disability for living.  But we can lessen the demands of work, in a shorter workweek, and our anxieties can be reduced.  The surfer's lightness about being could be for all of us.

-Aaron James,  Surfing With Sartre:  An Aquatic Inquiry Into A Life Of Meaning