Page 34 - Sorry, We're Not Hiring Any Visionaries Today

SORRY, WE’RE NOT HIRING ANY VISIONARIES TODAY
on that damn board, there’s an overwhelming sense of freedom and flow. That’s something that I’ve done for almost 50 years. I’m a weirdo as a result of it — at least, some people think I am!
People look at me and say, “Aren’t you too old for that thing?” I turn to them and say, “You’re going to pry this skateboard from my cold dead hands.” They look at me and think I’m even more of a weirdo. I give them a flyer for my book on skateboarding and death, then they think, “This guy’s a triple weirdo” and run away!
So I’ve just embraced it. I’ve just embraced the fact that this is the most in- credible thing for my mental health. If I’m feeling crappy, and it’s a day where it’s just been awful, I jump on that board, and it releases all kinds of tension. But it goes way deeper than that.
I think 50 years of rolling practically has, from a physiological stand- point, kept me in balance in ways that are deeply spiritual. Sure, I have good balance, but mentally, the metaphor of too far to the left and too far to the right is perfect for managing today’s world. If you go to the ex- treme left on skateboards, you go in a circle. But if you go extreme right, you also wind up in a circle. This mantra of extremism, for me, is perfect, because the only way forward, the only way to progress on a skateboard, is a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right — the momentum has to swing both ways.
Skateboarding has given me an opportunity to see both sides. They say that the test of first-rate intelligence is to be able to have two different ideas in your head and still function, so I can see both sides.
I’m not like Switzerland, because I’m not neutral on certain things, but I call myself a radical centrist, and I think part of that is from the very physical as- pect that skateboarding has made such an impression on me, emotionally.
Skateboarding can be a Zen-type activity. It could be described as moving meditation, like Tai Chi.
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