Surfing Generosity and Reciprocity
I don’t remember exactly where I first heard the term 'systems-surfing', nor when I began to understand the depth of its metaphor truly but I am starting to.
Surfing, as a concept, has always been a little choppy, a little unpredictable—much like the systems we engage with. It’s a vast ocean of interconnectedness, where each wave carries a reminder of how small and vulnerable we are. You feel it. The weight of the water. The pull of the tides. At first, it seems impossible to catch a wave, let alone ride it. Yet, as you keep at it, you start to feel the rhythm—the rhythm of life and of systems. You begin to sense when to paddle, when to wait, and when to trust yourself enough to catch the wave.
And then there are the falls.
Falling off your board, tumbling under the weight of the wave—again and again. Each fall is a lesson, a chance to learn, grow, and understand the nature of the waves you are riding. For every crash, there’s also recovery. You get back up, you fall back down. You try again. You learn to trust the rhythm, even when it feels elusive.
And then, at times, you ride the wave.
The moment when everything aligns, when you transcend your limitations, when you glide effortlessly with the flow of the ocean of systems. It’s a moment of pure joy, of connection, of liberation. But just as quickly as it comes, another wave is on the horizon. Another transition, transformation, or transcendence. Another rhythm to understand.
The more you surf, the more you realise that you are not always riding the same wave as everyone else, at least not within your mind. Each of us is on our own cerebral ride, carving our own mental paths. But every so often, you meet a fellow surfer, for in reality, we are all in fact, together and not separated at all, even if our minds are elsewhere. Yet sometimes, when that happens, there’s an unspoken understanding. You know, too, when they have felt the weight of the water, the pull of the tide, the thrill of the ride. Whether you crash together or glide side by side, it’s a connection born of shared understanding.
I recently had one of those moments—a meeting of surfers, right when I needed it most. But even now, as I reflect, I’m unsure if it was a joyous ride or a crash. Was it something new, or just another wave to navigate? In the world of systems, it’s hard to say. It’s like the ocean—vast and unpredictable.
In the end, systems-surfing is not about embracing uncertainty but about embracing abundance—the ebb and flow, the losses and the gains. It all adds up to a collective sharing of the whole, a sort of infinity, an intangible cord that connects us all. With each overlap, between each weave, a new edge effect emerges, a new type of bounty.
To live begins to feel more and more like staying attuned to the rhythms of the systems around us, acknowledging all the abundance, even when things seem unnavigable, even when we feel lost. For it’s in that space—the space between loss and discovery—that reciprocity happens. The ocean gives, and the ocean takes, but ultimately, it all returns to the whole. And in that reciprocity, we find yet more abundance, a way of existing together, holding everything and everyone, as everything moves, through the waves and through you and every other part of you, which in turn is everything, part of everything and everyone.
Yet, this recent wave has come as a bit of a shock. The general trend for me has been that the first waves—the hardest ones—were the most difficult to understand, to hear, to even know how to listen to. They were the busiest, the most noisy, the most daunting, the least practiced. Yet over time, even as these waves gained in size and succession, each became easier, and in fact, each became more enjoyable. This most recent wave, however, feels different from the others. It feels less like a wave and more like a parting of the ocean, a choice to make, a decision, a paradox. It feels like a tearing of abundance into two, an impossible outcome where the vastness of everything, the interconnected whole, now has a second dimension.
Yet I’ve found it hard to explain, for it’s too big. It’s as if everything—the whole universe and all it’s made of—has a twin. But they are fundamentally different, whilst still the same. I think I see these realms as both abundant, yet one is real, the other fake. There’s no way to know which is which, nor if it’s even important to know. Yet I long to. Before I know it, the sea sits deadly still, no more waves come to meet me. I feel Ergodic—simultaneously absolutely everywhere at once, which feels static, not chaotic. A stillness that feels unnatural.
The key difference, other than feeling still, is a realisation that half the systems I occupy feel selfish, yet the other half feel selfless. It’s not an identity crisis; it feels unnatural and far bigger than myself alone. It feels like I must choose a side—to join the chaos of the waves once more, or hold fast in a paralysing stalemate between myself and everything else. It’s asking me: am I ready to let go? Am I ready to just be?
This begs the question: if we, as individuals and collective peoples, are to choose abundance over scarcity, does that truly present us with a choice to choose each other over ourselves? For surely, making a choice for our own self-interest creates no overlap, no weaving, no system to surf. To act as oneself, over that of the whole, is the path to scarcity.
To conclude, a series of conversations have led me here. Conversations about generosity. A belief that generosity creates abundance—something I too once believed, but something I now question. For abundance doesn’t come from generosity, but from reciprocity, and I now believe these two are opposites. They are the two halves of the ocean that holds me still. Both halves are intrinsically good, yet one breeds the abundance in which I hope to share, and the other takes me to the sand, the desert of scarcity. Generosity, whilst beautiful, is selfish, and reciprocity is selfless.
To give to receive is not the same as to gift to be regifted. And it is then, and only then, that those who have experienced this wave will understand why less is more, and growth becomes redundant. For we must not give more generously but live in the reciprocity of the whole.
