Why do certain words stick? It might look like chance, just random reasons. Or maybe it´s Providence trying to convey something deeper to us.
Look at the words surf and surfing. They are now intimately connected with the Internet.
Surfing is a water sport. It is about waves and the skill to “ride” them, almost as a horse.
You surf on the surface. A skilled surfer stays above water while an amateur crashes deep below. The intention is to stay afloat.
So surfing is a great word for horizontal, outer-oriented movement. The vertical movement on the other hand is typified by diving, diver.
In an interesting article about how we came to “surf the internet” I find this quote.
“Before we surfed the net, folks mined it, navigated it, explored it, used it, or cruised it. “
The first word is thought provoking. What if it had stuck instead? Then our world might have been less superficial. We would be thinking mining, digging, excavating, unearthing when we sit down in front of our computer.
Nowadays we don´t even sit. We just walk, surfing the streets as we surf the Net.
