Kelly Slater’s guide to staying forever yung

Words by Ali Klinkenberg

Mankind has been forever obsessed with immortality. The Fountain of youth, the holy grail, the philosopher’s stone, the indomitable Gauls in the adventures of Asterix and Obelix. And the question that we really have to ask is: did Kelly Slater, like Obelix, fall into the cauldron of magic potion when he was a baby? Mr Slater’s 43 years old, and yet his vitality and lust for competition and innovation is unparalleled. How is it that someone has stayed so relevant for so long? Is it some freak of nature, comets colliding miracle? No, it’s far more deliberate than that. Mr Slater has carefully curated a formula for staying young, sprightly, and, happy! Here’s the ingredients to Mr Slaters secret brew:

The mind. Spirituality’s a dirty word in many circles. Unless, of course, it’s late and certain arrangements have been made to facilitate the watching of stars and the loosening of tongues. But Mr Slater truly believes that it is in art as it is in life. “Your results are what happen after you make choices,” said an insightful Mr Slater after his painful loss to the Italian Ferrari in the Fiji Pro. “And I feel like I haven’t been making the best choices. There’s a lot of things in my life that I need to work on, and sometimes I think that surfing’s an indicator, that there’s a spiritual message you can get from the things that you do. The results haven’t come, and when you’re clear-headed and decisive things just seem to fall into place. You’ve got to get your head right. In everything in life.” Here ends the first reading.

He’ll take you to the chia shop…

The Diet. Imagine waking up feeling loose, limber, slim, flexible and non-hungover every single day of your life. Kelly Slater’s been alive for 15,822 days, and, bets are that he’s probably been feeling more or less fabulous for 15,800 of them. It leaves so much time for activities.

We’re just friends.

The Women. Mr Slater, much in the style of Mr Bond, is living proof that playing the field is good for a man. Pam, Gisele, Bar, Cam, the list goes on. But, the trick is to get it out of your system when you’re young, and then settle down with a more modest gal with a pearly smile later. You know that glamour that you’ve never forgotten? She’s likely living in a trailer full of little bastards, addicted to paint thinners. Girl next door’s the go. How does Mr Slater sleep at night? With a glistening dome full of enviable memories.

Paintball rules.

The Risk. Mr Slater’s a gambling man. Not the sort that rolls dice and counts to 21 over and over in his head, but the kind who likes to invest his pesos in a start up. K-grip, Komunity, VSTR, The Chia Co, Purps, GoPro, and the soon to be Outerknown. Looking back and thinking, “I should’ve tried my own thing,” is something that Kelly’s in no danger of.

The Technology. The great Stephen Fry looks at technology like a mirror, “If an idiot looks in, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.” Undoubtedly one of the keys to Kelly’s longevity is his ability and willingness to adapt. Whether it be his incessant exploration of surfboard design, or his constant striving to improve his own surfing, or, something as seemingly simple as adopting the new age role of the celebrity in social media. Kelly was one of the first in the surf realm to open himself up to his fans, and, aren’t we all (the great man included) the richer for it.

The Fun! “You can’t raise boys to be scared of life,” says Royal Tenenbaum. “You’ve got to breed some recklessness into them. I’m talking about putting a brick through the other guy’s window, about taking it out and chopping it up.” Perhaps the most potent spice in Mr Slater’s broth is his insatiable appetite for fun. Being good at stuff is really fun, I’d imagine. Surfing, golfing, terrorising the media, Kelly’s good at all of it. The great playwright, composer, director, everything, Noël Coward, maintained that the secret to his prolificacy and longevity was that for him, “Work is more fun, than fun.” If there’s an ode to Mr Robert Kelly Slater’s secret powers, it may well be thus. No man has more fun.