Surfing can kill you. Just a few days ago, Newport Beach surfer Greg Gladstone drowned while surfing near the Newport Pier. But drowning isn't the only hazard out there. Anyone who's been in the ocean has, at some point, has had the ominous tones of the Jaws theme song run through their head while imagining a giant shark cutting through the water towards them.

Both of these worst-case scenarios are rare. Lightning, alligators, falling coconuts, bees, and collapsing sand holes people have dug on the beach are more likely to kill you than a shark. Beyond those scenarios, every year thousands of surfers get sick from polluted ocean water, cut by sharp coral and surfboard fins, and brutally sunburned in the name of their chosen pastime. Some sacrifice careers, relationships, families, and fortunes in the relentless pursuit of quality waves.

So what makes surfing worth the risks? Why are people so terribly addicted to a sport that ultimately amounts to a few seconds of standing sideways on a foam board, that they are willing to weather the aforementioned hazards?

I'm not going to sit here and wax episodic about some spiritual connection between man and nature that surfers experience, or go into a diatribe about how surfing is the ultimate expression of man's inner beauty, or any of the other new-age bullshit people have come to expect to hear from the surfers they see in the movies. The allure of surfing is too many things to too many people to be defined quickly or easily.

But I'll try.

To many, it's an escape. An escape from what, depends on the individual. My friend Casey swears that surfing helped him overcome his drug addiction when nothing else could. He remembered how much fun surfing was, and bemoaned the toll his drug and alcohol abuse had taken on his body. Casey's love of surfing became the vehicle that helped him kick drugs, lose weight, and ultimately regain traction in a life that was going drastically off track.

For me, one big draw of the sport is the level of total focus it requires. I have ADD (attention deficit disorder), and my life is usually a maelstrom of different distractions that I have to wade through in order to get anything done. When I go surfing, I'm physically separated from those distractions by a few hundred yards of glistening water. The myriad elements that comprise everyday life are narrowed to just three; a person, a board, and a wave. All three have to work together, in perfect synch, at exactly the right moment, if you're going to have any fun at all.

Which brings us to the whole point. Surfing is fun. Forget all that mysto-hippie stuff. People sacrifice for surfing because it's fun, and they love to do it. Much is made of the dedication surfers have to their sport.

When you think about it though, people make the same kind of sacrifices for whatever their chosen passion might be. NASCAR drivers risk a violent, fiery death in the name of going fast and turning left. Just ask anyone who's spent a lot of time at cat shows what people think of their hobby.

Surfing, just like these and countless other passions, is done for the love.