Vorfreude (Anticipation)

Waiao Beach is a surfing Mecca for Northern Taiwan. The sun starts burning early, the first surfers come even earlier. At noon, the ashen sand is so hot that it’s almost impossible to cross. Yet the water… the water is pristine. Cooling, wild, alive.

There is a smile in everyone’s face, peaceful excitement, the most natural form of joy. “For this day,” it seems to say, “we are all just apes on a plank of wood. And nothing in this world is important but this very moment.”

This week is dedicated to this wonderful, special place! And for no reason but that I speak the language and that is has so wonderful words, I’ll gift you some nice German words…

(“Vorfreude,” like many German words, is composite of different parts, here “Freude,” joy, and the prefix “vor,” meaning before as well as ahead. So Vorfreude is the “ahead-joy.” This is how we roll!)