Rules, compliance and the authority to apply common sense
Travelling with surfboards is not easy. They are not heavy, but they are long.
This is now our fourth trip overseas with surfboards. We have learned a lot.
Contact the airline first. Even then, record the conversation.
Do not rely on AI to tell you what airlines will or will not do. The AI has been dead wrong twice out of two attempts.
If you find a good airline that handles surfboards, stick with them, even if the ticket is more expensive, because it will often end up cheaper. (Singapore Airlines is a good one.)
Taiwan is not one of the ‘hot’ places to surf, which is why we picked it. Fewer crowds.
But the airlines make it very hard. Yet for golfers, easy.
Add the Japanese requirement for compliance to the mix, and this can become ridiculous. It took five staff over 45 minutes to sort out a $90AUS billing error on the board’s transit cost. This stretches beyond common sense. The cost of the staff, the customers who were not attended to, the frustration on our part, not to mention the evidence we had, which, for some reason, had not registered on their manifest.
Rules are good until they are not. I would not be allowed to compete in marathons or vote if many people didn’t work hard at changing the rules. Rules must always be challenged and questioned if we want to grow as a species.
Compliance is good until it is not. Compliance has us become human machines, and when we are trapped in the must comply bubble, we lose our ability to think and act for ourselves. This is what the Molochian machine wishes. More compliant humans who refuse to disrupt the status quo.
Common sense is hard to come by, especially in a world dominated by the algorithm.
And then we have authority and courage. Someone who has the authority and courage to enact common sense and break the rules, shatter compliance, and make things work better for everyone.
The punctuation marks of our trip to Taiwan and Okinawa were the airlines and our surfboards. Ridiculous rules, over-compliance and a total lack of the authority to apply common sense.
Photo Taken October 25th 2025, Article published November 14th, 2025
