Welcome back to the deep dive. So I want to start
today by asking you a question that I think I
think most of us have asked ourselves at some
point, usually at like three in the morning when
you just can't sleep. Oh, yeah. The dreaded 3
a .m. existential crisis. Right. Exactly. So
what if you just what if you just stopped? Like
what if you looked at the life you built, you
know, the career, the house, all the expectations
and you just walked out the door and never came
back? Well, it is the ultimate fantasy, isn't
it? The escape hatch. We all have it in the back
of our minds. But usually when people actually
pull that lever, it's because things are going
wrong. Yeah, they're running away from something.
Exactly. They're broke or they're in legal trouble
or just running from a complete disaster. Right.
But the story we are unpacking today is different.
We are going to look at a man who pulled that
lever when everything was going perfectly. We
are talking about Dorian Paskovitz, or as most
people know him. Doc Pascovitz. And to just call
him a surfer, really, it really doesn't do it
justice. Not at all. That is kind of like calling
Ernest Hemingway just a fisherman. Yeah, that's
a good way to put it. This is a guy who had what
you could call the golden ticket. He was a Jewish
doctor from Texas, and he graduated from Stanford
Medical School in 1946, which we will get into
because that is a massive deal. Oh, absolutely
massive. And he basically looked to the American
dream and just said, no, thank you. He ended
up raising nine kids in a camper van, refusing
to send them to any sort of school and just chasing
waves for a quarter of a century. It is genuinely
one of the most radical sociological experiments
of the 20th century. And I do use the word experiment
deliberately there because when you look at the
sources we have for this deep dive, the biographical
data, the Wikipedia archives, the 2007 documentary
Surfwise, you realize this wasn't just a long
family vacation. No, not at all. This was a man
trying to engineer what he saw as a superior
way of living, a superior type of human. completely
within his own family unit. Which sounds a little
ominous, honestly. It's extremely complex. It's
a story about freedom, for sure, but it's equally
a story about control. It forces us to ask if
it's even possible to be truly free without inflicting
a sort of chaotic reality on the people you love.
And that is exactly the mission for this deep
dive. We aren't just doing a biography of a famous
surfer. We want to stress test this whole idea
of the alternative lifestyle. Because, you know,
you look on social media today and van life looks
like these beautiful sunsets and portable espresso
machines. Right. It looks curated. Yeah, curated.
But the reality of the Pascoats family was something
else entirely. We're going to go through his
origin story, how he went from medical school
to a surfboard. Then we'll get into the radical
living situation, 25 years in a camper van. Which
is just staggering to think about. We'll dig
into his highly controversial philosophy on health
and education, look at the shadow side of the
family dynamics revealed in that documentary,
and finally discuss his late -life activism in
Gaza. It's a wild ride. So let's go back to the
beginning. Because to really understand why he
left, you have to understand what he was actually
walking away from. We need to map this out, starting
in Texas. The physician who quit. Right. Dorian
Paskowitz, born March 3, 1921, in Galveston,
Texas. Now, looking at the demographic context
here is really important. He's the son of Russian
Jewish immigrants, Louis and Rose Paskowitz.
And being part of a Jewish immigrant family in
Texas in the 1920s, that comes with a very specific
kind of pressure, doesn't it? immense pressure.
You have to remember the narrative of that generation
of immigrants. The ethos was very much we came
here with a nothing so you could be everything.
Right. Success wasn't really an option. It was
a mandate. And the Paskowitz kids had serious
drive. I mean, his sister was Sonya Derrick.
The actress. She was in the big sleep with Humphrey
Bogart. Correct. So you have this incredibly
high achieving gene pool. And Dorian, he aims
for the absolute peak of professional success.
He goes to San Diego State, transfers to Stanford
University. Then he gets into Stanford Medical
School. OK, let's stop right there. I want to
really drill down on this for you listening.
Stanford Medical School in 1946. Today, obviously,
being a doctor is highly prestigious. But in
1946, what did that actually mean for his social
standing? It is hard to overstate it. You have
to look at the historical moment. World War II
has just ended. The United States is really the
only superpower left standing with its infrastructure
completely intact. The economy is about to explode
into this massive post -war boom. And medicine
was changing, too. Exactly. Medicine was entering
its golden age. Antibiotics like penicillin were
becoming widely available. Doctors were actively
conquering diseases that used to be death sentences.
A doctor in 1946 wasn't just seen as a highly
skilled service provider. A doctor was practically
a god in a white coat. So he is holding this
Stanford medical degree. He is set for life.
Guaranteed wealth, guaranteed respect. The country
club membership, the big house in the suburbs,
the whole nine yards. He had the keys to the
kingdom. He had made it by every single metric
that American society had to offer. If he had
just stayed on that path, he would have been
a wealthy, retired physician playing golf in
Palm Springs by the 1980s. But something happened
in that exact same year he graduated. Yeah. 1946.
There's a crack in the windshield. The catalyst.
He visits Hawaii. Now, Hawaiian 46 wasn't the
resort destination that you and I know today.
It wasn't even a state yet. No, it was a territory.
It was much wilder, much more raw. And while
he is there, he goes surfing with Duke Hanamoku.
The Duke. Basically, the father of modern surfing.
The absolute legend. And you have to realize,
this isn't like taking a surf lesson at a resort
today where they push you into a wave on a soft
foam board. Surfing in 1946 meant handling massive,
heavy redwood planks. Right, they didn't have
fiberglass. Exactly. These boards weighed nearly
100 pounds. It was a deeply, physically demanding,
visceral battle with the ocean. I am just imagining
the contrast here. On one hand... He has the
sterile, rigid, extremely high stakes world of
the hospital, you know, fluorescent lights, life
and death, rigid hierarchies. And on the other
hand, he is out in the Pacific Ocean with the
Duke wrestling a hundred pound piece of wood
on a massive wave. That is the big aha moment
for him. It wasn't just a fun afternoon. It was
a spiritual awakening. He saw a fluidity and
a connection to nature out in the water that
suddenly made the hospital feel like a prison.
But, and this is a key point, he didn't quit
right then and there. Right. He tried to play
the part for a while. He did. He went back to
the mainland. He practiced medicine. But the
source material points to a very turbulent personal
life during this period. He had two marriages
that ultimately failed while he was working as
a doctor. And he had two daughters from those
early marriages. Yes. And while we don't have
extensive deep details on the day -to -day of
those relationships, the overall pattern is super
clear. He was trying to fit a square peg into
a round hole. The golden handcuffs were chafing
him. He was making money. He had the status,
but he was completely miserable. The sources
quote him simply realizing that he, quote, was
not happy as a doctor. It sounds so simple when
you say it like that. I wasn't happy. But think
about the courage or maybe the madness it takes
to admit that when you were that deep into a
career. Most people in that situation would just
die convertible or something. They wouldn't dismantle
their entire existence. Well, that is the difference
between a midlife crisis and a total paradigm
shift. Paskowitz was looking for a completely
new paradigm. And interestingly, his first major
pivot wasn't actually moving into a van. It was
moving to Israel. This is in the 1950s, right?
Yes. He travels to Israel for a year. And he
finds a real resonance there. He felt more at
home, more himself in that environment than he
ever did in the American medical establishment.
He even tried to join the military. During the
Suez Crisis in 1956. Right. He actively volunteered
for the Israeli army. He wanted to fight. He
wanted to be part of something visceral and real,
something physical. But they turned him down.
They did. But that rejection didn't send him
crawling back to a hospital in California. It
actually solidified his resolve. He realized
he couldn't go back to the rat race. When he
returned to the U .S., he was officially done.
He decided to dedicate his life entirely to surfing.
And this leads us right into the radical experiment.
Because he didn't just become a solitary beach
bum, he built a tribe. This is where the story
shifts from a simple biography to a sociological
study. He meets his third wife, Juliette Peyes.
And Juliette, I mean... We really have to give
her credit here. She went along with a life plan
that almost anyone else would run screaming from.
She was the anchor of this whole operation. Without
her, Doc is just a guy shouting at the waves.
With her, he became a patriarch, they get married,
and they start having kids. A lot of kids. Nine
children in total. Eight sons and one daughter.
And they decide, or rather, the sources indicate,
Doc largely decides, that they are not going
to live in a house. They are going to live on
the road, embracing this transient bohemian lifestyle.
And they kept this up for roughly 25 years. A
quarter of a century. I really want to pause
here and visualize this. Because when we say
they lived in a camper van, I think modern listeners
might be picturing a luxury sprinter van. Or
a big Winnebago with slide outs and a separate
master bedroom. Not even close. We are talking
about a succession of very basic used camper
vans, often around 24 feet long, for 11 people.
11 people in 24 feet. That is basically prison
density. It is tighter than a submarine. Imagine
the logistics of that daily life. Where do people
sleep? They were literally stacked like cordwood
inside this thing. Where do you put the surfboards?
How do you cook meals? The bathroom situation
alone is enough to induce panic. It forced a
level of intimacy that is almost incomprehensible
to modern families. There is no going to your
room to cool off. There is no privacy. If you
have an argument, the whole family is part of
the argument. If one person catches a cold, all
11 people get the cold. But it wasn't just a
chaotic free -for -all. This is what fascinates
me the most. It wasn't some hippie commune where
everyone just did whatever they felt like doing.
It was a strict dictatorship. Doc? Ran that van
like a boot camp. Absolutely. He was the commander.
Yeah. And the overarching mission of this boot
camp was health, but not health in the way you
or I might casually think of it. He had a very
specific, rigid philosophy. Let's talk about
the Paskowitz regime. Where do the actual rules?
Well, first and foremost, surfing was mandatory.
Which sounds cool at first until you realize
you have to do it every single day whether you
want to or not. Exactly. It wasn't just playtime.
It was rigorous training. Everyone was expected
to improve their skills daily. Every morning
they were out in the water. But the diet, the
diet is where it gets really intense. Digi is
the word that comes to mind. Tell us about breakfast.
Doc achieved this sort of health guru status
eventually. He was actually way ahead of his
time in rejecting processed foods, refined sugars,
and the whole fast food culture that was booming
in the 60s and 70s. He was definitely onto something
there. He was, but he took it to an absolute
extreme. He advocated for natural diets, very
low in fat. One of his children later described
their stable breakfast meal as a multigrain gruel.
Gruel. I am picturing this gray, flavorless paste.
much exactly what it was. No sugar, no milk,
just raw functional fuel. Doc fundamentally believed
that food was for function, not for pleasure.
He even believed that feeling a little hunger
was good for you. He kept the kids incredibly
lean. So you have these nine kids waking up in
a cramped 24 -foot van, eating literal paste,
and then being marched into the cold ocean to
train. It feels less like the endless summer
and more like ancient Spartan training. That
is a fantastic analogy. He was raising Spartans.
He wanted them to be tough, highly resilient,
and completely independent of what he saw as
the soft American lifestyle. He viewed modern
comfort almost as a disease. But here is the
thing that really rubs people the wrong way,
and we have to dig into it. There's one thing
to control their diet and their exercise. It
is another thing entirely to control their minds.
Which brings us to his philosophy on knowledge
versus wisdom. This is undoubtedly the most controversial
part of the Paskowitz legacy. Remember our context
here. Doc is a Stanford man. He even spent time
teaching at community colleges like Palomar College.
He knew exactly what the value of a formal education
was. And yet he completely banned it for his
own kids. Completely. None of the nine Pasquitz
children received any formal education while
they were living on the road. No high school,
no elementary school. Did he even homeschool
them? Was there some kind of curriculum in the
van? Not in any traditional sense, no. There
were no textbooks. There were no exams. Doc's
entire philosophy was based on a very sharp distinction
between knowledge and wisdom. Break that down
for us. What was his argument? He believed that
formal school systems were just factories. He
thought that formal education homogenized the
mind, that it taught you to think like everyone
else, to just be a compliant cog in the machine.
The source material shows he viewed formal education
as literally dangerous to young minds. Dangerous.
That is a heavy accusation coming from a guy
with a medical degree. He believed that true
wisdom came from real -world experience. From
travel, from meeting everyday people in beach
parking lots, from negotiating with local mechanics
when the van broke down, from learning to read
the currents of the ocean. He wanted his children
to be street smart in the deepest possible sense
of the term. He wanted them to live in the world,
not just read about it in a classroom. I had
to play devil's advocate here, though. That sounds
very romantic, but isn't it also incredibly limiting?
I mean, street smarts are great, but they don't
help you understand calculus or world history
or even how to write a standard resume. That
is the critical flaw in his experiment. He personally
had the safety net. He had the Stanford degree.
He could always go back to being a doctor if
the surfing lifestyle failed. And in fact, he
occasionally did pick up short -term medical
work just to fund the gas tank. But his children,
they had zero safety net. He cut the net away
entirely. He burned their bridges before they
even had a chance to cross them. Precisely. He
bet their entire futures on his personal philosophy.
So the million -dollar question. Did the bet
actually pay off? Were they successful? Well,
it depends entirely on what metrics you use to
define success. If you define it by the metrics
dog valued surfing ability, physical health,
artistic output, then yes, it was a massive success.
They became known as the first family of surfing.
They did. They were absolute icons in that world.
For instance, Israel Paskowitz Izzy became a
world class competitive surfer. He won the U
.S. Longboarding Championship in 1989. You also
had significant commercial success with endorsement
income and creative output, too. Salvador became
a successful screenwriter and producer. Adam
and Josh started a rock band called The Flies.
The Flies. Got you where I want you. That song
was absolutely everywhere in the late 90s. Right.
So clearly, these kids weren't unintelligent.
They were highly creative, driven, and talented.
You could certainly argue that the lack of formal
schooling allowed their natural creativity to
flourish uncensored by institutional rules. But,
and there's always a but, when we talk about
this family, we really have to look at the human
cost. Because you simply cannot lock nine kids
in a van for two decades without creating some
serious psychological scar tissue. Which brings
us to the shadow side of the story. This is where
the narrative sharply shifts from the sunny legend
to the gritty reality. For years, the Paskowitz
family was this mythical, perfect entity in surfing
magazines. But in 2007, a documentary called
Surfwise came out. Directed by Doug Prey. And
I've read about this. It was definitely not a
promotional puff piece. No, it was a deep, often
painful confessional. And here is a detail from
the sources that I find absolutely staggering.
Doc Paskowitz attended the premiere. He went
to the screenings. But he never actually watched
the film. Wait, explain that. He was physically
in the theater. He would go to the event, shake
hands, smile for the press cameras, and then
he would wait out in the lobby or just leave
while the movie actually played. He point -blank
refused to see the mirror that the film held
up to his life. That is the ultimate form of
denial. Sort of a, I lived it, I don't need to
see it attitude. Or maybe it was more like, I
can't bear to hear how my kids actually felt
about me. I heavily lean toward the latter. Because
the film revealed what was described as a very
uneasy atmosphere, the kids didn't paint a picture
of endless summer joy. They spoke openly about
holding very deep resentments. Who were the main
grievances they had? The lack of education was
a huge one. Many of them felt completely crippled
when they finally stepped out of the van and
into the real world. They felt stupid. They didn't
know how to open a bank account, how to interact
with normal society. They felt like aliens. And
there was something darker too, right? The privacy
issue in the van. Yes. In a 24 -foot van, sexual
privacy between the parents is essentially impossible.
The children were exposed to their parents' sexual
activity in a way that was unavoidable given
the space, but also deeply inappropriate for
kids to be around. That is just a trauma. You
can't spin that as being bohemian or natural.
That is psychologically damaging. It blurred
vital boundaries that children fundamentally
need for their own security. And then on top
of that, there were the rules. Doc was a tyrant.
It was his way or the highway, literally. If
you disagreed with his philosophy, you were seen
as crushing the family's vibe. Did anyone manage
to break out early? Yes, David, the eldest son.
He left the van at age 23 to find his own life.
23 seems pretty late to be running away from
home. It is late. But think about the psychology
of the situation. When you were raised in a sort
of cult -like environment, and I use that term
loosely, but it fits, the isolationist dynamic
they had. Leaving is terrifying. The outside
world is framed as the enemy. Doc had taught
them their whole lives that the world was sick
and the van was the only healthy place. So leaving
meant entering the sick world completely alone.
And without a high school diploma. Exactly. So
David leaving was a massive rupture for the family.
And there were various periods of estrangement
where different children wouldn't speak to their
parents for a long time. But and this is the
twist that makes this whole story so human. They
didn't stay away forever. No. By the time SurfWise
was being filmed, all the children had reconciled
with Doc and Juliet. Why do you think that is?
Is it some form of Stockholm syndrome? Or is
it just deep family love? I think it's what psychologists
call a trauma bond. They went through something
together that literally no one else on Earth
could ever understand. Only a Paskovitz knows
what it is like to be a Paskovitz. They are a
tribe in the truest sense. They fought. They
screamed. It was traumatic. But they remained
a tight -knit unit. That first family of surfing
title held true despite all the internal friction.
It's incredibly complicated. It's messy. But
it's real. Now, I want to pivot to the final
act of Doc's life. Because just when you think
you have him completely pegged as this selfish,
controlling patriarch, he does something incredibly
selfless. Let's talk about Surfing for Peace.
This is a fascinating chapter. It's August 2007.
Doc is in his 80s at this point. He's an old
man. He is, but he reads an article in the LA
Times about the situation in the Gaza Strip.
And just for context for you listening, 2007
in Gaza was an extremely volatile time. Yes.
To provide the geopolitical facts here, Hamas
had just taken control of Gaza in June of 2007.
The region was incredibly tense. Israel had imposed
a strict blockade, and they were only allowing
essential humanitarian supplies to cross the
border. Food. medicine, that sort of thing. And
Doc reads this article about this blockaded zone
and what does he take away from it? Well, the
article specifically mentioned that there was
a small community of surfers in Gaza, but they
didn't have any surfboards. They were trying
to surf by sharing broken pieces of foam. And
Doc, this Jewish doctor who had tried to join
the Israeli army back in the 50s, looks at that
and thinks, that is a tragedy I can actually
fix. To him, a surfer without a board was almost
worse than a patient without a medicine. In a
way, yes. He viewed surfing as a universal language,
almost a fundamental human right. So he launches
this project called Surfing for Peace. But practically
speaking, how do you get surfboards into a highly
secured, blockaded zone? You can't exactly just
ship them through the mail. No, it required serious
negotiation. You had to personally persuade the
Israeli government and the defense forces to
let them through. So Doc teamed up with his son
David, the same one who walked away at 23, as
well as Arthur Rochevan and the legendary Kelly
Slater. Basically the Michael Jordan of surfing.
Exactly. Having Kelly Slater involved brought
massive global attention to the effort. They
also worked with an organization called the One
Voice Movement, which is a pro -Israeli -Palestinian
peace organization. And was his pitch to the
government? Why let surfboards in? Duck's core
philosophy here was about using the shared experience
of surfing to bridge cultural and political barriers.
He argued that if people from opposite sides
are out in the water catching waves together,
they aren't fighting. He believed surfing could
bridge those divides. And against all odds, he
actually pulled it off. He did. They successfully
crossed the border, delivered the boards, and
even held a follow -up concert in Tel Aviv later
that year. I just love the visual of this 86
-year -old man standing on a beach in Gaza handing
a surfboard to a local kid. It complicates his
character so much. He wasn't just the tyrant
of the camper van. He was also this visionary
who believed in the power of the ocean. He truly
believed the ocean didn't care about your politics
or your religion. It was the one place where
everyone was completely equal. It connects right
back to his time in Israel in the 50s. So let's
look at the end of the road. Doc's legacy and
his final years. He lived a remarkably long time.
He made it to 93. So the multigrain drill actually
worked. It certainly seems to have done the trick.
He passed away on November 10th, 2014, in Newport
Beach. And frankly, it was only a hip surgery
earlier that year that finally caused his decline.
The sources note he was actively surfing well
into his late 80s. That is just incredible longevity.
He even authored a book called Surfing and Health,
which came out in 1997 and was republished in
2007. He received numerous accolades. He was
inducted into the Southern California Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. He was referred
to as a legend by Everyone in the community,
including Kelly Slater. There was even Hollywood
interest in his life. Yes. Variety reported in
2010 that Sean Penn expressed serious interest
in producing and starring in a movie about Doc.
Which would be absolutely perfect casting. It
really would be. But now that he is gone, we
are left to make sense of the experiment he ran.
So let's synthesize all of this. We have a man
who was essentially a walking bundle of contradictions,
a highly trained doctor who hated the medical
establishment, a father who clearly loved his
kids but denied them basic education and privacy.
a Jewish man who championed Palestinian surfers.
He forces us to look at our own priorities. We
live in a modern society that values security
above almost everything else. We insure everything,
we plan everything out, we get educated for jobs
we might not even like just to have stability.
Doc Paskowitz valued experience above all else.
But the cost of prioritizing that pure experience
was creating a lot of chaos for the people around
him. Chaos, yes, but also an incredible vitality.
He lived every single day on his own terms. He
certainly didn't sleepwalk through life. Here's
the big takeaway for you listening to this. We
all have scripts we are following. Doc burned
his script. But when you burn the script, you
have to write a new one every single morning.
And that is exhausting. And sometimes it inevitably
hurts the people closest to you. That is the
ultimate tradeoff. You can have total unbridled
freedom or you can have stability and comfort.
You very rarely get to have both. I want to leave
you with one final thought to mull over. Doc
firmly believed that traditional education was
dangerous because it homogenized the mind. That
it just made us all think exactly the same way.
Now look at our world today. In an age of constant
information overload, where we are all doom -scrolling
the exact same social feeds, reading the same
news algorithms, watching the same viral shows.
Was he actually right? Is there a real danger
in homogenizing our minds? Or did he just replace
society's form of control with his own? Did he
free his children from the machine only to imprison
them inside his own ego in that van? That is
the question you have to answer for yourself.
And I really don't think there was an easy answer.
But I bet the view from the window of that van
was pretty spectacular. Just don't ask about
what was for breakfast. Thanks for joining us
on this deep dive. Go catch a wave or maybe just
take a different unplanned route to work today.
See what happens when you break the script. Goodbye.
See ya.