Caravanning with Wep – Saturday, 5th June 1937; Jindabyne and philosophical thoughts about commercial advertising on radio

5th June

Tired, cold and melancholy. Lack concentration to attempt any mental effort. Am more than ever becoming imbued with the country man’s restful release of mental vacuity spawned by daily open air labour. Have just turned radio off – too restlessly impatient to tolerate the fatuous declamations as to why I should buy so & so’s blarsted silk stockings. Who cares anyway & why should I have to listen to someone trying to ram down my ears something I don’t want. It all seems so stupid. The stinking commercialism, its attendant crudities, & garnishnesses. Life’s too unhealthily involved downtown too difficult to maintain a simplicity of outlook and vision. There is such to be said for the slow and leisurely tempo of rustic life. Where the sun rises and sets, and is noticed. Where the quietness of trees and grass leisurely growing breathes something of their quietude into troubled consciousness and the wearied mind may drink its fill of rest. Where the mountains lie motionless, caressed noiselessly and lovingly by the slow drifting clouds bespeaking a repose that is almost beyond life. Where the only noise is that of the chopper clip-clopping a wooden figure into semblance of form. The only noise which fails to irritate – self made noise, a hackneyed, much written about subject, but new to me, at least.

Where one wanders aimlessly, idly watching feet alternating below the eyes, indifferent as to the where and why of their motion. Or where one glimpses the tiny star shaped blood red leaf of some insignificant plant blushing unnoticed and one stops to look. Where one stops to pick up a spent gum leaf and wonders slowly and lazily at the iridescent sheen on hardened opal surface, where one is halted and beckoned by the sinuous wavy figurations on a dead & prostrate tree, and contemplates absently the forms contained within. Where one takes mental time exposures of hoof prints and considers the patterns their jumblings have made. Where one just wanders, and looks and rests. Where there is no immediate objective in life, nagging like an abscessed tooth. Peace.

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