But even the tree said, "Leaf me alone!" Get it? 'Leaf' me alone? Ah, forget it! No point talking to you either! I might as well go back inside the house and get the same reply from the wife.
It's a beautifully warm and sunny summer's day at "Riverbend". Too good to stay indoors, so I'll go back outside and sit under a tree with a book.
Most people, the vast majority in fact, lead the lives that circumstances have thrust upon them, and though some repine, looking upon themselves as round pegs in square holes, and think that if things had been different they might have made a much better showing, the greater part accept their lot, if not with serenity, at all events with resignation. They are like train-cars travelling forever on the selfsame rails. They go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, inevitably, till they can go no longer and then are sold as scrap-iron. It is not often that you find a man who has boldly taken the course of his life into his own hands. When you do, it is worth while having a good look at him." (Opening paragraph from Somerset Maugham's story "The Lotus Eater")
Which is what I was reminded of when, during my then still fairly frequent trips up north, I met a fellow-German who had come to Australia four years before me, had married, had two sons, and had for fifty years "like a train-car travelled forever on the selfsame rails".
When I questioned him about the interstate number plates on his car, he explained to me that he'd told his wife that now that he was into his seventies and both their sons had grown up and he was no longer needed, he wanted time to himself. With this he handed her the keys to the house, and travelled north.
I admired and slightly envied him for the ease with which he had escaped from half a century of domesticity. As Maugham wrote, "It is not often that you find a man who has boldly taken the course of his life into his own hands". What would he do next? Seven years in Tibet? Kon-Tiki-ing across the South Pacific? Lotus-eating in exotic Bali? Walking the road to Samarkand? Living in a grass-hut on a tropical coral island?
His end was far more prosaic: he once again succumbed to domesticity by buying a house which was far too big for him - proving that he had been a lot more cashed up than poor old Wilson and could have done virtually anything! - and staying put in the one place so as not miss his appointment in Samarra because only seven years later he was dead.
He died with all that music still inside him. I hope that his gravestone bears the German inscription "Der Mensch ist ein Gewohnheitstier".
Perhaps it's the memories of my time in what was then South-West Africa (and now Namibia) or the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" filmed in neighbouring Botswana, but I have just bought a hundred thousand shares in Belararox (BRX), which in years gone by we used to call 'penny-dreadfuls' (borrowed from those serial publication of sensationalist fiction popular in Victorian Britain, especially from the 1830s to the early 1900s, each costing a penny).
Belararox's Kalahari Copper Belt Project (KCB) is located in northern Botswana's Kalahari Copper Belt, encompassing fourteen exploration licenses over 4,268 km². The company also explores in Argentina, and, much nearer to home, in New South Wales and Western Australia.
I may be crazy to invest in such a 'penny-dreadful', but not much!
We all know the expression "forty winks" but that's not how I sleep. Twenty winks are about my maximum, if I fall asleep at all. While I wish I could sleep better, my almost lifelong insomnia hasn't bothered me - after all, there'll be plenty of time left to sleep when the time comes.
(No need to feel guilty, * name withheld to protect the guilty *. I was an insomniac long before your nocturnal acrobatics in the room next to mine in the company's sharehouse kept me awake most nights! 😄 )
One reason I don't mind my insomnia is that I don't toss and turn but use it to listen to ABC Radio National or any one of my countless audiobooks. Last night I listened to Yuval Noah Harari's "Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind" which is long enough to get me through the longest night.
There's nothing quite like the written word, and so I followed it up by reading the book while sitting on the sunlit verandah next morning - after all, you can't read all day unless you start early in the morning!
A strong coffee and a thick book - what more can you ask for on a sunny morning at "Riverbend"? (don't answer that; it's a rhetorical question! Or maybe not! Just ask Padma who has been meaning to drive into town for some shopping this morning but is still doddling about the place as she doesn't want to leave. That's what living at "Riverbend" does to you!)
All of Harari's books are worth a sleepless night, but "Sapiens" in particular, and I've sent an online copy to my ex-boss's son in Saudi Arabia - click here - and to Padma's nephew in Indonesia - click here.
Unless the sun is out, it's not much of a day for me, and this isn't much of a morning, grey and cool, but then I realise that we're into daylight saving and it's really only six instead of seven as the clock on the mantelpiece shows.
Better to occupy myself for the next hour with something that reflects my mood, and so I grab Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt" which I discovered recently by way of reading Joseph Campbell. I don't think I will burden you with the whole book, although I will add its 400-something pages as well as its eight-hour audiobook to this post, so please yourself.
What stuck with me was the last line in that novel: "I've never done a thing I wanted to do in all my life". If that resonates with you and you're the man who never followed his bliss, then this book is for you.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien gab mir eine zweite Sprache und eine zweite Chance und es war auch der Anfang und das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
For a translation, click here.
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.
