Log0004
Hardened
Outside of Farlie a small crowd of farmers and traders gathered with varying interests at Four Peaks Station. Some were there to make a quick dollar, some to grow their flock, some just to sample the free savories and the instant batch coffee.
Mostly, I like to think they’d come for a combination of the latter two. Everyone opportunistic for something. Unfortunately for a hungry few, the presale pastries had been replaced with post sale beers. A wise touch for whomever thought it would get people to stay ‘til the end. Especially as interest waned towards the lower pens.
Of the crowd of buyers, one man in the back leaned on a fence post. He seemed to just be watching. Not a yappy trader, nor a young green farmhand, this was someone who’d been around the block. Middle-aged and well built. His frame built by a few decades of walking in the hills and equally as long smashing skulls on the rugby field. Each of his calves were the size of my two fists closed together, well earnt from cranking uphill and ramming into rucks. His fists looked like they belonged to someone much larger as they often do of the people who work with them constantly. Hands like this are mapped with stories, they hold a rough assortment of cuts, cracks or calluses and are invariably, always, unclean. His shirt, shorts, hat, gaiters, and boots could all do with being replaced. Instead, they too, would be lucky to get a solid enough wash once every blue moon.
So where is the appeal in these types? It lies in the rugged. With that comes an unending work ethic, a no complaints, no bullshit, non-emotional figure that carries no sense of self-righteousness. In them there is little space for ego as it would just be wasted energy deviating from that emotionless stoicism. Essentially, I think of them as rocks. Pillars of support but wringing them dry, dragging them, and threading them through, will illicit exactly zero drops of emotion.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are many pretenders. Many who carry this hardened image and stamp it on their collars. But it doesn't take long for the ego to reveal which is which in a field cockies. Which are the poodles masquerading as collies? That man in the back, leaning on the fence post. Was not one.
When I looked at the man, I could tell I was not one of him. A life left behind somewhere. My path departed from that many years back. But nor am I a pretender. I know the only calluses on my hands come from a pencil, and I wouldn’t want to convince anyone otherwise. A fair trade, I’ll continually make.