Time & Perspective Quote by Xavier Herbert

Herbert turns “the bush” into a solvent: step into it and the most modern of comforts, clock-time, starts to dissolve. The first clause is almost bureaucratic in its phrasing - “continuity,” “steadiness” - as if he’s describing a malfunctioning machine. Then he swaps the machine out for weather. Time doesn’t “pass” out there; it happens. That pivot from “procession” to “event” is the engine of the line, flipping a familiar metaphor of orderly forward motion into something episodic, even ambush-like.

The intent is less pastoral awe than cultural critique. Herbert, writing out of a settler society obsessed with schedules, progress narratives, and the myth of “developing” land, suggests the bush refuses to cooperate with imported notions of linear advancement. A “procession” implies civic order: a parade, a calendar, a nation moving somewhere on purpose. An “event” is discontinuous, demanding attention, not compliance. It’s the difference between time as administration and time as experience.

The subtext carries an Australian anxiety: that beyond the coastal grid, the continent doesn’t validate European expectations. Isolation, heat, distance, and risk reshape perception; days blur, then suddenly sharpen around storms, injuries, encounters. You’re not escorted by minutes; you’re interrupted by realities.

Context matters because Herbert’s work often wrestles with how landscape pressures identity and morality. Here, the bush isn’t a backdrop. It’s a narrative force that breaks the storyline of progress and reminds you that “steady” time is, in part, a social agreement.