The Hammock Papers: Daily.

12 December 2025

Daily.

I spied him on a park bench, my how happy he did seem

As contented as a sleeping man within a pleasant dream

So full of equanimity, so tranquil and refined

Obviously no distress disturbed his state of mind

His suit was made of finest wool; his shirt was starched and clean

His countenance reflected by shoes polished to a sheen

Who was this lordly gentleman who graced our neighborhood?

I did not seem to recognize him though I thought I should

For clearly he was someone I could envy and admire

Someone whose lavish lifestyle I could strive for and desire

If only I could take his place as God I wished I might

How high would then my spirits soar, oh what a pure delight.

Just then his nurses came toward him helping him to stand

As carefully they crossed the cobbles walking hand in hand

Only then I realized this gentleman was blind

Living in a land of darkness, physically confined

Yet how obtuse was my existence though I had my sight

I could not recognize my fortune, only saw my plight

How ironic that a blind man finally helped me see

The blessings and good fortune that have daily come to me.

Richard Lackman

Thanks to Walker's Arms for the view.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL