Average Joe's Art

Bathrooms, poetry, and very poorly done paintings.

[joeyoesmith]

Mad Men Peggy

An image tagged mad men peggy

internet make hella mad men/handmaids tale memes please

[joeyoesmith]

Dear Dr. Emerick

This will be my most honest email yet. I’m afraid to hear of what perils you find yourself in as head of a philosophy department in a Christian school that is most liberal of christian schools but most conservative of schools in general.

The time that we had to discuss such nuanced topics as our thrownness, our absolute helplessness in our search for Truth, and our absolute ignorance to our prejudice; this time was brief. The time that we were able to put together the most ludicrous sequence of existential jargon and understand it and understand that it meant more than right or wrong but was understanding... the kind of understanding that was internalized and impossible to vocalize. The time that we had to engage in a real dialogue about the nuance in race relations and economics, the time was brief and fleeting and special. I fear that time is gone. Gone and never coming back our conversation impossible and muted.

I am so afraid because who I was is what a fear now. I see myself in my fellows and am afraid. I fear passion. I fear equality. I fear benevolence. I fear utopia because what could be worse than a world without good and evil.

I am so fearful of what I wrote on tumblr of what I said bout politics on Facebook I am so so fearful.

What I mean to say and I am so afraid to say is that identity politics made sense as a philosopher and I thought it was too complicated for the real political world to take on but they did and they did it no justice. They brutalized it to the point I fear you are hostage to a left wing legalistic postmodern identity politics that will lead to your undoing because you are not intersectional enough. I write all this with a sigh.

[joeyoesmith]

The day the grass grows

The weed was loud that day, that day the wind made the shingles clink and tink, that clink and tink that took me south to oak covered fields of green, sparkling in rain water. The weed was ever so loud that day, that day my eyes watered and potholes rattled my cold hands. That day my cold hands rattled up south shingle and my legs howled down north shingle. The weed was so loud that day that those dirty little steep bitches, the steep bitches that suck the life from you, they almost stole my spirit. The day my spirit was almost stolen. The day my legs howled and hands rattled. The day my eyes watered. The day the weed was loud. The day the wind blows, rivers flow, and the grass grows.

[joeyoesmith]

On Goodness and Obedience

To do good is to obey what your parents and elders taught you. Unless your parents and elders didn’t do what their parents and elders taught them. Then, to do good is to disobey what your parents and elders taught you. Unless your parents and elders disobeyed their parents and elders because they had in fact disobeyed their parents and elders before them. Then to do good would be to obey your parents and elders though they disobeyed their parents and elders for their own disobedience. So to do good is to figure out what doing good is with and without your parents and elders teaching. Teach yourself for you will have to teach someone else one day.

[joeyoesmith]

The trail has a sound, a rhythm, a whole dance that gets imprinted in the back of your skull. It's a bond between man, machine, and earth. The three are my trinity and we are one for that brief moment when I hit all the notes, all the steps. I breath in the trail and the trail soaks up my sweat and my bike soaks up us both. Each slunk burns the legs, creaks the bike, and rips the earth. "Don't think just see. Don't know just flow."

[joeyoesmith]

I once waited so long with so much patience that I was no longer waiting nor was I acting patiently.

[joeyoesmith]

There are two ways to measure a man's knowledge: by what he knows and by what he knows he doesn't know.

[joeyoesmith]

Ya I know, but, that's just the way the world is.

[joeyoesmith]

There is nothing left to conquer except ourselves

[joeyoesmith]

What’s that on the tip of your tongue and how did it get there? Will you let it roll out or gulp it down and what difference will it make?

[joeyoesmith]

60.3 miles Fixed on 46-13 Ratio

the sound of shingles blowing in south to north or southwest to northeast or whatever, I heard its call, a faint grunted whisper. A green May in gold country taunted me further, into more beauty and more pain. Argonaut cold brew and the rumble of trouble maker become a distant memory as the climb fixs up 49. Don’t complain about the wind, don’t complain about the wind, you fool it’s out of your hands. So much pain, so much beauty, so much for a descent it was all uphill and all too hard and tomorrow I’ll be all too grateful.

[joeyoesmith]

You take snap shots of slices of my life, a handful of them, and decide who I was, who I am, and who I will become.

[coffeeandmeditation]

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.

John Burroughs (via coffeeandmeditation)

[joeyoesmith]

Something to think about

We are thinking things that have thought many thoughts for many years. Over many years, we spent time thinking about thoughts that were thought up years before. Sometimes the thoughts you read about, that were thought up years ago, are the same thoughts you have been thinking, only, now, you realize we have been thinking about those thoughts over many years and developed thoughts about the thought from which all this thinking originated. So over many years we have had many thoughts and many people have been thinking about these thoughts with great care. So take extra care in having thoughts and thinking them fore someone has had that very thought and spent much time and care thinking it.

[joeyoesmith]

The only people beneath me are those who are above me.

[joeyoesmith]

Anytime something happens it happens then, at that time, and that's it. Something happening at sometime only happens for the first time one time. Something can happen again at another time but it is different from something happening at sometime because it happens at another time. So, anytime something happens, at whatever time, it happens only once, in that time, and will never happen at that time again. So cherish the time when something happens.

[joeyoesmith]

Some sort of Bonk

My legs didn't ache but they were weak. I wasn't tired but was low energy. The wind wasn't strong but came downhill at me. Like a residence band it pushed harder the closer I got to the crest. The ground leveled as the wind picked up and I almost lost my resolve but instead went numb into a descent. Numb best sums up what it's like. I wasn't challenged but put to the test. Some sort of meaningless test you can't pass or fail or even get a grade on.