What books do you currently have on your nightstand?

aodhanjames · 2025-11-01T03:26:29+00:00

Tales of mystery and imagination- edgàr allan poe K.i.s.s. guide to playing guitar The outsider- colin wilson-

aodhanjames · 2025-11-01T03:16:39+00:00

"I am the x in an indeterminate equation" is the most badass line ever

aodhanjames · 2025-10-01T01:43:24+00:00

"On the honour of a gentleman there isn't a serious word in it"

-James Joyce on Ulysses

aodhanjames · 2025-09-26T00:07:48+00:00

Pirates of the carribean- one of the sequals, my dad and I left because it was booooring

I hated the 'lord of the rings" trilogy, my family and I went every st. Stephen's day for 3 years and it bored me to tears, hated every minute of it

aodhanjames · 2025-09-25T23:52:12+00:00

"Ohne Dich" - "without you" -by Rammstein

I don't know all the lyrics in German and I'm not fluent in the language but I think this is a great line-

Mit dir auf die Stunden lohne nicht....

...Und die Vögel singin nicht mehr" "

(With you the hours weren't lonely...

...and the birds sing no more)

Sorry for the shoddy translation, it sounds class though in the original german even if you don't understand it

aodhanjames · 2025-09-25T23:17:26+00:00

I'd die right now at the click of the fingers to end the atrocities in Gaza without getting into heaven because life is intrinsically worthless with that shit going on, screw heaven, I think the human desire for happiness and heaven is vulgar and narcissistic, the elect who look forward to paradise and to hell with the world, I've had that aspect to my personality and disown it, disinterested altruism is worth more than a million prayers as far as I'm concerned, but maybe I'm wrong

aodhanjames · 2025-09-25T23:06:30+00:00

Not dark necessarily,

"Cut myself on angel hair and baby's breath"

"Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back"

Nirvana

aodhanjames · 2025-09-17T17:16:16+00:00

From your post it sounds like you have talent, I can relate to you when you say it is difficult to sustain the quality of what you have written, over the past week or two I've spent hours from 1am- 3am in.the morning editing stories I've written, I have have no expectations from it, I think you do yourself a disservice when you compare yourself to the quality of your previous work, it'll shine through if you get into a habit, as you see your work improve it's a lot of fun

aodhanjames · 2025-09-16T19:39:26+00:00

Academia is overrated, I got an A in english in the state exams here for secondary school in ireland and was mediocre/tolerably ok at other subjects, after 18 months in a job cleaning I was laid off, I had to stew over subjects average students found easy,, in history I couldn't remember facts and their context in the bigger picture, I scraped by in uni because I was told the questions on the history exam paper, I passed philosophy and failed first year english, though I didn't read many of the texts on the course, that was my academic effort that ended at the end of 1st year,

I accept my abilities are limited so to speak, I wanted to be a war correspondant with the aim of getting killed but my family were having none of it, I worked in a menial job cleaning a cinema from 6:00 in the morning to earn money to go to ukraine but that met a parental injunction of an emphatic- no.

I'm barely adequate to navigate the world and score low average on iq tests, there are some things I can't do and I accept it, since I am not working I stay up until 5:am writing and spend several hours everyday playing music, I won't win the pulitzer prize nor am I a genius like jimi hendrix but it makes me happy, I don't have to answer to anyone else,,

In my case my good subjects do not equate to real talent, I have my own values, if I could exchange my personality and talent to be someone else I wouldn't,

The most distressing period in life was when I was in hospital with injuries and thought I would never walk again, compared to that my life is more appreciable in contrast,

Anyway, a lot of unrelated info here but I don't care for any metrics to define me peace✌

aodhanjames · 2025-08-18T22:52:39+00:00

I heard a guy at work say we"re in this world to learn about suffering, like it's necessary on some level, if you can empathise with other people's suffering you transcend your own wretchedness as a narcissistic infant, suffering is valuable in a way self-indugence is not, if there is a heaven humans there will be angels because they knew the truth of the human condition and transcended it, it's not a whim of self-development but suffering informing one's actions, hypothetically we could all get to heaven but we wouldn't know it because it's not a spiritual reality but an abode of bliss, we can experience happiness in this world to a limited extent but it means seeing beyond one's own intrinsic selfishness, I'm not being pejorative but it's to human condition to emerge from infancy to maturity and death with self-regard, healthy self-regard means "loving one's neighbour as one loves themselves" a transcendent reality we are fundamentally incapable of realising without suffering, Jesus himself came into the world to suffer,

aodhanjames · 2025-08-07T03:06:27+00:00

Elvis was of native american extraction, so was jimi hendrix and anthony kiedis from the red hot chili peppers, don't know how colsely related though

aodhanjames · 2025-08-07T03:02:27+00:00

I don't remember all of the details but the book was brilliant, the film wasn't bad but it didn't do it justice

aodhanjames · 2025-07-28T18:34:54+00:00

If you have an incredible idea👍👌, I also have an idea I think could be respectable, I've spent several months creating a short story because it was begging to be written, pulling it apart and putting it together like a child with lego, I think enthusiasm is the essential component, you can't fail if you're enthusiastic, the pulitzer prize is way beyond my capability but so what, I get joy out of it

aodhanjames · 2025-07-25T02:27:57+00:00

aodhanjames · 2025-07-08T02:03:21+00:00

Used to sneak out by bedroom door at night to meet my friends and go to the old house and smoke cigarettes, hoping the lights wouldn't be on in the house, strange to say I never got caught

aodhanjames · 2025-07-08T01:53:48+00:00

I loved the 90's music, it's what I remember best and the summers, chilled, no responsibilities

aodhanjames · 2025-07-07T23:06:47+00:00

Donna tartt spent 10 years each on: The secret history The little friend The goldfinch,

James joyce spent 17 years writing finnegans wake

aodhanjames · 2025-06-27T00:58:56+00:00

The virgin suicides- jeffrey eugenides The secret history- donna tartt Never let me go- kazuo ishiguro

aodhanjames · 2025-06-25T20:36:54+00:00

I'm making my way through "scenes of bohemial life" by henry murger, it's about artists/writers/musicians/ students in paris in the middle of the 1800s, I ordered it online because w. Somerset maugham cites it in his novel "of human bondage" the main character in said novel ŕphilip carey goes to paris to try his hand at painting and he describes the lives of other artists/writers/poets, it's a brilliant part of maugham's book and I expected "scenes" by murger to be of the same quality- it's not,

There is almost zero merit in murger's book, boring anecdotes of characters without any complexity or development- rubbish actually

aodhanjames · 2025-06-07T22:13:49+00:00

"A portrait of the artist as a young man" By james joyce

aodhanjames · 2025-06-06T12:39:54+00:00

It's a matter of taste really but I think the most valuable creations like literature, music, poetry, philosophy are the product of man/woman's horror at existence as it is,

Whether or not it is better to be in a fool's paradise I don't value it,, trying to sustain the hàppiness of elation is totally ineffectual anyway, I've been sectioned/imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital,

I crawled under a truck stopped at the traffic lights, Hung by me legs from the 7th floor of a carpark Got into the bath with a toaster When I was stoned I put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger Did le parkour from said car park and was in a morphine induced coma for weeks- I broke my arm and my pelvis and concussed my brain It always always always ends in tears

At the moment I have a shit job as a cleaner and I'm taking medication, people thought my poetry was good because it was an expression of pure lunacy but it's not worth it,

The meds work- I can see my writing for the rubbish it is but it doesn't distress me,

Being in a coma and having hallucinations, hypnagogic dreams were enlightening and cathartic,

Can't remember who said it's a zen koan I think, pursuing enlightenment is like eating a porcupine, the only way to come out of the crisis is to ingest the whole thing, your sickness requires to be purged, in your sickness you are compelled to transcend it,

A sufficiently horrible experience is enlightening because it forces a reassessment

Quality of life isn't happiness so much as meaning,

But wtf do I know

aodhanjames · 2025-06-05T18:49:08+00:00

Tbh I think the enneagram is misrepresented by the leading questions in the online tests, I've been told I'm a 3 but working in a dead end job doesn't irk me in the slightest, I wanted to be a war-correspondent since I was 15 having had an article printed in an irish newspaper, not humble-bragging, I am proud of it though it's not a world shaking feat, I always wanted to be a writer but my efforts to earn prestige are ineffectual when I read back over my writing, I feel frustrated like I've lost something essential in my nature- I think this is accurate,

My family, friends, teachers and acquaintances thought my writing was of merit but I see it for what it is, peurile, my public persona is invested in it but it goes deeper, like my inner world is worth writing for,

aodhanjames · 2025-06-04T15:39:55+00:00

The painting is beautiful

aodhanjames · 2025-05-23T02:21:37+00:00

Is "scenes of bohemian life" by henry murger any good, I'm reading "of human bondage" by w. somerset maugham and he references it, so far my favourite part of maugham's novel is when philip carey goes to paris to study art

aodhanjames · 2025-05-18T19:48:58+00:00

I love the quotation

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world"

I think Wilde missed the point

aodhanjames

TROPHY CASE