Come in, stay for a while.

Hurry up, it’s going to rain! My Neighbor Totoro | となりのトトロ (1988) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

it can be tempting to live your life like a prequel. to live as if you’re setting up your own story.and once you lose the weight, once you have the money, once you graduate school, once you’re in a real relationship, once, once, once. then finally, you’ll begin to live, and everything you do up until that point is some kind of half-life, some unimportant foreword you can skip. don’t do this. inhabit your life completely. sink fully into the wealth of your existence. the power to manifest is in the fearless owning of who you are, so that you can shape where you’re going.

Reminder for myself!

everything is going to be just fine. the sunsets will continue to be beautiful and the moon will continue to glow. nothing is as serious as you feel in your heart. let go and enjoy what happens as it comes. take every obstacle as a lesson and every twist as an adventure because everything is going to be okay.

apply for jobs you’re not qualified for! audit upper-level classes! get drunk with your TAs! see that poster advertising that lecture series? go there take notes and ask questions! thank the presenter for talking about this topic you love! if the class is full before you register, email the professor and ask if they can squeeze you in! RAISE YOUR HAND! tell the disability accomodation office to do their goddamn job! ask for help! file complaints! go to class in your pajamas and destroy the reading! you got this! you KNOW you got this! be arrogant enough to learn EVERYTHING! take your meds! punch a velociraptor in the dick! fear is useless and temporary! glory is forever! shed your skin and erupt angel wings! help out! spread your sun!

i had a really good morning! you deserve a really good morning! kill anyone who says you don’t and build a throne from their bones!

Ben Whishaw reads Love Sonnet 78 by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

I don’t hold on to never. I don’t hold on to forever. In the sand victory leaves vanishing footprints. I’m just a poor man disposed to cherishing our similarities. Whoever you are. I love you. I neither give nor sell suspicion. Someone knows that I haven’t woven crowns of thorns; that I’ve fought the stupidness, And the tide of my spirit filled up with truth. I repaid the vicious with doves.

I don’t hold on to never because I’m distinct, Every moment, I have been, I am, I always will be. In the name of my love’s changeability I proclaim its purity.

Death is only a stone of oblivion. I love you. Into your mouth I kiss happiness. Let’s gather some sticks. Let’s light a fire on the mountain.

THIS. BLESS YOU WHO UPLOADED THIS BEAUTIFUL READING. 

Ben’s reading was the reason why I set quotes from this translation as titles of my London Spy fix-it fic series. I’ve posted Death is only a stone of oblivion on AO3 here.