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第15章 津津有味的时刻 (1)

Relish The Moment

我们终究会认识到人生的旅途中并没有车站,也没有能够“一到永逸”的地方!生活的真正乐趣在于旅行的过程,而车站不过是个梦,它始终遥遥领先于我们!

Three Passions三种激情

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy–ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flu. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

三种激情虽然简单,却异常强烈,它们统治着我的生命,那便是:对爱的渴望,对知识的追求,以及对人类苦难的难以承受的同情。这三种激情像变化莫测的狂风任意地把我刮来刮去,把我刮入痛苦的深海,到了绝望的边缘。

我曾经寻找爱,首先是因为它能使我欣喜若狂——这种喜悦之情如此强烈,使我常常宁愿为这几个小时的愉悦而牺牲生命中的其他一切。我寻求爱,其次是因为爱能解除孤独——在这种可怕的孤独中,一颗颤抖的良心在世界的边缘,注视着下面冰凉、毫无生气、望不见底的深渊。我寻求爱还因为在爱的融合中,我能以某种神秘的图像看到曾被圣人和诗人想象过的天堂里未来的景象。这就是我所追求的东西,虽然这似乎对于人类的生命来说过于完美,但这确实是我最终发现的东西。

我怀着同样的激情去寻找知识,我曾渴望着理解人心,我曾渴望知道为何星星会闪烁,我还企图弄懂毕达哥拉斯所谓的用数字控制变化的力量,但在这方面,我只知道一点点。

爱的力量和知识的力量引我接近天堂,但同情之心往往又把我拉回大地。痛苦的哭泣回响、震荡在我的心中。饥饿的儿童,被压迫、受折磨的人们,成为儿孙们讨厌的包袱的、无助的老人们,充斥着整个世界的孤独的气氛,贫穷和苦难,所有这一切都是对人类生活原本该具有的样子所作的讽刺。我渴望消除一切邪恶,但我办不到,因为我自己也处于苦难之中。

这就是我的生活,我认为值得一过。而且,如果有第二次机会,我将乐意地再过一次。

Discovery发现

The word “discovery” literally means, uncovering something that’s hidden from view. But what really happens is a change in the viewer. The familiar offers comfort few can resist, and fewer still want to disturb. But as relatively recent inventions such as the telescope and microscope have taught us, the unknown has many layers. Every truth has geological strata, and you can’t have an orthodoxy without a heresy.

The moment a newborn opens its eyes, discovery begins. I learned this with a laugh one morning after delivering a calf. When it lifted up its fluffy head and looked at me, its eyes held the absolute bewilderment of the newly born. A moment before it had the even black nowhere of the womb, and suddenly its world was full of colour, movement and noise. I’ve never seen anything so shocked to be alive.

“发现”一词,字面上是指揭开某种视线以外的隐藏的事物。不过其实是观察者自身发生了变化。很少人能抗拒熟悉事物带来的舒适,愿意扰乱这种舒适的人更少。然而,正如望远镜、显微镜这些较为近期的发明所揭示给我们的,求知事物具有多种层次。每个事实都有地质层次,没有异端也就无所谓正统。

新生儿睁开双眼的那一刻起,发现也就开始了。我是在一天清晨给一头小牛犊接生的时候突然意识到这一点的,不禁大笑。小牛仰起毛茸茸的脑袋看着我,目光中透出这个新生命对世界的一无所知。片刻之前,它还待在母体里某个黑暗而平静的地方,突然,它的世界变得五光十色,变得活泼而喧闹。我从未见过任何东西在获得生命时是如些的惊异。

Opportunity机会

The air we breathe is so freely available that we take it for granted. Yet without it we could not survive more than a few minutes. For the most part, the same air is available to everyone, and everyone needs it. Some people use the air to sustain them while they sit around and feel sorry for themselves. Others breathe in the air and use the energy it provides to make a magnificent life for themselves.

Opportunity is the same way. It is everywhere. Opportunity is so freely available that we take it for granted. Yet opportunity alone is not enough to create success. Opportunity must be seized and acted upon in order to have value. So many people are so anxious to “get in” on a “ground floor opportunity”, as if the opportunity will do all the work. That’s impossible.

Just as you need air to breathe, you need opportunity to succeed. It takes more than just breathing in the fresh air of opportunity, however. You must make use of that opportunity. That’s not up to the opportunity. That’s up to you. It doesn’t matter what “floor” the opportunity is on. What matters is what you do with it.

空气到处都有,我们是如此容易得到它,以至我们常将其易得性视为理所当然。可一旦失去它,我们只能活几分钟。基本上,谁都能呼吸到空气,谁都需要空气。有的人呼吸空气只为碌碌无为地生活着,或是在懊悔中度过余生。有的人呼吸空气并利用它提供的能量使自己的生活绚丽多彩。

机会也是如此。机会无处不在。机会如此易得以至我们对此视为理所当然。然而只有机会并不能获得成功,而必须抓住机会,见机行事,创造佳绩。许多人都渴望能夺得先机,似乎只要夺得先机就能万事大吉。这是不可能的。

正如你需要呼吸空气一样,你需要机会才能成功。然而成功靠的并不仅仅是随手可得的机会。你必须利用机会。成功并不取决于机会,而是取决于你。重要的并不是你在哪一个阶段遇见机会,而是面对机会你是如何把握的。

Take Charge of Your Day抓紧时间

People occasionally tell you, “Do that in your free time,” but in fact there’s no such thing as “free”time. Even when you’re lying by the swimming pool, that’s leisure time—but it isn’t free time.