The Art of Living Simply簡單生活

1、The Art of Living Simply簡單生活We paddled down Maines Saco River that September afternoon, five couples in canoes, basking in the summers last golden sunlight. Grazing deer, fluttering their white tails, watched our flotilla pass. That evening we pitched tents, broiled steaks and sprawled around the ca

2、mpfire, staring sleepily at the stars. One man, strumming his guitar, sang an old Shaker song: “Tis the gift to be simple. Tis the gift to be free.”那一年，九月的下午，我們五對夫婦各自慢悠悠地劃著獨木舟，沿著緬因州的薩科河順流而下，沐浴在夏末的金色陽光之中，無比愜意。岸邊的小鹿，啃著小草，搖著白色的尾巴，注視著我們這支小小的船隊漂流而過。晚上，我們搭起了帳篷，烤著牛排，圍著篝火懶散地躺著，睡眼朦朧地凝望著滿天繁星。有人彈著吉他，唱起古老的歌曲：“淡

3、泊乃是天資，自由乃是天賦?！監(jiān)ur idyll ended, of course, and we drove back to the world of loan payments, jobs and clogged washing machines. “Tis the gift to be simple,” I found myself humming at odd moments, “Tis the gift to be free.” How I longed for that simplicity. But where could I find it?當然了，田園牧歌式的漫游告一段落，我們

4、又驅(qū)車回到這個世界，還貸款，忙工作，還有洗衣機塞滿了臟衣服。偶爾我也會情不自禁地哼唱：“淡泊乃是天資，自由乃是天賜?！蔽叶嘞牖畹牡◤娜?，可哪兒去找呢？“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” That dictum of Henry David Thoreaus, echoing from the days of steamboats and ox-drawn plows, had long hunted me. Yet Thoreau himself was able to spend only two year

5、s in the cabin he built beside Walden Pond. And Henry-wifeless, childless, jobless-never had to tussle with such details as variable-rate mortgages.“我們的生命都因為繁雜瑣事盡付東流。簡單點，簡單點。”亨利.戴維.梭羅的警示名言打從老牛犁地、汽船轟鳴的時代就縈繞耳畔，揮之不去。而梭羅自己也不過在瓦爾登池邊自己造的小木屋里度過兩年光陰，他無妻，無子，無所事事不必為利率高低不同的房屋按揭這類繁雜瑣事費勁操勞。My life attracted deta

6、il, as if my motto were: “Complicate, complicate.” And Ive found Im not alone. But one day my thinking about simplicity turned upside down.我的生活總被繁雜瑣事吸引，好像我的座右銘該是：“復(fù)雜點，復(fù)雜點?！蔽疫€發(fā)現(xiàn)我并非唯一。然而有一天，我對簡單樸素的想法完全顛覆了。I was visiting a physicist in his office tower jutting from his Illinois farmlands. We looked thr

7、ough his window at the laboratorys miles-around particle accelerator, an immense circle in the prairie far below. “Its a kind of time machine,” he said, explaining that the accelerator enables physicists to study conditions like those shortly after Creations first moment. The universe was simpler th

8、en, he noted, a mere dot comprising perhaps only one kind of force and one kind of particle. Now it has many kinds of forces, scores of different particles, and contains everything from stars and galaxies to dandelions, elephants and poems of Keats.有一天，我去拜訪一位物理學(xué)家，他的辦公室是一座塔樓，矗立于他的家鄉(xiāng)伊利諾伊州農(nóng)場之上。透過窗戶，我們看

9、到塔樓下遠處的草場上有一座巨大的圓形物那是實驗室方圓幾英里的粒子加速器，他解釋說：“這是一種時間機器。”加速器使得物理學(xué)家們能夠?qū)煦绯蹰_時的狀況加以研究。他補充說，那時的宇宙要簡單一些，或許只是一個小圓點，只包含一種能量成一種粒子。而現(xiàn)在的宇宙有著多種能量和幾十種粒子，從星球、銀河系到蒲公英、大象和濟慈的詩文，包羅萬象。Complexity, I began to see from that tower, is part of Gods plan.就在那個塔樓上，我方才明白：復(fù)雜，乃是上帝全盤設(shè)計的一部分。Deep down, we sense that we speak, disparag

10、ingly, of a “simpleton”. Nobody wants to be guilty of “simplistic” thinking.在內(nèi)心深處，我們感覺到這一點。每每談到“頭腦簡單的傻子”時，我們常常帶著輕蔑的口吻。誰也不想背上一個“簡單化”的罪名。But blinding ourselves to complexity can be dangerous. Once I bought a home. I liked its setting so much I unconsciously avoided probing into its possible defects. A

11、fter it was mine, I found it needed insulation, roofing, a new heating system, new windows, a septic systemeverything. That old house became an albatross, costing far more than I could afford, the cost in stress was even higher, I had refused to look at the complexities.但對復(fù)雜的狀態(tài)視而不見是危險的。我曾經(jīng)買過一所房子，由于非

12、常喜歡周圍環(huán)境，不知不覺之間忽略了可能存在的缺點。房子歸我之后，我才發(fā)現(xiàn)，要做的事情不勝枚舉：需要隔熱保溫，西藥加蓋屋頂，需要新的供暖系統(tǒng)，需要新窗戶，需要新的化糞池。房子讓我不堪重負，修繕的高額費用令我力有不逮，而精神壓力則更大，這便是我不愿正視復(fù)雜性的后果。Even ordinary finances are rarely simplewhat does your insurance policy actually cover? Yet, economics are simplicity itself compared with moral questions.就連一般的財務(wù)問題也不是那么

13、簡單，譬如，你的保險單上究竟包括了哪些條款？然而，與道德問題相比，經(jīng)濟學(xué)本身還算是簡潔明了。One afternoon when I was ten, I found myself the leader of an after-school gaggle of boys. I had to divert them quickly, I knew, or my career as leader would be brief. And then I saw Joe.記得十歲那年那年有一天下午，我無意中成了一幫孩子的校外頭目。我知道要馬上干一件讓他們興奮的事兒，不然，我這個位子難保。正在此時，我看到

14、了喬。Joe was an Eiffel Tower of a kid, an incipient giant. His family had emigrated from Europe, and he and a faint accent.在孩子里，喬是一個小巨人，高得像埃菲爾鐵塔。他們?nèi)覐臍W洲移民過來，因此他略微有些鄉(xiāng)音?！癓ets get him!” I said.“捉住他！”我叫道。 My little troop of Goths swarmed upon Joe. Somebody snatched his hat and we played catch with it. Joe

15、 ran home, and I took his hat as a trophy.我這支野蠻的小部隊一窩蜂地向喬撲了上去，有人搶走了他的帽子，我們就玩起傳接球游戲。喬跑回家，我拿著他的帽子，活像繳獲了一個戰(zhàn)利品。That night, our doorbell rang. Joes father, a worried-looking farmer with a thick accent, asked for Joes hat. I returned it sheepishly. “Please dont upset Joe,” he said earnestly. “He has asthm

16、a. When he has attack, it is hard for him to get better.”那天晚上，我家的門鈴響了。喬的父親，一個愁容滿面、口音濃重的農(nóng)夫上門討還喬的帽子，我局促不安地還給了他?！罢埐灰僬腥菃塘?，”他鄭重其事地對我說：“他有哮喘病，發(fā)作起來很難好的?！盜 felt a lead softball in my chest. The next evening I walked to Joes house. He was in the garden, tilling the soil, he watched me warily as I walked up.

17、 I asked if I could help. “Okay,” he said. After that I went often to help him and we became best friends.我感到胸口像塞進了一個鉛做的壘球。第二天晚上，我走到喬的家，他正在花園里翻土。我走近他，他則警惕地看著我。我問是否能幫上點兒忙?！昂冒桑彼卮鹫f。從那以后，我經(jīng)常去幫他，我們成了最要好的朋友。I had taken a step toward adulthood. Inside myself I had seen possibilities, like a tangle of wir

18、es. This red wire was the possibility for evil, which requires no more than ignoring anothers pain. And here was the white of sympathy. I could have a hand in connecting all those wiresit was a matter of the decisions I made. I had discovered complexity, and found it an opportunity to choose, to gro

19、w. Its price is responsibility.我向成熟邁進了一步。我再自己身上看到了各種各樣的可能性，就像一團糾纏不清的電線。紅線通向邪惡，要的不過是對他人痛苦的不理不睬。而白色線通向悲天憫人。我的手可能觸及所有的電線一切取決于我所做的決定。我已發(fā)現(xiàn)了事物的復(fù)雜，其本身是一種機會，我們借此做出選擇，得以成長，代價便是承擔責(zé)任。Perhaps, that is one reason we yearn for the simple life. In a way, we want to be children, to let someone else carry the awkwar

20、d backpack of responsibility.也許，這正是我們渴望淡泊簡樸生活的一個理由。在某種意義上，我們情愿做個孩子，好讓其他人背負責(zé)任，窮于應(yīng)付。We are like wheat, here on earth to ripen. We ripen intellectually by letting in as much of the universes complexity as we can. Morally we ripen by making our choices. And we ripen spiritually by opening our eyes to Cr

21、eations endless detail.像小麥一樣，我們在這塊土地上等待成熟。心智上的成熟要考盡量吸取宇宙萬物的復(fù)雜性；道德上的成熟有賴于做出決斷，有所取舍；精神上的成熟則要憑借我們張大雙眼目睹造物主帶給我們的繁雜瑣事，無窮無盡。One afternoon I picked up a fallen leaf from the sugar maple in our yard. Up close it was yellow, with splashes of red. At arms length it was orange. Its color depended on how I look

22、ed at it.一天下午，我再院子里拾起一片楓樹的落葉，近看是黃的，帶點紅色，斑斑駁駁。伸直胳膊再看，便成了橘黃色，它的顏色決定于我怎么看它。I knew a little about how this leaf had spent its life, transforming sunlight and carbon dioxide into nutrients, and I knew that we animals breathe that oxygen that such plants emit, while they thrive upon the carbon dioxide we

23、exhale. And I knew that each cell of the leaf has a nucleus containing a chemical-DNA-upon which is inscribed all the instructions for making and operating a sugar maple. Scientists know for more about this than I. But even their knowledge extends only a short way into the sea of complexity that is

24、a sugar maple.我對這片葉子的經(jīng)歷略有所知，它吸收陽光，把二氧化碳轉(zhuǎn)化為養(yǎng)料。我知道我們動物所吸入的氧氣是這些植物吐出來的，而它們則靠我們呼出的二氧化碳茁壯成長。我還知道，葉子的每一個細胞都有一個脫氧核糖核酸的細胞核，上面刻寫了一切關(guān)于楓樹怎樣形成和變化的指令。這一點科學(xué)家們比我知道的多得多，但就是他們的知識也不過是對楓樹這復(fù)雜的知識海洋的淺輒探索而已。Im beginning to understand, I think, what simplicity means. It does not mean blinding ourselves to the worlds stunni

25、ng complexity or avoiding the choices that ripen us. By “simplify, simplify,” Thoreau meat simplifying ourselves.我覺得開始懂得簡單樸素的真正意義了。這并不意味著無視那令人眼花繚亂的繽紛世界，或是逃避使我們成熟的選擇?！昂唵吸c，簡單點?！彼罅_所指的是簡化我們自己。To accomplish this, we can:要做到這一點，可以參照以下幾點：Focus on deeper things. The simple life is not necessarily living in

26、a cabin, cultivating beans. It is refusing to let our lives to be “frittered away by detail”. A professor taught me a secret for focusing: Turn off the TV and read great books. They open doors in your brain.關(guān)注意義深遠的事務(wù)。生活得淡泊不一定非要住小屋、種豆子不可。它只是使我們的生命不至于“因為繁雜瑣事盡付東流。”有位教授告訴我集中精力的秘訣：“關(guān)掉電視，閱讀偉大的書籍，它們會為你們打開一

27、扇智慧的大門?！盪ndertake lifes journey on step at a time. I once met young couple both blind since birth. They had a three-year-old daughter and an infant, both fully sighted. For those parents, everything was complex; bathing the baby, monitoring their daughter, mowing the lawn. Yet, they were full of smi

28、les and laughter. I asked the mother how she kept track of their lively daughter. “I tie little bells on her shoes,” she said with a laugh.人生之旅步步為營。有一次曾遇到一對夫婦，他倆天生是盲人，有一個三歲女兒和一個嬰兒，兩個孩子都視力完好。對這樣的父母來說，每件事情都是復(fù)雜的：給嬰兒洗澡，管教女兒，修剪草坪。然而，他們的生活卻充滿了歡聲笑語。我問這位母親怎樣跟蹤她那活潑可愛的女兒，她笑著回答：“我再他的鞋子上系上了小鈴鐺?！?“What will you

29、do when the infant walks too?” I asked.“那么等小嬰兒也會走路了，怎么辦呢？”我又問。She smiled. “Everything is so complicated that I dont try to solve a problem until I have to. I take one thing at a time!” 她微笑著說：“每件事都那么復(fù)雜，所以不到萬不得已，我不會試著去解決某個問題。我每次只承擔一件事情！”Pare down your desires. English novelist and playwright Jerome kl

30、apka Jerome caught the spirit of that enterprise when he wrote, “Let your boat of life be light, packed only with what you need-a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog and a pipe too, enough to eat and enough to we

31、ar and a little more than enough to drink, for thirst is a dangerous thing.”降低我們的欲望。英國小說家、戲劇家杰羅姆·克拉普卡的一番話道出了某個人膽識的精神本質(zhì)。他寫道：“讓你的生命之舟輕巧些，只裝上你需要的東西一個樸實的家，簡單恬淡的快樂，一二知己，你愛的人和愛你的人，一只貓，一條狗，煙斗一二，夠吃的食品、夠穿的衣服，飲料多帶一些，因為口干舌燥可是要人命呢?！盢ot long ago I flew home to see my father in the hospital. He has a disease

32、 that nibbles away the mid. I was a snarl of worries. Treatments? Nursing homes? Finances?不久前，我乘飛機回鄉(xiāng)看望住院的父親，他得了一種記憶逐漸喪失的疾病。我心如亂麻，憂慮忡忡：如何治療？如何護理？經(jīng)濟負擔又如何？He was crouched in a wheelchair, a shriveled, whitened remnant of the father I had known. As I stood there, hurt and confused, he looked up and saw me. And then I saw something unexpected and wonderful in her eyes: recognition and love. It welled up and filled his eyes with tears. And mine.父親蜷縮