中药神仙草又叫什么:你的人生报告

来源:百度文库 编辑:中财网 时间:2024/04/24 18:08:44
您年过七十了吗?我想向您讨个礼物。写下一份简要的生命报告,自我评估一下到目前为止,您做过哪些很棒的事情,又有哪些事差强人意,一路走来的收获是什么。文章的形式可以是简洁的论文,也可以分门别类呈现——事业,家庭,信仰,社会性,自知力,并且给每一项打个分。
If you send these life reports to me at dabrooks@nytimes.com, I’ll write a few columns about them around Thanksgiving and post as many essays as possible online.
文章请发送到邮箱dabrooks@nytimes.com,我会在感恩节前后开写一个专栏,尽可能把大家的文章都放到时报网上。
I ask for this gift for two reasons.
发起这项倡议的原因有以下两点。
First, we have few formal moments of self-appraisal in our culture. Occasionally, on a big birthday people will take a step back and try to form a complete picture of their lives, but we have no regular rite of passage prompting them to do so.
首先在这样的文化下,对自我进行严肃评估的机会并不多。人们只是在偶尔过大生的时候回顾过去,试着拼凑起生命的图景。然而我们的文化没有激励人们长期定期地做这件事。
More important, these essays will be useful to the young. Young people are educated in many ways, but they are given relatively little help in understanding how a life develops, how careers and families evolve, what are the common mistakes and the common blessings of modern adulthood. These essays will help them benefit from your experience.
其次,也是更重要的原因,是这些文章对青年人有益。他们接受教育的途径很广,然而要说到协助青年人理解生命的演进,事业、家庭的成长,以及对当代成人来说什么是普遍易犯的错误,什么是普遍意义的幸事等等这些方面,这些教育途径就显得乏力了。而您的文章可以帮助他们从您的经历中汲取养分。
The closest things I’ve been able to find to Life Reports of this sort are the essays some colleges ask their alumni to write for their 25th and 50th reunions. For example, I just stumbled across a collection of short autobiographies that the Yale class of 1942 wrote for their 50th reunion. Some of the lives are inspiring, and some are ones you’d want to avoid.
据我所知,与这种生命报告最接近的,是某些高校邀请校友在二十五或五十周年同学会时写下的感言。我刚碰巧接触到一些简短的自传文章,是1942年耶鲁大学毕业班的同学在五十周年同学会时留下的。你会看到有些人的生活是多么令人鼓舞,还有些人的简直是场灾难。
The most common lament in this collection is from people who worked at the same company all their lives and now realize how boring they must seem. These people passively let their lives happen to them. One man described his long, uneventful career at an insurance company and concluded, “Wish my self-profile was more exciting, but it’s a little late now.”
在这些文章中,最常见的悲叹来自那些毕生供职于一家公司的人,如今回首才意识到自己要多乏味有多乏味。他们撞到什么是什么,被动地接受生活的安排。有位长期在保险公司担任普通职位的男士这样写到:“真希望自己的小传看着振奋一点,可惜现在有点迟了。”
Others regret the risk not taken. One rancher wrote, “The pastoral country and its people of New South Wales and Tasmania are similar to Arizona of fifty years ago, that I recall so fondly. I deeply regret not moving to Australia when I was married there 25 years ago.”
其他人则后悔没有迎头接受生活中的挑战。一位农场主写到:“新南威尔士州和澳大利亚的塔斯马尼亚岛那种田园牧歌式的乡村和那儿的人们,跟五十年前的亚利桑那州很相似,想起这些我心里就充满温情。很遗憾二十五年前在澳大利亚结婚时没有搬过去。”
Others wish they had had more intellectual curiosity, or that they weren’t so lazy, or that they had not gotten married so young. Some are strangely passive even in the case of their own character flaws. One chemistry professor wrote, “I am stubborn, cold, selfish, and resentful of being corrected or opposed. I also wish that a course in parenting had been required of all of us at Yale.”
还有一些人希望自己的求知欲再强烈点就好了,或者别那么懒,别结婚太早等等。匪夷所思的是甚至有人对自己的个性缺陷也抱以消极态度,一位化学教师写到:“我顽固不化,冷酷自私,一有人纠正或者反对我,我就会愤愤不平。我还希望耶鲁给我们开设关于父母养育子女的必修课就好了!”
Looking back, many were amazed by the role that chance played in their lives. Others point to the pivotal moment that changed their lives. One man was nationally humiliated when he lost to Charles Van Doren in a television quiz show (Van Doren was cheating). Another had a daughter who developed schizophrenia at 16. Another made his fortune in a moment, inventing a mechanical birdcall. “The way it is shaping up now it will be The Audubon Birdcall that is my legacy, and not much else,” he wrote.
在回首往事的过程中,许多人对生活中降临的偶然因素惊奇不已。还有人提炼出那些改变生活轨迹的关键时刻。有个男人参加电视智力抢答节目输给了查理·范多伦,在全国人民面前丢了脸(当时范多伦作弊)。另外一个男人的女儿十六岁患上精神分裂症。还有一个男人发明了鸟鸣模仿器,一夜暴富。“现在有名字了,一只做好的名叫奥杜邦鸟鸣器,这就是我留给后人的东西,别无其它。”他说。
The most exciting essays were written by the energetic, restless people, who took their lives off in new directions midcourse. One man, who was white, trained an all-black unit during World War II, was a director of the pharmaceutical company that developed The Pill, and then served as a judge at an international court at The Hague. “Career-wise, it was a rocky road,” another wrote, “but if diversity is the spice of life, then mine resembled hot Indian curry.” Nobody regretted the life changes they made, even when they failed.
最令人激动的文章出自那些精力旺盛、酷爱折腾的人们之手,他们半路出家,在全新的领域中扬帆起航。一个男人,一个白种男人,二战期间在全黑人的部队里受训,然后在一家生产口服避孕药丸的制药公司当经理,接着在海牙一家国际法庭当法官。而另一个人写到:“从事业角度来说,我走得磕磕绊绊。如果说‘多样化’是生活的调剂品,我经历的多样化就类似于热辣的印度咖喱。”没有一个人后悔生活中曾做出的改变,即便是失败的结果。
Some felt summoned to do one thing. Their essays ring with passion and conviction. “I have been put on earth to be a painter,” one artist wrote. A scientist writes, “I can think of no career more rewarding and no pursuit more noble.”
有些人一做某件事情就有一种使命感,全身毛孔都贴顺的感觉。这些人的文字充满了激情与信念。“我就是为作画而生的。”一位艺术家写到。“我想不出还有什么事业更值得,还有什么追求更高尚。”一位科学家写到。
After an unexciting business career, one man found total fulfillment teaching others how to build custom fishing rods. Another found it volunteering for the International Crane Foundation, preserving bird habitats.
一个男人停止乏味的商务工作,在教授他人自制鱼竿的过程中收获了完完全全的满足感。另一个人是国际鹤类基金会的志愿者,他在保护鸟类栖息地的同时收获了同样的满足。
The men all mention serving in the war, but none go into detail about their war experiences. Many were struck by tragedy: blindness, the suicide of a child, a profound professional catastrophe.
男人们全都提到战时服役的事情,却没有一个人描述细节。许多人被灾难笼罩:失明,儿女自杀,深入骨髓的大悲剧。
They strike me as less intellectually adventurous than the Yale students of today. They were alarmed by the shift in values they had witnessed during their lifetime. But most were immensely grateful to live in the era that they did. An amazing number cherished their marriages of 43 years or more. And, for almost all, family and friends mattered most.
我觉得他们与如今的耶鲁学生相比心智没有那么活跃。这些人亲历过价值的更替转变,变得谨小慎微。然而大部分的人仍对其所经历的时代怀有无限感激之情。珍惜维持婚姻关系至少四十三年之久的人数令人惊叹。另外他们中几乎每一位都认可,家庭和朋友是最要紧的。
And they left these essays, offering lessons for the rest of us. I’m hoping you’ll do that, too.
他们留下这些文字,给世上的你我上了一课。我衷心希望您也写下自己的一页。