January 2016
2016年1月
Life is short, as everyone knows. When I was a kid I used to wonder about this. Is life actually short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness? Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if we lived 10 times as long?
人人都知道，人生如此短暫。當我還是個孩子的時候我常常想知道這個，是人生真的短暫還是我們只是在抱怨它的時限性？如果我們的生命是現在的十倍，我們還會不會抱怨短暫。
Since there didn't seem any way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it. Then I had kids. That gave me a way to answer the question, and the answer is that life actually is short.
自從發現這個看起來沒有任何可以回答這個問題的答案後，我停止去想。後來我有了孩子。這給了我一個回答問題的方法，答案是生命其實是短暫的。
Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities. You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only get to watch your child experience it 8 times. And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was.
有孩子教我如何把一個連續的量，時間，轉換成離散的量。你只有52個週末和你2歲的孩子在一起。如果聖誕像魔法一樣從3歲持續到10歲，你只能看着你的孩子經歷8次。雖然很難說什麼是像時間這樣的大量或少量連續的數量，但8並不是很多東西。如果你有一把8粒花生，或者有一書架8本書可供選擇，那麼無論你的壽命是多少，數量肯定是有限的。
Ok, so life actually is short. Does it make any difference to know that?
好吧，所以生命其實很短暫。知道這些有什麼區別嗎？
It has for me. It means arguments of the form "Life is too short for x" have great force. It's not just a figure of speech to say that life is too short for something. It's not just a synonym for annoying. If you find yourself thinking that life is too short for something, you should try to eliminate it if you can.
對我來說是的。這意味着“生命對x來說太短”的論點有很大的影響力。說生命對某些東西來說太短不僅僅是一種修辭手法。它不僅僅是煩人的同義詞。如果你發現自己認爲生命對某些東西來說太短暫了，你應該儘可能地消除它。
When I ask myself what I've found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is "bullshit." I realize that answer is somewhat tautological. It's almost the definition of bullshit that it's the stuff that life is too short for. And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character. There's something fake about it. It's the junk food of experience. [1]
當我問自己我發現生命對什麼來說太短的時候，我腦海中閃現的一個詞是“胡說八道”，我意識到這個答案有些重複。這幾乎是狗屁的定義，它是生命太短的東西。然而，胡說八道確實有其獨特的特點。這是假的。這是經驗的垃圾食品。[一]
If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that's bullshit, you probably already know the answer. Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people's mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes.
如果你問自己你花了多少時間在這上面是胡說八道，你可能已經知道答案了。不必要的會議、毫無意義的爭論、官僚主義、裝腔作勢、處理別人的錯誤、交通堵塞、令人上癮但卻毫無回報的消遣。
There are two ways this kind of thing gets into your life: it's either forced on you, or it tricks you. To some extent you have to put up with the bullshit forced on you by circumstances. You need to make money, and making money consists mostly of errands. Indeed, the law of supply and demand insures that: the more rewarding some kind of work is, the cheaper people will do it. It may be that less bullshit is forced on you than you think, though. There has always been a stream of people who opt out of the default grind and go live somewhere where opportunities are fewer in the conventional sense, but life feels more authentic. This could become more common.
這類事情有兩種方式進入你的生活：要麼強迫你，要麼欺騙你。在某種程度上，你不得不忍受環境逼着你的胡說八道。你需要賺錢，賺錢主要是跑腿。事實上，供求定律保證：某種工作越有回報，人們就越願意做。不過，可能你的胡說八道比你想象的要少。一直有很多人選擇放棄默認的工作，去一個傳統意義上機會更少的地方生活，但生活感覺更真實。這可能會變得更加普遍。
You can do it on a smaller scale without moving. The amount of time you have to spend on bullshit varies between employers. Most large organizations (and many small ones) are steeped in it. But if you consciously prioritize bullshit avoidance over other factors like money and prestige, you can probably find employers that will waste less of your time.
你可以在較小的範圍內不移動。你花在胡扯上的時間因僱主而異。大多數大型組織（和許多小型組織）都深陷其中。但是，如果你有意識地把避免胡說八道放在金錢和聲望等其他因素的首位，你可能會發現僱主會減少你的時間浪費。
If you're a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers. If you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you decrease your income.
如果你是一個自由職業者或一家小公司，你可以在個人客戶的層面上做到這一點。如果你解僱或避免有毒顧客，你可以減少你生活中的廢話，而不是減少你的收入。
But while some amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by tricking you is no one's fault but your own. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that's forced on you. Things that lure you into wasting your time have to be really good at tricking you. An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online. When someone contradicts you, they're in a sense attacking you. Sometimes pretty overtly. Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself. But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for the world we now live in. Counterintuitive as it feels, it's better most of the time not to defend yourself. Otherwise these people are literally taking your life. [2]
但是，當你不可避免地被一些胡說八道強加在你身上時，那些通過欺騙你潛入你生活的胡說八道不是別人的錯，而是你自己的錯。然而，你選擇的廢話可能比強迫你的廢話更難消除。誘使你浪費時間的事情必須非常善於欺騙你。一個很多人都熟悉的例子是在網上爭論。當有人反駁你時，他們在某種意義上是在攻擊你。有時很明顯。你受到攻擊時的本能是自衛。但就像很多本能一樣，這個不是爲我們現在生活的世界而設計的。雖然感覺有悖直覺，但大多數時候最好不要爲自己辯護。否則這些人會奪走你的生命。[二]
Arguing online is only incidentally addictive. There are more dangerous things than that. As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions — to stand outside ourselves and ask "is this how I want to be spending my time?"
在網上爭論只是偶然的上癮。還有比這更危險的事情。正如我之前寫的，技術進步的一個副產品是，我們喜歡的東西往往變得更容易上癮。這意味着我們將越來越需要有意識地努力避免上癮——站在自己的外面，問“這是我想要的消磨時間的方式嗎？”
As well as avoiding bullshit, one should actively seek out things that matter. But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them. A few are lucky and realize early on that they love math or taking care of animals or writing, and then figure out a way to spend a lot of time doing it. But most people start out with a life that's a mix of things that matter and things that don't, and only gradually learn to distinguish between them.
除了避免胡說八道外，人們還應該積極尋找重要的東西。但不同的事情對不同的人來說很重要，而且大多數人必須學會什麼對他們來說很重要。一些人很幸運，他們很早就意識到自己喜歡數學、照顧動物或寫作，然後想辦法花很多時間去做。但大多數人一開始的生活是把重要的事情和不重要的事情混合在一起，只有逐漸學會區分它們。
For the young especially, much of this confusion is induced by the artificial situations they find themselves in. In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most important thing in the world. But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they cared too much what other kids thought of them.
尤其是對年輕人來說，這種困惑很大程度上是由他們所處的人爲環境引起的。在中學和高中，其他孩子對你的看法似乎是世界上最重要的事情。但當你問成年人他們在那個年齡出了什麼問題時，幾乎所有人都說他們太在意其他孩子對他們的看法。
One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you'll care about it in the future. Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter. That's how it tricks you. The area under the curve is small, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.
區分重要事物的一個啓發是問問自己，將來是否會在意它。重要的假東西通常有一個看起來很重要的尖峯。這就是它欺騙你的方式。曲線下的區域很小，但它的形狀像一根針刺入你的意識。
The things that matter aren't necessarily the ones people would call "important." Having coffee with a friend matters. You won't feel later like that was a waste of time.
重要的事情不一定是人們所說的“重要的”。和朋友喝咖啡很重要。你以後不會覺得那是浪費時間。
One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that matter: them. They grab your sleeve as you're staring at your phone and say "will you play with me?" And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option.
有小孩的一個好處是他們讓你花時間在重要的事情上：他們。他們抓住你的袖子當你盯着你的手機說“你願意和我一起玩嗎？”而事實上，這很可能是一個廢話最小化的選擇。
If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to happen. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed. The saddest windows close when other people die. Their lives are short too. After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did.
如果生命是短暫的，我們應該期待它的短暫帶給我們驚喜。而這正是未來的趨勢。你想當然，然後就不見了。你以爲你可以一直寫那本書，或者爬那座山，或者別的什麼，然後你意識到窗戶已經關上了。當其他人死去時，最悲傷的窗戶就會關上。他們的生命也很短暫。我母親死後，我真希望能多陪陪她。我的生活就好像她一直在那裏一樣。她以她特有的安靜方式鼓勵了這種幻想。但那只是一種幻覺。我想很多人都犯了和我一樣的錯誤。
The usual way to avoid being taken by surprise by something is to be consciously aware of it. Back when life was more precarious, people used to be aware of death to a degree that would now seem a bit morbid. I'm not sure why, but it doesn't seem the right answer to be constantly reminding oneself of the grim reaper hovering at everyone's shoulder. Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from the other end. Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do. Don't wait before climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother. You don't need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn't wait. Just don't wait.
避免被某件事嚇到的通常方法是有意識地意識到它。當生活變得更加不穩定的時候，人們過去對死亡的認識到了某種程度，現在似乎有點病態。我不知道爲什麼，但不斷提醒自己，死神在每個人的肩膀上盤旋，似乎不是正確的答案。也許更好的解決辦法是從另一個角度看問題。養成對你最想做的事不耐煩的習慣。不要等到爬上那座山，寫完那本書，或者去看望你的母親。你不需要一直提醒自己爲什麼不應該等。別等了。
I can think of two more things one does when one doesn't have much of something: try to get more of it, and savor what one has. Both make sense here.
當一個人沒有很多東西的時候，我還能想到另外兩件事：試着多喫一點，品嚐一個人擁有的東西。兩者都有道理。
How you live affects how long you live. Most people could do better. Me among them.
你的生活方式影響你的壽命。大多數人可以做得更好。我在他們中間。
But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the time you have. It's easy to let the days rush by. The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms. One of the most striking things I've read was not in a book, but the title of one: James Salter's Burning the Days.
但如果你能更密切地關注你所擁有的時間，你可能會得到更大的效果。很容易讓日子匆匆過去。想象力豐富的人如此喜愛的“流動”有一個更黑暗的表親，阻止你在日常瑣事和警報的泥濘中停下來品味生活。我讀過的最引人注目的東西不是一本書，而是一本書的標題：詹姆斯索爾特的《燃燒的日子》。
It is possible to slow time somewhat. I've gotten better at it. Kids help. When you have small children, there are a lot of moments so perfect that you can't help noticing.
有可能使時間稍微慢一點。我做得更好了。孩子們幫忙。當你有小孩的時候，有很多時刻是如此完美以至於你不得不注意。
It does help too to feel that you've squeezed everything out of some experience. The reason I'm sad about my mother is not just that I miss her but that I think of all the things we could have done that we didn't. My oldest son will be 7 soon. And while I miss the 3 year old version of him, I at least don't have any regrets over what might have been. We had the best time a daddy and a 3 year old ever had.
感覺到你把一切都從經驗中榨乾了，這也確實有幫助。我爲我母親傷心的原因不僅僅是因爲我想念她，還因爲我想到了所有我們本可以做但沒有做的事情。我的大兒子很快就7歲了。雖然我想念他3歲的版本，但至少我對可能發生的一切沒有任何遺憾。我們有過一個父親和一個3歲孩子最美好的時光。
Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short.
毫不留情地剪掉胡說八道，不要等待去做那些重要的事情，盡情享受你擁有的時間。當生命短暫的時候，你就是這樣做的。