【散文】青春（Samuel Ullman，德國）

 

 

 

青春並不是生命中的某一個時段，而是腦子裏的一種狀態。她不是玫瑰色的臉龐，豔紅的鮮唇和柔軟的膝蓋，她是一種意念，一種超凡的想象力，一種澎湃的激情。她是生命之泉的活力和湧動。

青春意味著超越孺弱的非凡勇氣，意味著克服兒女情長和貪圖享受的探險精神。往往一個六十歲的人比一個二十歲的人更具備這種氣質。人不會僅僅因為歲數的增加而變老。我們變老是因為我們放棄了理想。

歲月的滄桑可能在我們的皮膚上留下皺紋，但激情的喪失會使我們靈魂衰敗。焦慮，恐懼，和喪失自信會壓垮我們的心髒，讓精神回歸塵土。

不論你是六十歲還是十六歲，每個人的心裏都充滿了好奇，對未來童貞般的憧憬，和渴望對生活的享受。在你和我的心中都有一部無線電台。隻要它不停頓地接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的信號，你就會永遠年輕。

如果天線彎折了，精神上覆蓋了憤懣和悲觀的冰雪，你就老了，哪怕你隻有二十歲。但如果你的天線一直聳立著接受樂觀的電波，你會一直年輕到八十歲逝世的那一天。

 

 

 

2012.06.14

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOUTH       Samuel Ullman
    Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
    Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
    Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
    When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[張帆]

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