每一份情緒，都有它的時光
最美好的事，都是沒有原因的
My wife
Writing this section, I toyed with the idea of including – perhaps concluding with – an entry on ‘love’. But then it occurred to me that if I wrote one about my wife, that would amount to the same thing. I sometimes wonder why a preternaturally beautiful, free-thinking Russian, who skipped St Petersburg in her twenties during the chaotic period after the fall of Communism, would want to hang out with someone like me. And sometimes it seems she wonders too. While I tend to tie myself in verbal knots of evasion and euphemism, Anya is often very direct. I remember once asking her, during a conversation about Socrates*, if she could ever love a man who was hideous. ‘I think you are hideous,’ she remarked. She later claimed that she thought the word ‘hideous’ meant ‘eccentric’, although I’ve always subsequently wondered if this was a retrospective improvisation.
Admittedly, there have been other occasional malapropisms that suggest her explanation may have been honest. She once told me that she had no respect for foreigners who came to England and refused to ‘disintegrate’. She refers to hip hop singers as ‘rappists’, and on another occasion endearingly misremembered the title of the romantic comedy in which Bill Murray’s misanthropic weatherman is forced to live the same day over and over again. She called it The Day of the Badger, which you could argue is actually a better title than Groundhog Day, although it might be more suited to a sci-fi horror film in which farmers finally get what’s coming to them.
Many years ago, when I was single, a friend warned me that before he got married he was the most important person in his life. Afterwards, with a wife and child, he found himself demoted to number three. What he didn’t say was that this painful process, which seems to be central to the enterprise of love, might have the desirable side-effect of making you cooler. I’m still resisting the process, but I can recognise the benefits of having one’s self-love chipped away at: a sculptural task at which Anya exhibits the skill of a Rodin. I treasure the memory of the time I asked her what kind of men she goes for. ‘Clowns,’ she replied.
P215 我的妻子
在寫這一部分的時候，我曾想過在書中加入一個關於“愛”的條目，也許是作為結尾。但後來我突然想到，如果我寫一篇關於我妻子的文章，那也是一樣的。我有時會想，為什麽一個異常美麗、思想自由的俄羅斯人，20來歲時，在共產主義垮台後的混亂時期逃離了聖彼得堡，會想和我這樣的人在一起？有時她似乎也想知道其中原因。當我傾向於用回避和委婉的語言來包裝自己，而安雅往往非常直接。我記得有一次在一場關於蘇格拉底的談話中，我問她，她是否會愛上一個醜陋的男人。"我覺得你很醜，"她說。她後來又說，她認為“醜陋”這個詞的意思是指“古怪”，盡管我總是懷疑這是她回頭臨時編湊的。
誠然，也有其他一些偶然出現的誤用現象，這表明她的解釋可能是誠實的。她曾經告訴我，她不尊重那些來到英國並拒絕“解體”的外國人。她把嘻哈歌手稱為“強奸犯”，還有一次還可愛地記錯了浪漫喜劇的片名。在這部喜劇中，比爾·默裏飾演的厭世的天氣預報員被迫過著日複一日的生活。她稱其為《獾日》，你可能會認為這實際上是一個比《土撥鼠之日》更好的名稱，盡管它可能更適合科幻恐怖電影，農民最終得到了他們的報應。
很多年前，當我還是單身的時候，一個朋友提醒我，在他結婚前，他是他生命中最重要的人。後來，有了妻子和孩子，他發現自己被降到了第三位。他沒有說的是，這個痛苦的過程是愛情機構的核心，且會有令人滿意的副作用，它讓你變得更酷。我仍然在抵製這個過程，但我能意識到一個人的自愛被削弱的好處:安雅在雕塑任務中展示了羅丹的技巧。我珍惜問她喜歡什麽樣的男人的那一刻。“小醜”, 她回答。
Lao Tzu
Be cool. That, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of the Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu as summarised in his book the Tao Te Ching, though there’s a bit more to it than that. The Tao or ‘Way’ is a benign force that governs the universe, and the key to happiness is to live in accordance with it. In practice, this involves a combination of quietness, kindness, humility, humanity, not caring what other people think (whether good or ill), and making no distinction between success and failure. All of which prompts the response: nice work if you can get it.
Yet it has to be said that you’re much more likely to get it if you take the trouble to read the book (preferably in the translation by Stephen Mitchell), which is a remarkable blend of poetry and practical advice. Its most intriguing concept is that of wei wu wei, literally ‘doing not doing’. It’s such a vague phrase that it’s open to a wide range of interpretations. At its least controversial, it refers to a method for carrying out a task with such focus you cease to notice the effort involved or the time passing. When you finish, the result seems to have been effortless and immediate. Most of us have had this experience. The goal of the Tao master, however, is to make it his or her default gear, from when they wake up in the morning to when they go to bed at night.
Like Homer*, Lao Tzu may never have existed. His book may be the work of several authors. Yet the stories that have come down to us about his life are instructive. He’s said to have been an archive keeper in one of the petty kingdoms of 6th-century BC China, and to have passed his life quietly.
until, in old age, he decided to set out on a water buffalo (a suitably lowly, slow-moving mode of transport) to cross the vast expanses of the country, before heading west into lands unknown. When he duly reached the border, the customs officer, on learning who he was, asked him first to write down his wisdom so it wouldn’t be lost. This was a bold request. One of Lao Tzu’s best-known maxims was the classic conversation-stopper, ‘Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.’ We can only be grateful that he chose to make an exception on this occasion. Having handed over the first-ever copy of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu wandered off and spent his remaining years impressing anyone who met him with how incredibly relaxed he was. The Buddha, some say, became his pupil.
P217 老子
酷可酷，非常酷。簡而言之，這就是中國古代哲學家老子在他的《道德經》一書中總結的哲學，盡管不止於此。道或“道”是一種良性的力量，統治著宇宙，幸福的關鍵是按照它生活。在實踐中，這包括安靜、善良、謙遜、人性，不關心別人的想法(好或壞)，不區分成功和失敗。所有這些都會促發回應:如果你能領悟它，那就太好了。但不得不說的是，如果你不辭辛苦地讀這本書(最好是斯蒂芬·米切爾的譯本)，你更有可能理解它的奧妙，這本書是詩歌和實用建議的絕妙結合。
它最有趣的概念是“無為而治”，字麵意思是“不做”。這是一個很模糊的短語，可以有很多種解釋。最不容易引起爭議的是，它指的是一種專注完成一項任務的方法，讓你感覺不到付出的努力或時間的流逝。當你完成時，其結果似乎毫不費力一趨而就，我們大多數人都有過這樣的經曆。然而，掌握道德人讓它成為他或她的從早上起床到晚上睡覺的內在動力。像荷馬一樣，老子可能從來就不存在。他的書可能是幾個作家的作品。然而，流傳下來的關於他的生平故事是有啟發性的。據說他曾是公元前6世紀中國一個小王國的檔案管理員，並平靜地度過了自己的一生。
直到年老的時候，他決定騎著牛(一種移動緩慢的交通工具)穿越廣袤的國土，然後向西進入未知的土地。當他到達邊境時，海關官員得知他是誰，讓他先把他的智慧寫下來，這樣就不會失傳了。這是一個大膽的要求。老子最著名的格言之一就是那句經典的“知者不言，言者不知”。我們隻能對他這次破例表示感激。在交出了隻此一本的《道德經》之後，老子就雲遊四海度過餘生，他悠閑自在樣子給所有見過他的人都留下了印象。有人說，佛陀成了他的弟子。
Anti-celebrities
A story is told in Plato’s Republic of how, after his death, the Greek hero Odysseus was asked in the Underworld what kind of person he would like to be in the next life. A great warrior perhaps? Or a powerful king? Neither, replied the man who had been both. He wanted to be a no one: a person of no consequence. (The Greek word is apragmon, meaning ‘free from business’.) Odysseus, then, is perhaps the patron saint of ‘anti-celebrities’: people who possess enormous talents but have little desire for the fuss or hassle of the fame that would ensue if they allowed it to.
A nanny named Vivian Maier was found after her death to have taken thousands of photographs, which in many cases she hadn’t bothered to develop. The images have since earned her acclaim as one of the most gifted photographers of the 20th century. The novels of Elena Ferrante are adored by critics and public alike. Yet no one, apart from her publisher, knows who she is. The American singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez became a huge star in South Africa without even realising. On being informed of the fact many years later, his reaction was supremely relaxed.
A low-key contender for the title of the coolest man of all time, the singer-songwriter J.J. Cale merits a paragraph to himself. Never much of a megastar, in his day he was revered by the likes of Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton. (The latter called him his ‘all-time favourite person’.) Cale’s ‘anti-Rubicon moment’ – the point at which he might have become massive, but decided to step back – came in the 1970s when he was invited to perform his drowsy, bluesy single ‘Crazy Mama’ on a TV show watched by millions. He declined on hearing he would be expected to lip-sync, and the song reached only No. 22 in the charts, his biggest hit. Glance at the artwork of his albums and you notice something strange: he’s not there. “ I always wanted to be a part of the show,’ Cale once confessed. ‘I never wanted to be the show.’ As a motto, it sums up the anti-celebrity creed
P218 拒絕名望
柏拉圖的《理想國》中有這樣一個故事: 希臘英雄奧德修斯(Odysseus)死後，在陰間有人問他下輩子想做什麽樣的人。是個偉大的戰士? 還是一個強大的國王?“都不是，”兩者皆是的奧德修斯回答，他想當一個無名小卒，一個無足輕重的人。(希臘語單詞是apragmon，意思是“從庶務中解放出來”。) 因此，奧德修斯可能是“拒絕名望”(anti-celebrities)的守護神。“拒絕名望”指的是那些擁有極高的天賦，但不願因名望而介入爭執或麻煩的人。
一位名叫維維安·邁爾的保姆在她死後被發現拍攝了數千張照片，在很多情況下，她都懶得衝洗。但這些照片為她贏得了20世紀最有天賦的攝影師之一的讚譽。埃琳娜·費蘭特的小說深受評論家和公眾的喜愛。然而，除了她的出版商，沒有人知道她是誰。美國創作型歌手西斯托·羅德裏格斯在並不知情的情況下成為了南非巨星。多年以後，當他得知此事，他的反應異常輕鬆。
作為有史以來最酷男人頭銜的低調競爭者，創作型歌手約翰·韋爾登·凱爾(J.J. Cale)說：（我）從不是超級巨星。在他的時代，他受到像約翰尼·卡什和埃裏克·克萊普頓這樣的知名大家的尊敬。(後者稱他為自己“任何時候都最喜歡的人”。)凱爾的“拒渡盧比孔河時刻”——在這個時刻他可能已經成名，但卻決定退出——1970年，他被邀請在一個有數百萬觀眾觀看的電視節目上表演他的藍調單曲《瘋狂媽媽》。當他得知需要自己假唱時，他拒絕了，這首歌在排行榜上隻排到了第22位，這是他最熱門的單曲。瞥一眼他的專輯照片，你會發現有些不對勁兒: 他不在那裏。“我一直很願意成為表演的一部分，”凱爾曾經坦白道，“但我不想成為表演出本身。” 這句座右銘成為了“拒絕名望”人士的信條。
Tycho Brahe
If you were to invent a historical figure as an embodiment of cool, you might come up with someone a bit like the 16th-century scientist Tycho Brahe. Born into one of the richest families in Denmark, he was kidnapped by his uncle at the age of two, who brought him up as his own. At twenty, he lost part of his nose in a duel with his third cousin Manderup Parsberg, after they had argued about the validity of a mathematical formula. Brahe replaced the missing cartilage with a piece of brass, which he kept attached with a tube of glue that he carried with him everywhere. Some say he also had gold and silver nose-pieces to wear on more formal occasions.
His uncle died of pneumonia after saving the Danish king, Frederick II, from drowning. The inheritance made Tycho fabulously wealthy. To add to his fortunes, Frederick gifted him the island of Hven, where he built an observatory in which to pursue his lifelong passion for star-gazing. The scientist went on to build up the largest-ever collection of astronomical data, which he used to disprove Aristotle’s assumption about the immutability of the heavens. In 1573 he published De Nova Stella, showing that, contrary to Aristotle’s teaching, new stars are born. He went on to work on his magnum opus, the Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata (Prelude to a New Astronomy). His obsessive records have led some to see him as a pioneer of the scientific revolution and a forerunner of the empiricists, although in truth Brahe was enough of a man of his time to be susceptible to the lure of less purely rational pursuits such as alchemy and astrology.
After Frederick died, he was succeeded by his son Christian, who was less of a Brahe fan. The latter was ousted from Hven and instead took up a post in Prague as astronomer to the Bohemian king and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. In his downtime he enjoyed hanging out with a dwarf named Jepp, who used to sit under his table at mealtimes. He also had a pet elk with whom it’s said he liked to engage in drinking contests. The unfortunate beast eventually died after drinking too much beer and falling down a flight of stairs. Brahe himself also seems to have perished in a drinking-related incident. During a banquet in Prague, he refused to go to the loo because he thought it was bad form and later perished of a ruptured bladder. Some, though, don’t buy this story. They say he was poisoned, either by his pupil Johannes Kepler who wanted to get his hands on Brahe’s data, or else at the behest of King Christian who believed Brahe had had an affair with his mother. This rumour of royal Danish adultery may conceivably have inspired Shakespeare when he came to write Hamlet*
P219 第穀·布拉赫
如果你想創造一個曆史人物作為酷的化身，你可能會想到一個有點像16世紀科學家第穀·布拉赫(Tycho Brahe)的人。他出生在丹麥最富有的家庭之一，兩歲時被叔父綁架，並被當作親生孩子撫養成人。20歲的時候，他和他的三表哥曼德爾魯普·帕斯堡為了一個數學公式的正確與否發生爭執，在決鬥中失去了部分鼻子。布拉赫用一塊黃銅代替了缺失的軟骨，並用膠水粘在上麵，隨身攜帶。有人說，他還會在更正式的場合佩戴金的或是銀的鼻罩。
他的叔叔為了救落水的丹麥國王弗雷德裏克二世死於肺炎，遺產讓第穀變得極其富有。弗雷德裏克更贈予他汶島也增加了他的財富，在那裏他建立了一個天文台，追求他畢生對星空的熱愛。這位科學家繼而建立起有史以來最大的天文數據收集，並用這些數據來反駁亞裏士多德關於天空不變性的假設。1573年，他出版了《新星》，表明與亞裏士多德的學說相反，新恒星是孕育出來的。他繼續致力於他的巨著《新天文學的序曲》。他的執著記錄讓一些人認為他是科學革命和經驗主義者的先驅者，哪怕事實上，布拉赫在他的時代依舊容易受到煉金術和占星術等不那麽純粹理性的追求的誘惑。
弗雷德裏克去世後，他的兒子克裏斯蒂安繼承了王位，他不太喜歡布拉赫。後者被驅逐出了汶島，轉而在布拉格擔任天文學家，為波西米亞國王和神聖羅馬帝國皇帝魯道夫二世服務。在他的閑暇時間，他喜歡和一個叫傑普的小矮人呆在一起，而傑普在吃飯的時候就坐在他的桌子底下。他還有一隻寵物麋鹿，據說他喜歡和這隻麋鹿一起參加喝酒比賽。這隻不幸的野獸最終在喝了太多啤酒後從樓梯上摔了下來死了。他本人似乎也死於與飲酒有關的事件。在布拉格的一次宴會上，他拒絕上廁所，因為他認為那樣做很不禮貌，結果因為膀胱破裂而死。不過，有些人並不相信這種說法。他們說，他是被毒死的，要麽是他的學生約翰內斯·開普勒想要得到布拉赫的數據，要麽是克裏斯蒂安國王的命令，因為他認為布拉赫與他的母親有染。這個關於丹麥王室通奸的謠言可能是莎士比亞創作《哈姆雷特》時的靈感來源。
