簡單的快樂 The Joy of Less

“There is nothing either good or bad,” I had heard in high school, from Hamlet, “but thinking makes it so.” I had been lucky enough at that point to 1)stumble into the life I might have dreamed of as a boy: a great job writing on world affairs for Time magazine, an apartment on 2)Park Avenue, enough time and money to take vacations in 3)Burma, 4)Morocco, 5)El Salvador. But every time I went to one of those places, I noticed that the people I met there, 6)mired in difficulty and often warfare, seemed to have more energy and even optimism than the friends I’d grown up with in privileged, peaceful 7)Santa Barbara, Calif., many of whom were on their fourth marriages and seeing a 8)therapist every day. Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either.

高中時我從《哈姆雷特》中讀到下面這句話：“事情並沒有好壞之分，只不過取決於人的想法。”我一直很幸運，無意間過上了從孩提時代便一直夢想着的生活：一份爲《時代》雜誌報道國際事務的好工作、一套位於派克大街上的公寓、有足夠的時間和金錢去緬甸、摩洛哥和薩爾瓦多度假。但是，每一次去那些地方，我都注意到那裏的人們，縱使深陷困境及戰爭，但相比那些和我一起在條件優越、和平的加州聖巴巴拉市長大的朋友，他們看起來更有活力，甚至更樂觀。我的那些朋友很多都正經歷第四次婚姻，每天都去看心理治療師。雖然我知道貧窮一定買不到快樂，但是我相信金錢同樣無能爲力。

So—as post-1960s cliché 9)decreed—I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of 10)Kyoto. My 11)high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I’d noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of 12)haiku I’d imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live 13)in the vicinity of Kyoto, in a two-room apartment that makes my old 14)monastic 15)cell look almost luxurious by comparison. I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media—and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.

所以——就像20世紀60年代後的那股風潮那樣——我放棄了舒適的工作及生活，在日本京都后街的一個廟宇生活了一年。我那修心之旅進行了一個星期後，我發現自己遙想中對月沉思苦想俳句的生活實際上更多隻是清潔、打掃，然後繼續清潔。但今天，21年多以後，我仍然居住在京都附近的一套兩居室公寓裏，相比之下，以前我住的那個僧房看起來幾乎算奢華了。我沒有自行車，沒有汽車，沒有能夠看得懂的電視，沒有媒體——這樣的日子似乎綿綿無盡，而我想不到有什麼東西是我缺少的。

I’m no Buddhist monk, and I can’t say I’m in love with 16)renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I’ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me 17)volumes not to think or worry about and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a cell phone and high-speed Internet, I have time to play ping pong every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old 18)baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).

我不是佛教僧人，我也不能說我本身喜歡“克己絕欲”，或者花上一個多小時出去打印一篇文章，或者錯過NBA決賽。但是某種程度上，我決定，至少對我自己而言，快樂源自所有我不想要或者不需要的東西，而非所有我想要或者需要的。似乎清楚、認真地看待帶來內心平靜或者專注的真正東西是什麼這一點很有用（這一次我最深刻地理解了快樂的內涵）。沒有汽車，我無需想或者擔心車子的問題，在家附近散步就變成了每日的冒險。沒有手機以及高速互聯網，我便有時間每天晚上去打乒乓球、給老朋友寫長長的信，爲我的愛人購物（或者爲兩個仍然在外面世界闖蕩的孩子淘淘舊玩意）。

When the phone does ring—once a week—I’m thrilled, as I never was when the phone rang in my overcrowded office in 19)Rockefeller Center. And when I return to the United States every three months or so and pick up a newspaper, I find I haven’t missed much at all. While I’ve been rereading 20)Walden, the crazily accelerating 21)roller-coaster of the 24/7 news cycle has propelled people up and down and down and up and then left them pretty much where they started.

當電話真的響起時——每星期一次——我非常激動，在洛克菲勒中心我那過度擁擠的辦公室裏聽到電話響起時我從未有過這種感覺。當我每隔大概三個月回到美國，拿起報紙，發現自己並沒有錯過很多東西。在我悠閒重讀《瓦爾登湖》的同時，那趟每週7天每天24小時瘋狂加速的新聞循環過山車卻帶着人們從上到下、由下到上，然後幾乎是在原點把他們放下。

I certainly wouldn’t recommend my life to most people—and my heart goes out to those who have recently 22)been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted. But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down. The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends (whose motivations they are no longer sure of). And I remember how, in the 23)corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.

我當然不建議大多數人過我這樣的生活——對那些最近被迫簡單過日的人，我也十分同情。但是我不確定有多少外在的瑣事或者成就真正讓我們發自內心地快樂。我所認識的百萬富翁總想着要成爲千萬富翁，他們花更多時間與律師及銀行家在一起，而不是與朋友相聚（對朋友的動機亦疑心重重）。而我記得，在職場世界裏，我一直認爲自己可以獲得某個更高的職位，這意味着我永遠都不能到達，並且一直要保持不滿足的狀態。

I even went through a 24)dress-rehearsal for our enforced 25)austerity when my family home in Santa Barbara burned to the ground some years ago, leaving me with nothing but the toothbrush I bought from an all-night supermarket that night. And yet my two-room apartment in nowhere Japan seems more abundant than the big house that burned down. I have time to read the new 26)John le Carré, while 27)nibbling at sweet 28)tangerines in the sun. When a 29)Sigur Ros album comes out, it fills my days and nights, 30)resplendent. And then it seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued.

我甚至爲我們現行過着的樸素生活預先經歷過一次“彩排”——好些年前，我們位於聖巴巴拉的家被大火燒爲平地，只剩下那天晚上我在通宵營業超市買的那把牙刷。而我位於日本的不知名兩居室看起來比那燒燬的大房子更富裕。現在我有時間一邊在太陽底下慢慢咬着甜橘，一邊細讀約翰•勒卡雷的新作。當席格若斯樂隊的專輯推出時，那美妙的音樂便華麗地充盈着我的日日夜夜。那時，快樂看起來就像平和或激情那樣，在你不去追求的時候，它便毫不吝惜地出現了。

If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then 31)running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies. In New York, a part of me was always somewhere else, thinking of what a simple life in Japan might be like. Now I’m there, I find that I almost never think of Rockefeller Center or Park Avenue at all.

如果你喜歡自由多於安全，在一個小房子裏比在一個大房子裏感覺更舒適，發現快樂來源於滿足你的想要與所需，那麼，營營役役、超這趕那的生活不是你的快樂所在。在紐約，我總感覺心繫別處，想着在日本的簡單生活會是怎麼樣的。而現在，在這裏，我發現自己幾乎從來不會想起洛克菲勒中心或者派克大街。