滾球A Ball to Roll Around

I lost my sight when I was four years oldby falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on myhead. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshineand what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity cando strange things to people.

4歲那年在大西洋城，我從貨場一輛火車上摔下來，頭先着地，於是雙目失明。現在我已經32歲了。我還模糊地記得陽光是多麼燦爛，紅色是多麼鮮豔。能恢復視覺固然好，但災難也能對人產生奇妙的作用。

It occurred to me the other day that Imight not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I believe inlife now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise.I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that theloss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或許不會變得像現在這樣熱愛生活。現在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果自己是明眼人，會不會像現在這樣深深地相信生活。這並不意味着我寧願成為盲人，而只是意味着失去視力使我更加珍惜自己其他的能力。

Life, I believe, asks a continuous seriesof adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make theseadjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustmentis never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and myteachers saw something in me ——a potential to live, you might call it ——which Ididn’t see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

我認為，生活要求人不斷地自我調整以適應現實。人愈能及時地進行調整，他的個人世界便愈有意義。調整決非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸運，父母和老師在我身上發現了某種東西——可以稱之為活下去的潛力吧——而我自己卻沒有發現。他們激勵我誓與失明拼搏到底。

The hardest lesson I had to learn was tobelieve in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I wouldhave collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind ofself-confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is partof it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despiteimperfections, a real, positive person that somewhere in the sweeping,intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myselffit.

我必須學會的最艱難的一課就是相信自己，這是基本條件。如做不到這一點，我的精神就會崩潰，只能坐在前門廊的搖椅中度過餘生。相信自己並不僅僅指支持我獨自走下陌生的樓梯的那種自信，那是一部分。我指的是大事：是堅信自己雖然有缺陷，卻是一個真正的有進取心的人；堅信在芸芸眾生錯綜複雜的格局當中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。

It took me years to discover and strengthenthis assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a mangave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. "Ican’t use this," I said. "Take it with you," he urged me,"and roll it around. "The words stuck in my head." Roll itaround!" By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me anidea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. AtPhiladelphia’sOverbrookSchoolfor the Blind Iinvented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

我花了很長時間才樹立並不斷加強這一信念。這要從最簡單的事做起。有一次一個人給我一個室內玩的棒球，我以為他在嘲笑我，心裏很難受。“我不能使這個。”我説。“你拿去，”他竭力勸我，“在地上滾。”他的話在我腦子裏生了根。“在地上滾！”滾球使我聽見它朝哪兒滾動。我馬上想到一個我曾認為不可能達到的目標：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我發明了一種很受人歡迎的棒球遊戲，我們稱它為地面球。

All my life I have set ahead of me a seriesof goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn mylimitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildlyout of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would failsometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

我這一輩子給自己樹立了一系列目標，然後努力去達到，一次一個。我必須瞭解自己能力有限，若開始就知道某個目標根本達不到卻硬要去實現，那不會有任何好處，因為那隻會帶來失敗的苦果。我有時也失敗過，但一般來説總有進步。