狡猾的思想
我们就像两个朋友，在一个美好的日子里，坐在公园里探讨生活，探讨我们的问题，研究我们存在的本质，并且认真地问我们自己，为什么生活成了这样一个巨大的问题，为什么?尽管理智上我们非常成熟，然而我们的日常生活是如此让人疲倦，没有任何意义，除了生存之外——那也相当难以预料。为什么我们每天的生活成了这样一种折磨?我们可以去教堂，去追随某个政治上或宗教上的领袖，但是日常生活总是一片混乱，尽管某个时期会有偶尔的喜悦、愉快。两个朋友，你和讲话者，在以一种友好的方式相互讨论，或许可以带着情感、关心、在意，究竟我们能否没有任何问题地过每天的生活。尽管我 们受过高等教育，拥有某种职业和专门技能，但仍拥有这些未解决的挣扎、伤害和痛苦，以及间或的喜悦 和不是完全自私的感觉。
We are like two friends sitting in the park on a lovely day talking about life, talking about our problems, investigating the very nature of our existence, and asking ourselves seriously why life has become such a great problem, why? Though intellectually we are very sophisticated, yet our daily life is such a grind, without any meaning, except survival—which again is rather doubtful. Why has life, everyday existence, become such a torture? We may go to church, follow some leader, political or religious, but the daily life is always a turmoil, though there are certain periods which are occasionally joyful, happy, there is always a cloud of darkness about our life. And these two friends, as we are, you and the speaker, are talking over together in a friendly manner, perhaps with affection, with care, with concern, whether it is at all possible to live our daily life without a single problem. Although we are highly educated, have certain careers and specializations yet we have these unresolved struggles, the pain and suffering, and sometimes joy and a feeling of not being totally selfish.
让我们深入地探讨这个问题:为什么人类要像现在这 样生活，五十年如一日地从早上九点到下午五点或六点到办公室上班，脑子、心一直不断地被占据。从来没有一刻安静，总是被什么东西占据着。那就是我们 每天所过的单调枯燥、相当孤独和贫乏的生活。我们试图通过宗教、通过各种形式的娱乐逃避它。当一天结束的时候我们仍然待在原地，那个我们待了许多年的地方。在心理上我们似乎改变了一点。我们的问题增多了，并一直有着对衰老、疾病、打扰我们的事情的恐惧。这就是我们的生活，从童年开始直到死亡，要么坦然地死，要么抗拒地死。我们似乎没能解决死亡的问题。特别是当一个人变老的时候，他回想起所有经历的时光，所有的快乐、痛苦、悲伤、 泪水的时候。总是存在这个未知的叫作死亡的东西，我们大多数人都害怕它。就像两个朋友坐在公园的 长椅上，不是在这个光芒四射的大厅里，而是坐在 斑驳的光影里，阳光透过树叶照射下来，鸭子在水渠里畅游，大地很美，我们一起谈论这件事。让我们像 两个朋友一样一起去谈论它，我们经历了漫长的严肃 生活，其中充满着各种各样的麻烦，包括性、孤独、 绝望、沮丧、忧虑、不确定、无意义感，终是死亡。
So let us go into this question of why we human beings live as we do, going to the office from nine until five or six for fifty years, and always the brain, the mind, constantly occupied. There is never a quietness, but always this occupation with something or other. And that is our life. That is our daily, monotonous, rather lonely, insufficient life. And we try to escape from it through religion, through various forms of entertainment. At the end of the day we are still where we have been for thousands and thousands of years. We seem to have changed very little, psychologically, inwardly. Our problems increase, and always there is the fear of old age, disease, some accident that will put us out. So this is our existence, from childhood until we die, either voluntarily or involuntarily die. We do not seem to have been able to solve that problem, the problem of dying. Especially as one grows older one remembers all the things that have been the times of pleasure, the times of pain, and of sorrow, and of tears. Yet always there is this unknown thing called death of which most of us are frightened. And as two friends sitting in the park on a bench, not in this hall with all this light, which is rather ugly, but sitting in the dappling light, the sun coming through the leaves, the ducks on the canal and the beauty of the earth, let us talk this over together. Let us talk it over together as two friends who have had a long serious life with all its trouble, the troubles of sex, loneliness, despair, depression, anxiety, uncertainty, a sense of meaninglessness—and at the end of it always death.
通过谈论这件事，我们可以在智力上接近它，就是说，将它合理化，谈论它是不可避免的，不要恐惧它;或者如果你智力超群，告诉自己死亡是一切事物的终结；我们的存在、我们的经验、我们的记忆，它们是温柔的、令人愉快的、丰富的，也是伤害和痛苦的终结。这意味着什么?这所谓的真实生活， 如果我们认真地审视它，就会发现它其实毫无意义。 我们能够在理智上、口头上建立一种生活的意义， 但是我们实际的生活却没有意义。生活和死亡是我 们知道的一切。除此之外的一切都是理论、推测，对信仰的无意义追求，我们只是在其中寻找某种安全和希望。我们拥有思想投射出来的理想，我们通 过奋斗去实现它。这就是我们的生活，甚至在我们非常年轻的时候就是如此，但那时我们充满了活力和兴趣，感觉我们几乎能做任何事情。而死亡的问题总是在青年、中年和老年时存在。
In talking about it, we approach it intellectually—that is, we rationalize it, say it is inevitable, not to fear it or, if you are highly intellectual, telling yourself that death is the end of all things, of our existence, our experiences, our memories, be they tender, delightful, plentiful; the end also of pain and suffering. What does it all mean, this life which is really, if we examine it very closely, rather meaningless? We can, intellectually, verbally, construct a meaning to life, but the way we actually live has very little meaning. Living and dying is all we know. Everything apart from that is theory, speculation; meaningless pursuit of a belief in which we find some kind of security and hope. We have ideals projected by thought and we struggle to achieve them. This is our life, even when we are very young, full of vitality and fun, with the feeling that we can do almost anything; but with youth, middle and old age supervening, there is always this question of death.
如果可以指出的话，你不只是在听一系列的言辞、想法， 而是在与我一同调查生活和死亡的问题。要么用你的心、你的整个头脑去做，要么部分地、表面化地去做，但这样没有什么意义。
You are not merely, if one may point out, listening to a series of words, to some ideas, but rather together, I mean together, investigating this whole problem of living and dying. And either you do it with your heart, with your whole mind, or else partially, superficially—and so with very little meaning.