I'm a lifelong traveler. Even as a little kid, I was actually working out that it would be cheaper to go to boarding school in England than just to the best school down the road from my parents' house in California.
我这辈子都是个旅行者。 即使还是一个小孩子的时候, 我便了解,事实上, 去读英国寄宿学校会比 去加州父母家附近 最好的学校就读还来得便宜。
So, from the time I was nine years old I was flying alone several times a year over the North Pole, just to go to school. And of course the more I flew the more I came to love to fly, so the very week after I graduated from high school, I got a job mopping tables so that I could spend every season of my 18th year on a different continent.
所以,当我 9 岁时, 我在一年中,会独自飞行几回, 穿越北极,就只是去上学。 当然,飞得越频繁, 我越是爱上旅行, 所以就在我高中毕业后一周, 我找到一份清理桌子的工作, 为了让自己可以在 18 岁那年, 在地球不同的大陆上, 分别待上一季。
And then, almost inevitably, I became a travel writer so my job and my joy could become one.
接着,几乎不可避免地 我成了一个旅游作家, 使我的工作和志趣 可以结合在一块儿。
And I really began to feel that if you were lucky enough to walk around the candlelit temples of Tibet or to wander along the seafronts in Havana with music passing all around you, you could bring those sounds and the high cobalt skies and the flash of the blue ocean back to your friends at home, and really bring some magic and clarity to your own life.
我真的开始发觉 如果你可以幸运地 漫步于西藏的烛光寺庙, 或者在音乐的缭绕间 悠然信步于哈瓦那海岸, 你便能将那声音、天际 与靛蓝海洋的闪烁光芒 带给你家乡的朋友, 真确地捎来些许神奇, 点亮自身生命。
Except, as you all know, one of the first things you learn when you travel is that nowhere is magical unless you can bring the right eyes to it.
除了,如你们所知, 当旅行时,你学到的第一件事情是 你必须以正确的视角看世界, 否则大地依然黯淡无光。
You take an angry man to the Himalayas, he just starts complaining about the food. And I found that the best way that I could develop more attentive and more appreciative eyes was, oddly, by going nowhere, just by sitting still.
你带一个易怒的男人爬喜马拉雅山, 他只会抱怨那儿的食物。 我发现,有点怪异的是, 最好的让自己可以培养 更专注和更珍惜世界的视角的诀窍是 哪儿都不去,静止于原处即可。
And of course sitting still is how many of us get what we most crave and need in our accelerated lives, a break. But it was also the only way that I could find to sift through the slideshow of my experience and make sense of the future and the past.
当然呆在原地正是我们许多人 寻常所得到的东西, 我们都渴望在快速的生活中获得休息。 但那却是我唯一的方法, 让自己可以重历自身的经验幻灯, 理解未来与过去。
And so, to my great surprise, I found that going nowhere was at least as exciting as going to Tibet or to Cuba.
如此,我惊异地发现, 我发现无所去处 和游览西藏或古巴一样,令人兴奋。
And by going nowhere, I mean nothing more intimidating than taking a few minutes out of every day or a few days out of every season, or even, as some people do, a few years out of a life in order to sit still long enough to find out what moves you most, to recall where your truest happiness lies and to remember that sometimes making a living and making a life point in opposite directions.
无所去处,只不过意谓着 每天花几分钟, 或每季花几天, 甚至,如同有些人所做的, 在生命中花上几年 长久地静思于某处, 寻找感动你最多的一瞬, 回忆你最真实的幸福时刻, 同时记住, 有时候,谋生与生活 彼此是处于光谱线上的两端的。
And of course, this is what wise beings through the centuries from every tradition have been telling us.
当然,这是明智的众生历经几百年 从每个传统中所告诉我们的。
It's an old idea. More than 2,000 years ago, the Stoics were reminding us it's not our experience that makes our lives, it's what we do with it.
这是一个古老的概念。 早在两千多年前, 斯多葛学派提醒我们 并不是我们的经验 成就了我们的生命, 而是我们用那经验做了什么。
Imagine a hurricane suddenly sweeps through your town and reduces every last thing to rubble. One man is traumatized for life.
想象一下,一阵飓风 迅速扑向你的城市, 将所有一切化为废墟。 某个人身心遭受终身顿挫
But another, maybe even his brother, almost feels liberated, and decides this is a great chance to start his life anew. It's exactly the same event, but radically different responses. There is nothing either good or bad, as Shakespeare told us in "Hamlet," but thinking makes it so.
但另一个人,也许甚至是他的兄弟, 却几乎感觉释怀, 并认定,这是一个可以 使自己重获新生的重要机会。 这是同样的事件, 截然不同的回应。 没有什么是绝对的好坏, 正如莎士比亚 在《哈姆雷特》中所告诉我们的, 好坏由思维决定。
And this has certainly been my experience as a traveler. Twenty-four years ago I took the most mind-bending trip across North Korea. But the trip lasted a few days.
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