如何活得老-洽康商城

How to Grow Old

Bertrand Russell

如何活得老

译：尹建英

In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors.

抛开标题来说，实际上这篇文章讲的是如何不变老，在我的有生之年，这是更为重要的事。我的第一条建议是仔细选好你的祖先。虽然我父母早年双亡，但是对于其他祖先来说，这方面我做的不错。

My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

事实上，我外祖父六十七岁时英年早逝，但我的外祖母和祖父母都活到了八十岁以上。在远亲中，我只发现了一位没有活到很大年纪，他死于一种现在很罕见的病，叫砍头。

A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants.

我的一位曾祖母，她是吉本（Edward Gibbon，1737-1794，英国著名历史学家）的朋友，活到了92岁，直到她生命的最后一天，仍然令他的子孙望而生畏。

My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women’s higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women.

我的外祖母有九个孩子幸存，一个幼年夭折，好几个流产死亡，她在成为孀妇后，立刻投身于女性高等教育事业。她是格顿学院的创始人之一，努力为妇女打开进入医疗行业的大门。

She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. “Good gracious,” she exclaimed, “I have seventy-two grandchild, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!” “Madre snaturale,” he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, till less of the probable brevity of your future.

她过去常常提起在意大利遇见一位年事已高的绅士，他看起来很悲痛。她问他忧郁的原因，他回答说自己刚刚痛失两个爱孙。“天哪，”她说，“我有七十二个爱孙，如果他们当中的每一个走的时候我都悲痛的话，我会活得多凄凉！”“真个怪母亲，”他回道。但作为这七十二个爱孙中的一个来说，我更喜欢她的秘诀。八十岁之后，她自觉难以入眠，因此她习惯午夜到凌晨三点花几个小时阅读流行科学书刊。我相信她根本没时间注意自己在变老。我认为这是永葆青春的好秘诀。如果你有广泛强烈的兴趣，参加卓有成效的活动，你没有理由去想你已经过了多少个数的过来的春秋，更不用说去想未来的短暂。

As regards health, I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

关于健康，我的话没有借鉴意义，因为我没有疾病经历。我想吃什么就吃什么，想喝什么就喝什么，睁不开眼了就睡。我从未做过任何有益健康的事，但是事实上，我喜欢做的都是有益健康的事。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

从心理学讲，老年时要提防两大危险。一来过分专注过去。不应活在记忆里，为过去的好时日懊悔，或沉浸在过世老友的悲伤中无法自拔。一个人必须朝前看，朝着要做的事情看。这并不总是如此简单；一个人的过去会是愈来愈重的负担。自己很容易想到年轻时的情绪比现在更生动，思想也更活跃。如果这是对的，就应该忘记，如果忘了，才有可能不是这样。

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

二来要避免黏着年轻人奢望从他们的活力中汲取精力。你的孩子们长大成人后想过自己的生活，如果你对他们像他们小时候那样一如既往地感兴趣，你可能会成为他们的负担，除非他们异乎寻常地麻木。我不是说老人应丧失对年轻人的兴趣，而是说这种兴趣应该是潜移默化的，如果可能的话，是慈爱的，而非过度感人的。动物在它们的孩子能够照顾自己后，对孩子漠不关心，但由于人类照顾婴儿太久，很难做到如此。

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material service, such as making them all allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

我认为，对于面对亲情很冷漠包括有合适的活动的人来说，安享老年是最容易的。这类人经验丰富，硕果累累，同时，毫无压力地，他们从经验中获得的智慧经得起考验。告诉长大成人的子女不要犯错没有任何用，不仅因为他们不会信你，而且因为错误是教育必不可少的一部分。但如果你不是一个对亲情冷漠的人，你会发现如果不密切关注你的子女和孙子女，你的生活会空虚。既然那样，你必须意识到，当你还能给他们提供物质上的爱，比如给他们零花钱或给他们织毛衣，就不要期待他们喜欢你的陪伴。

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

有的老人压力很大，因为惧怕死亡。年轻人才有理由有这种恐惧感。壮士有理由怕死，担心战死沙场，觉得悲伤也无可厚非，因为生命带给他们最好的事情自己却无福消受。但对老人而言，他看破人类喜怒哀乐，完成了他毕生所能做到的工作，怕死就有点怯弱可耻了。至少在我看来，克服怕死最好的方法是逐渐培养更广泛更冷漠的兴趣，直到自我壁垒慢慢消除，你的生命便逐渐与天地万物合而为一。个人生命应如一条河，开始河面狭小，夹在狭窄的河岸中间，激情澎湃地奔向岩石涌向瀑布。渐渐地，河身渐宽，河岸消退，水流得更缓，最后，看不出界限，河水流入大海，没有了个人存在感，却丝毫不觉痛苦。用这种态度看人生的老年人不会怕死，因为他还有关心的事。并且，他如果活力消减，疲惫渐增，会总想休息。我希望我死的时候还在工作，并知道别人会继续我未完的事，那时我对自己能做完的事情也该是满意的。