【赫临译笔】生存还是毁灭 - 心云驛站

圣经以外，这六个字在世界文学中名声最大。这是哈姆雷特思考时说出的话，而且也是莎士比亚作品中最有名的话，因为这不仅仅是哈姆雷特在为自己问，而是道出了所有有思想的人的心声。生存还是毁灭，生活还是不生活，是富足并充满渴望地生活，还是贫穷吝啬而无聊地生活。一个哲学家曾经问自己是否还活着，这是一个我们每个人都应该偶尔向自己提出的问题。他回答说：“我在思考，因此，我还活着。”

我所见过的另一位哲学家给活着下的最好的定义是“生存就是联系。”如果这是正确的，那么一个人的联系越多，他也就活得越棒。富足地生活就意味着扩大自己的交往范围和密度。遗憾地是，我们被建构成只爱自己的常规生活。在日常工作以外，我们还有几分生气呢？如果你只对常规工作感兴趣，那你也就只在那个限度内活着。当涉及到其它方面，比如诗歌，散文，体育，无私的友谊，政治，国际事务等等，你就是个死人。

培根说过，通常一个人失去了朋友，他也就死了。但我们通过结识新朋友，建立新联系而获取新生。这条金规玉律也同样适用于人的思想，人的思想也是有生命的。你的思想到了哪里，你的生命也到了那里。如果你的思想只限于自己的事情，自己的健康，你所生活的小城的狭小圈子里，那你就过过着狭窄局限的生活；但如果你有兴趣于中国发生的事情，那你就活在中国；如果你有兴趣于一部好小说的主人公，那你就活在那群非常有趣的人中间；如果你能专注地听音乐，那你就远离了现实环境，生活在了激情和想象的世界。

Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only for himself but also for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be, to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: "I think, therefore am."

But the best definition of existence ever saw did another philosopher who said: "To be is to be in relations." If this true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned--poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs--you are dead.

Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest--even more, a new accomplishment--you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain unhappy; the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest.

Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, new friends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive. Where your thoughts are, there will your live be also. If your thoughts are confined only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live in a narrow cir-conscribed life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China~ if you’re interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people, if you listen intently to fine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination.

To be or not to be--to live intensely and richly, merely to exist, that depends on ourselves. Let widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let live!