Wisdom from great writers on every year of life | Joshua Prager

譯者: Ashley WU 審譯者: Lydia Yu

I'm turning 44 next month,

我下個月要44歲了

and I have the sense that 44 is going to be a very good year,

我有感覺44歲會是很好的一年，

a year of fulfillment, realization.

滿足而充滿領悟的一年。

I have that sense,

我會有這種感覺，

not because of anything particular in store for me,

不是因為我本身有甚麼特殊故事，

but because I read it would be a good year

而是我從諾曼·梅勒

in a 1968 book by Norman Mailer.

在1968年寫的書上看到的。

"He felt his own age, forty-four ..."

"44歲, 他感覺到了岁月无情，"

wrote Mailer in "The Armies of the Night,"

梅勒在《夜幕下的大軍》中寫到

"感覺到他自己就是

"... felt as if he were a solid embodiment

of bone, muscle, heart, mind, and sentiment to be a man,

由骨頭, 肌肉, 心, 意識, 情感 而化身的結晶，

as if he had arrived."

就像他現在這樣。”

Yes, I know Mailer wasn't writing about me.

我知道梅勒不是在寫我。

But I also know that he was;

但我冥冥中能感受到他其實就在寫我；

for all of us -- you, me, the subject of his book,

因為我們所有人－－你，我， 還有他書中的主人公，

age more or less in step,

都逃不過歲月的腳步，

proceed from birth along the same great sequence:

從出生就限定在了 恆定的生命規律中了：

through the wonders and confinements of childhood;

從童年的好奇和禁錮；

the emancipations and frustrations of adolescence;

到少年的不羈和煩惱；

the empowerments and millstones of adulthood;

再到成年人的權威和里程碑；

the recognitions and resignations of old age.

最後邁入老年的德高望重。

There are patterns to life,

生命有它自己的規律，

and they are shared.

而且這是一個所有人必經的生命歷程。

As Thomas Mann wrote: "It will happen to me as to them."

就如托馬斯·曼所寫： “我所將經歷的一切，也許別人也將經歷。“

We don't simply live these patterns.

我們不僅只存活在這種規律中，

We record them, too.

我們還會把它們記錄下來。

We write them down in books, where they become narratives

我們把它寫進書裡， 成為了大家都可以讀識的

that we can then read and recognize.

敘事性故事。

Books tell us who we've been,

書籍能幫我們看清曾經的我們，

who we are, who we will be, too.

當下的我們，和未來的我們。

So they have for millennia.

所以書籍已經存在了上千年。

As James Salter wrote,

正如詹姆斯·索爾特所寫，

"Life passes into pages if it passes into anything."

“如果生命能变成什麼的話， 它能变成书中的扉页。”

And so six years ago, a thought leapt to mind:

所以六年前， 一個想法從我腦中閃過：

if life passed into pages, there were, somewhere,

如果歲月能变成書中的扉页，

passages written about every age.

那也許會有關於每一個年紀的文章存在，

If I could find them, I could assemble them into a narrative.

如果我能找到它們， 我就可以把它們串成一段敘事的故事

I could assemble them into a life,

我可以把它們匯成一輩子，

a long life, a hundred-year life,

只有我們之間最幸運的

the entirety of that same great sequence

才能跨越的生命長度和規律的

through which the luckiest among us pass.

一段長壽，一百年的生命。

I was then 37 years old,

當年我37歲，

"an age of discretion," wrote William Trevor.

威廉·特雷弗說 這是“一個小心翼翼的年紀”。

I was prone to meditating on time and age.

我總是想去冥想歲月和人生。

An illness in the family and later an injury to me

我們家族中的一種遺傳病， 也是後來我所得的重創，

had long made clear that growing old could not be assumed.

告訴我不能假定每個人都能平平安安活到老的。

And besides, growing old only postponed the inevitable,

況且，年華老去只不過是 推遲了不可避免的死亡的事實，

time seeing through what circumstance did not.

歲月總是能看破時勢。

It was all a bit disheartening.

這有些令人傷感。

A list, though, would last.

然而一張時間表會得以留存。

To chronicle a life year by vulnerable year

去記錄逐漸衰弱的生命，

would be to clasp and to ground what was fleeting,

就是去嘗試挽留流水般逝去的年華，

would be to provide myself and others a glimpse into the future,

就是去給我們自己和別人窺看一眼未來，

whether we made it there or not.

我們是否能抵達我們的終點。

And when I then began to compile my list, I was quickly obsessed,

而當我開始整理我的時間表時， 我就已經被迷住了，

searching pages and pages for ages and ages.

一頁一頁地尋找歲月的痕跡。

Here we were at every annual step through our first hundred years.

在一百年的跋涉中我們回看每年的步伐。

"Twenty-seven ... a time of sudden revelations,"

“二十七歲， 是一個充滿著豁然開朗的年齡。”

"sixty-two, ... of subtle diminishments."

“六十二歲，是一個逐漸光華不再的年齡。”

I was mindful, of course, that such insights were relative.

當然我也明白，這般的深意和見地是相對的。

For starters, we now live longer, and so age more slowly.

首先，我們的壽命比前人要長， 所以我們衰老得慢。

Christopher Isherwood used the phrase "the yellow leaf"

克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德 用“落葉”

to describe a man at 53,

形容53歲的人,

only one century after Lord Byron used it to describe himself at 36.

而一百年前拜倫勳爵正好用這個詞 形容當時36歲的自己。

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

I was mindful, too, that life can swing wildly and unpredictably

我也知道，有時命運多舛的人一年之間

from one year to the next,

也會經歷不可預測的大風大浪，

and that people may experience the same age differently.

每個人在每段年齡都有不同的經歷。

But even so, as the list coalesced,

但儘管如此，當這張時間表完成的時候，

so, too, on the page, clear as the reflection in the mirror,

我仍然能在那裡面找到

did the life that I had been living:

我自己一生的影子：

finding at 20 that "... one is less and less sure of who one is;"

發現“人在20歲的時候總是看不清自己”；

emerging at 30 from the "... wasteland of preparation into active life;"

三十出頭“總算從荒蕪闖出精彩紛呈“；

learning at 40 "... to close softly the doors to rooms

40歲學會了“要輕輕地關上

[I would] not be coming back to."

我再也不會回去的房間的門。”

There I was.

這就是我，

Of course, there we all are.

這也是你們。

Milton Glaser, the great graphic designer

你所看到的這張美麗的照片

whose beautiful visualizations you see here,

正是86歲的米爾頓·格拉塞，

and who today is 85 --

一位了不起的平面設計師。

all those years "... a ripening and an apotheosis," wrote Nabokov --

86個年頭，“正是成熟和昇華之時” 納博科夫寫到。

noted to me that, like art and like color,

從中我明白了，就像藝術和色彩，

literature helps us to remember what we've experienced.

文學替我們記住我們記住了曾經的我們。

And indeed, when I shared the list with my grandfather,

果真當我把這張時間表拿給我祖父看時，

he nodded in recognition.

他贊同地點了點頭。

He was then 95 and soon to die,

他當時已經95歲了，離大去之時不遠了。

which, wrote Roberto Bolaño,

像羅伯托·博拉諾寫的，

"... is the same as never dying."

“這就如同永垂不朽。”

And looking back, he said to me that, yes,

往回看，我祖父跟我说，是的，

Proust was right that at 22, we are sure we will not die,

普鲁斯特說所不假，当你22岁的时候我们坚信我们不会死，

just as a thanatologist named Edwin Shneidman was right

而就像死亡學家，埃德温父施耐德曼說的，

that at 90, we are sure we will.

90歲的時候，我們都清楚我們將要離去。

It had happened to him,

就跟他的同輩人一樣

as to them.

他已然經歷了死亡。

Now the list is done:

現在這張時間表已經完成：

a hundred years.

整整一百年。

And looking back over it,

只是現在再回看這張表，

I know that I am not done.

我覺得我還沒有完成我的任務。

I still have my life to live,

我還要去好好活我餘下的人生，

still have many more pages to pass into.

而這剩下的年華，也足夠去書寫更多人生。

And mindful of Mailer,

心中不忘諾曼·梅勒所言，

I await 44.

我期待我的44岁。

Thank you.

謝謝

(Applause)

（掌聲）