What Makes People Unhappy? —Excerpt from The Conquest of Happiness
Animals are happy so long as they have health and enough to eat. Human beings, one feels, ought to be happy as well. However in the modern world, they are not—at least for the great majority of cases. Though the kinds are different, you will find that unhappiness meets you everywhere. Let us suppose that you are in New York, the most typically modern of the great cities. Stand in a busy street during working hours, or on a main 1)thoroughfare on the weekend, or at a 2)dance in the evening; empty your mind of your own ego, and let the personalities of the strangers about you take possession of you, one after another. You will find that each of these different crowds has its own troubles. For example, in the work-hour crowd you will see anxiety, excessive concentration, 3)dyspepsia, lack of interest in anything but the struggle, incapacity for play, an unconsciousness of their fellow creatures, etc.
动物只要不患疾病,食物充足,就会快乐满足。人也应该如此;然而在现代社会,人们并非这样,至少在大多数情况下并非如此。虽然不幸的形式不尽相同,但你却不难发现,它无处不在。假设说,你身处纽约这个最具代表性的现代大都市,呆站于上班时间内某一繁忙街头,或者周末的某条主干道上,或者夜晚的某个舞会,放下自我,让周围陌生人的性情一一占据你的思绪。你将会发现,这些不同的群体都有着各自的烦恼。比如,在赶着上班的人流里,你会看到焦躁不安、过度紧张、消化不良,除了挣扎拼搏,对其他一切都缺乏兴趣,对娱乐休闲兴味索然,对其同伴冷漠无情等等。
The causes of these various kinds of unhappiness lie partly in the social system, and partly in individual psychology—which is, of course, itself, to a considerable extent, a product of the social system. What can a man or woman, 4)here and now, in the midst of our nostalgic society, do to achieve happiness for him or herself? My purpose is to suggest a 5)cure for the ordinary day-to-day unhappiness from which most people in civilized countries suffer, and which is all the more unbearable because, having no obvious external cause, it appears inescapable. I believe this unhappiness to be very largely due to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, and mistaken habits of life all leading to the destruction of that natural 6)zest and 7)appetite for possible things upon which all happiness, whether of men or animals, ultimately depends.
这种种不幸的根源,一部分在于社会制度,一部分在于个人心理——当然,后者本身在很大程度上就是前者的产物。在我们当下这个普遍怀旧的社会里,一个男人或女人如何去获得自身的幸福?我的目的在于为现代文明国家里的大多数人提供一种对策,来应对他们在日常生活中所感受到的不幸。这种不幸因为没有任何明显的外在原因,更使人觉得难以承受,也无法逃避。我相信,这种不幸在很大程度上源于对世界的错误看法、错误的伦理观、错误的生活习惯,这一切导致人们丧失追求切实可能的那些事物的原始热情和欲望;而这些事物,乃是所有幸福——不管是人类的还是动物的——所最终依赖的东西。
I was not born happy. As a child, my favorite 8)hymn was: “Weary of earth and 9)laden with my sin.” At the age of five I reflected that, if I should live to be seventy, I had only endured, so far, a fourteenth part of my whole life. I felt the long, spread out boredom ahead of me to be almost unendurable. In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide. Luckily, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more. This is due partly to having discovered what the things were that I most desired and gradually acquiring many of these things. Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire—such as the acquisition of 10)indubitable knowledge about something or other—as essentially unattainable. But, very largely, it is due to a diminishing 11)preoccupation with myself.
我并非生来就幸福。孩提时,我最喜欢的赞美诗是:“尘世可厌,重负罪孽。”五岁时,我曾想到,如果我能活到70岁,那我到现在才捱过我全部生命的十四分之一。我觉得面前漫长的无聊生涯简直难以忍受。青春年少,我厌恶生活,一度徘徊于自杀的边缘;幸运地是,为了多学些数学,我最终抑制住了自尽的念头。现在,相反地,我热爱生活;几乎可以这么说,随着岁月的流逝,我对生活更加热爱了。这一方面是由于我终于知道自己最想得到的东西是什么,而且慢慢得到了其中的很多。另一方面是由于成功地放弃了某些欲求——例如想获取某些方面不容置疑的知识——因为实际上不可能得到的。但是,变得快乐幸福,很大程度上是因为不再那么执着于自我。
Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various 12)branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection. External interests, it is true, each bring their own possibility of pain: the world may be plunged into war, knowledge in some direction may be hard to achieve, or friends may die. But pains of these kinds do not destroy the essential quality of life the same way that those springing from self-disgust do. And every external interest inspires some activity which, so long as the interest remains alive, is a complete preventive of 13)ennui. External discipline is the only road to happiness for those unfortunates whose 14)self-absorption is too profound to be cured in any other way.
渐渐地,我学会看淡自我以及自身不足;懂得了将我的注意力日益集中到外部事物上:世情政事、各门各学、所喜之人等等。的确,每每对外界事物的关心也有可能带来各种痛苦:这世界可能会陷入战争,某些方面的知识有可能很难获得,朋友们可能会离去。然而这些痛苦不会摧毁生活的本质因素,而那些由于对自我的厌恶而产生的痛苦则往往会摧毁生活。每一种外在兴趣都会引发某种行为,只要这种兴趣仍旧存在,这种行为便能完全防止人产生倦怠情绪。对于那些过于专注自我,苦无对策的可怜人来说,通向快乐幸福的唯一道路就是以外修内。
The typical unhappy man is one who, having been deprived in youth of some normal satisfaction, has come to value this one kind of satisfaction more than any other, and has therefore given his life a one-sided direction, together with a quite undue emphasis upon achievement as opposed to the activities connected with it. There is, however, a further development which is very common in the present day. A man may feel so completely 15)thwarted that he seeks no form of satisfaction, but only distraction and 16)oblivion. He then becomes a devotee of “pleasure.” That is to say he seeks to make life bearable by becoming less alive. For the man who seeks 17)intoxication, in whatever form, has given up hope except in oblivion. In his case, the first thing to be done is to persuade him that happiness is, in fact, desirable.
典型不幸福的人是这样的,他们年少时在某个方面得不到正常的满足,于是便把该方面的满足看得比任何其他方面的满足更为重要,一生只朝着这一方向苦心寻求;同时他过于看重结果而不是与此相关的过程。然而,在今天,另有一种发展趋势极为普遍。一个人也许感到自己完全受阻,干脆不去寻求任何形式的满足,而只娱乐消遣、遗忘。他因而成了一个“享乐”的爱好者。也就是说,他不要那么清醒,好让日子过得下去。对于寻求精神麻醉的人,无论采取哪种方式,他都已失去了希望而只求遗忘。在这种情况下,首先要做的一件事就是劝服他:幸福其实是值得追求的。
