阅读特辑 Ent.01 Reading Special Ent.01 第 04 篇 Section 04
附：思考时，我是我世界的国王。 Appendix: When Thinking, I Am the King of My World.
返回 阅读特辑 Ent.01 Back to Reading Special Ent.01人对于自我的控制似乎远比想象中少。从出生开始，学习与经历的每一件事情都源于基因中的隐秘目标——成长为最适合生存的样子。所以人天然地学会如何塑造与包装自己，就像捏橡皮泥一样。想要叙述或被叙述，于是学会语言；看到哭闹可以换来糖果，于是学会撒谎；看到那些真实的总被排斥，于是学会了虚伪与圆滑；看到感情可以获取利益或是修炼自己，于是学会了“爱”。
People seem to have far less control over themselves than they imagine. From birth, every lesson and experience stems from a covert genetic directive—adapting into the configuration most suited for survival. Thus humans naturally learn to shape and package themselves like pliable clay. Longing to narrate or be narrated, we master language; realizing tantrums yield candy, we learn deceit; witnessing authenticity cast out, we master hypocrisy and tact; seeing that relationships can bring benefits or help us cultivate ourselves, we learn to “love.”
人的基本特征已经差不多了，接下来可以完成性格。我坚信性格是在人生的多次选择之中，一次重大结果后形成的：一个人发现沉默导致自己吃了大亏，所以从此开始喋喋不休；积极自信的表达遭到冷眼，从此开始沉默寡言。也许在一些场合下人们会呈现出与平时截然相反的样子，不惜扭曲自己来取悦别人，让人心生同情，觉得生活不易。
Once these foundational traits coalesce, personality takes form. I am convinced personality crystallizes through life’s choices in the aftermath of a momentous reckoning: an individual discovers silence incurs bitter loss, and thereafter becomes endlessly loquacious; another’s enthusiastic openness meets icy dismissal, and thereafter lapses into taciturn withdrawal. Perhaps in some situations people behave in ways diametrically opposed to their usual selves, contorting themselves to curry favor—evoking pity at the sheer hardship of living.
人如果觉得无聊，可以培养一些爱好，最好是艺术。未必真的喜欢什么，就觉得找到了消费时间的商店——消费总是比持有更让人舒适。起码死之前，或许记得有过这么一段不太像自己的时候。
If boredom descends, one cultivates hobbies—preferably in the arts. One may not genuinely like anything, but simply feel that one has found a shop in which to spend time, for consumption is ever more comfortable than retention. At least before death, one might recall an interlude where one seemed slightly unlike oneself.
如果再添加一些自以为与众不同的东西：比如喜欢对各种事物发表另类见解、远离人群冷眼旁观之类，那么一个合格的人类样本就这样诞生了。可以被各个叙事层广泛观察并讨论，储存于一段时间与空间之中。如果宇宙中有一个记载实验记录的图书馆，你“与众不同”的部分很容易作为目录找到。
Add a dash of self-styled idiosyncrasy—airing iconoclastic opinions or standing aloof to survey crowds with detachment—and a certified human specimen is born. Such a specimen can be widely observed and discussed at different narrative levels and stored within a particular time and space. Were there a library cataloging experimental specimens across the cosmos, your “uniqueness” would easily serve as an index entry.
思考人生或许没意义，但不思考连人生都没有。想到世界或许存在于一部小说之中，就感到无限空虚。如果连思考都放弃，那就变成被作者几十个字框定的骨架吧。
Pondering life may well be futile, but without contemplation, life itself ceases to exist. Contemplating that our world might reside within the pages of a novel evokes infinite emptiness. If even thought is surrendered, one degenerates into an empty skeleton framed by a few dozen words from the author.
大喊一声，会震碎屋顶吗？
Were I to cry out aloud, would it shatter the roof?
另附：我的书架中，缺席的有：
Appended note: Notable absences from my bookshelf include:
- 福楼拜、麦尔维尔。
- Flaubert, Melville.
- 诗歌近乎空白。里尔克、策兰、佩索阿、米沃什、曼德尔施塔姆全无。
- Poetry is nearly a blank slate: Rilke, Celan, Pessoa, Miłosz, and Mandelstam are entirely absent.
- 日本文学。谷崎、太宰、三岛、大江、安部公房全部缺席。
- Japanese literature: Tanizaki, Dazai, Mishima, Oe, and Kobo Abe are missing entirely.
- 女性作者。门罗、莱辛、奥康纳、麦卡勒斯、韩江都不在。
- Female authors: Munro, Lessing, O’Connor, McCullers, and Han Kang are nowhere to be found.
- 印度、阿拉伯、非洲等文学传统缺乏覆盖。
- Little to no coverage of Indian, Arabic, or African literary traditions.
- 戏剧只有曹禺、达里奥·福等少数作品。
- Drama is confined to a sparse few works by Cao Yu, Dario Fo, and a handful of others.