How to Grow Old

怎么變老

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. 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.

盡管標題如此，但我真正要講的卻是如何阻止變老，對于活到我這個歲數的人來說，這是更重要的主題。首先，我建議你慎重地選擇你的祖輩父輩。雖然我父母早逝，但在選擇其他祖輩的時候，我很明智。這是真的！我外祖父67歲逝世，正值盛年，我其他三個祖父母都生活了80多個春秋。

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. 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. 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.

在遠房的上輩中，我只發(fā)現一個人并不長壽，他死于一種現在很罕見的疾病，叫做“腦梗塞”。我的一個曾祖母，是吉朋的朋友。她活到了92歲，臨終時所有的后輩都很敬重并愛戴她。我外祖母的孩子，九個存活下來，一個死于嬰兒時期，還有許多流產了。此后，她成了寡婦，致力于女子高等教育。

She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. 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 grand-children.

她是格頓女子學院的創(chuàng)立人之一，并為實現女性從事醫(yī)療職業(yè)而盡心竭力。她曾說過在意大利遇到過一位神情憂傷的年老紳士。問他為什么傷心，老人回答說他剛跟他的兩個孫孩兒告別。

"Good gracious," she exclaimed, "I have seventy-two grandchildren, 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.

“天吶！”我外祖母感嘆道，“我有72個孫子孫女，要是每次我向其中一個告別都難掩憂傷的話，我該有一種多么凄涼可怕的生活?。　薄岸嗝磦ゴ蟮哪赣H??！”他答道。但是作為72個孩子之一的我來說，我倒贊成她的想法。80歲之后，外祖母發(fā)現自己難以入睡，所以她習慣性地在午夜至三點閱讀科普書籍。

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, still less of the probable brevity of your future.

我相信她沒有時間來注意她的衰老。我認為這就是保持年輕的適合之道。如果你有廣泛的活動和濃厚的興趣，并且你能從中受益，那么你去思考你已經活了多少年這種純粹的統計數據是毫無意義的，去想你還有多少年可活就更荒謬了。

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.

至于健康，我沒有什么好說的，因為我很少生病。我吃喝隨意，困了就睡。在做任何事之前，我從不考慮其是否有利于健康。事實上，我喜歡做的事大多是有益健康的。

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.

在老年時期，心理上有兩大威脅值得防范。其中之一就是對往事的過分關注。人不應該活在回憶里，不應該活在對過往的懊悔中，不應該活在對已故好友的悲痛中。相反，人應該向前看，其實還有很多事等著我們去做。但這并不容易，一個人過去的點點滴滴是逐漸累積的重擔。我們很容易這么想：現在回首過去，感情不再清晰，思維不再敏銳。如果這是真的，我們應該忘記；如果我們忘記了，可能這未必是真的。

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigour 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.

另外要避免的是寄希望于青春的生命力來獲得活力。當你的孩子長大，想過他們自己的生活，而你卻仍然對小時候的他們念念不忘時，你很可能成為他們的負擔，除非他們異常麻木。

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. (to be continued)

我這里并不是說一個人對他們的孩子應該毫不在意，而這種關注應該是默默的，如果可能的話，博愛的，仁慈的，但不是過分感情用事的。動物幼崽只要能夠自食其力，那么成年動物就放任不管了。但對人來說，由于嬰兒期的漫長，這就很難實現了。

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 services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

我認為對那些有強烈的非個人興趣并投身其中的人而言，過一個滿意的老年生活是容易的。在這一方面，長期的人生閱歷是富有成效的，并且在這一領域由經驗而生的智慧可以在沒有太大強制壓迫的情形下經由實踐活動得以檢驗。對成長中的孩子，去告訴他們不要犯錯誤是沒有用的；不但是因為他們不相信你，并且是因為犯錯誤是教育的重要構成部分。但是如果你發(fā)現自己是一個沒有非個人興趣的人，你會發(fā)現你的生命變得空虛除非你去關心自己的孩子和孫子們。在這種情形下，你會發(fā)現不管你繼續(xù)給他們提供物質幫助，譬如生活補貼還是給他們編制衣服，你不要期望他們很樂意陪伴你。

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 rocks 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 not be 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.

有些老人對死亡感到害怕。年輕人有這種想法的話是正常的，他們會為可能在戰(zhàn)爭中陣亡感到痛苦，因為他們會感到被剝奪掉了生活會給予的美好的東西。但是對一個經歷了生活的哀樂，和所有人生應當做的事情的老人而言，這種恐懼情緒是不幸的和沒有必要的。對我而言，克服這種情緒的最好辦法是：讓自己的興趣逐漸泛和非個人化，直到自我的障礙一點一點的消逝，個人的生命融入到大眾的生活。個體生命的存在應當像一條河流——剛開始很小，狹隘的局限于自己堤岸，富有激情的沖過巖石和瀑布。慢慢的，河流開始變得寬闊，堤岸在消退，水流也變得平靜（參見靜水流深），最后，沒有明顯的征兆，河流匯入了大海，毫無痛苦的結束了自己個體的存在。老年人能用這種方式來看待自己的生活的話，將不會經歷死亡的恐懼，因為他關心的東西會延續(xù)。并且隨著活力的減退和疲倦感的增多，希望能夠長眠的想法不是不受歡迎的。我希望能夠在工作的時候死去，知道別人會繼續(xù)我的未竟事業(yè)，并且知道自己已經做了自己所能做的一切，我會感到很欣慰。