如是說999

 2018-05-07

Life, as it occurs to you, doesn’t altogether lead to a crescendo. Life seems to mosey along. The top layer of life you mostly ride on seems to do many about-faces. Instead of a clear point, life appears roundabout, spinning around, and you tend to conclude that often, too often, life is simply a joke on you, and it’s not funny.

生活，正如你所想到的，并不会完全导致高潮。生活似乎是一帆风顺的。你最喜欢的生活顶层似乎有很多关于面孔的事情。生活似乎是迂回旋转的，你往往会得出这样的结论：生活常常只是对你的一个玩笑，一点也不好笑。

The punch line that seems to repeat itself is that you take the top layer of life very seriously. Sure, as everyone seems to do, you do too. Life, as you see it, often has not struck you as light-hearted. It may have struck you that your life has been more about untying yourself from a fence that you can’t quite jump over.

最重要的一点似乎是，你非常认真地对待生活的顶层。当然，就像每个人看起来一样，你也是。生活，正如你所见，常常没有让你感到轻松。这也许让你感到震惊，你的生活更多的是为了解开你无法跳过的篱笆。

When you see yourself as a victim, at some point in it all, it dawns on you that you are your own perpetrator of a joke you play on yourself. This is not to dwell on, of course. You are both the writer and the reader of the book you hold in your hands. Life, even when you are opposed to it, is dear to you. Life is really only a hop, skip and a jump away from you. From your personal point of view, what can you do but take all the ponderings seriously?

当你把自己看作受害者时，在这一切的某一时刻，你会发现自己是一个你在自欺欺人的玩笑的罪魁祸首。当然，这是不值得讨论的。你既是作者，也是你手中的书的读者。生活，即使你反对它，对你来说也是珍贵的。生活真的只是一次跳跃，跳跃和一次跳跃，离你而去。从你个人的角度来看，除了认真对待所有的思考之外，你还能做些什么呢？

Even when it is only a shadow chasing you, you are, nevertheless, the one who is being chased. It is your very life We are speaking of. Your life may be nothing but flim-flam, yet it is your flim-flam. You only know how to hold life tight as if your appointed life actually is a matter of life or death, birth or demise.

即使只是追逐你的影子，你仍然是被追逐的人。这就是我们的生活。你的生活也许只不过是一團亂麻，但它却是你的。你只知道如何紧紧地抓住生命，就像你所指定的生命实际上是生死存亡的问题。

Understandably, you hang onto all this apparent fiddling around with all your might. What else can you do with this fiction in time? You are reading a romance novel or a spy thriller which you take to be an autobiography you stumbled on, and you are smack in the middle of it. What a page-turner you fell into with such precision and division.

可以理解的是，你坚持所有这些看似无所不包的摆弄。你还能及时处理这部小说吗？你正在读一本浪漫小说或间谍惊悚片，你把它当成是你偶然发现的自传，而你却在中间。你是如此精确和划分的一个翻译家。

How can you possibly wake up from this story when it is so bent on following you up and down the mountain trails? How can you possibly outrun life and get ahead of it? The story you follow runs far faster than you. You are like a racehorse who tries to outrace his own record. You are caught in a spell. You see no exit, yet you go as fast as you can. Try as you may, you are not great at outdistancing yourself.

你怎么能从这个故事中醒来，因为它如此执着地跟随着你在山路上行走？你怎么可能超越生活而超越它呢？你写的故事比你讲的要快得多。你就像一匹试图超越自己纪录的赛马。你被咒语迷住了。你看不到出口，但你走得越快越好。尽管你试着去做，但你并不擅长于超越自己。

There are others who accompany you in life who seem to go faster than you. You find them in front of you holding out nuggets of life to lead you on. There are also sometimes mysteries such as: Who is really a friend and who masquerades as one? And try as you may, you may not quite catch up to the kernels of truth of your life on Earth.

在生活中，有一些人似乎比你走得更快。你会发现他们在你面前，拿着生命的金块来引领你前进。有时也会有这样的谜团，比如：谁是真正的朋友，谁伪装成一体？尽管你可能会尝试，但你可能不会完全赶上地球上你生活的真相的核心。

You would really like to become wise. You may keep falling for the same old tricks. There seems to be no way out for you. You trip over the same pot hole again and again. You wonder if there can possibly be others who repeat themselves as you do. Diligently, you repeat yourself again and again, if not to your defeat, at least to your chagrin.

你真的很想变得聪明。你可能会继续沉迷于同样的老把戏。你似乎没有出路。你一次又一次地被同一个锅洞绊倒。你想知道是否还有其他人像你一样重复自己。勤奋地，你一次又一次地重复自己，如果不是失败，至少是你的懊恼。

You’ve been in this same spot before. You bounce awake, temporarily clamping your left hand to your dazed forehead and your right hand to your aching heart. You’ve repeated yourself for the nth time with no end in sight. We can say that life is an unending phase you go through, even as you have no real clue as to how it all began. Perhaps it’s a mysterious kind of waterwheel you ride on. Oh, My!

你以前也在这个地方。你跳起来醒着，暂时把左手夹在你发昏的额头上，右手夹在你疼痛的心脏上。你已经重复了第九次，看不到尽头。我们可以说，生命是一个永无止境的阶段，即使你不知道它是如何开始的。也许这是一种神秘的水轮。哦，天啊！

翻译：sdbetty