Letters Live丨英国版《见字如面》——安德鲁读信:泰德休斯给爱子的信(2)
So take this new opportunity to look about and fill your lungs with that fantastic land, while it and you are still there. That was a most curious and interesting remark you made about feeling, occasionally, very childish, in certain situations.
所以趁现在这个机会四处看看，趁你还站在那片土地上，尽情的呼吸吧。有时在特定情况下，你对情感发表的最奇怪和有趣的见解，非常地幼稚。
Nicholas, don’t you know about people this first and most crucial fact: every single one is, and is painfully every moment aware of it, still a child. To get beyond the age of about eight is not permitted to this primate — except in a very special way, which I’ll try to explain.
尼古拉斯，难道你不了解人类第一个也是最重要的事实：其实每个人，每个时刻都痛苦地意识到，自己仍然是一个孩子。这种情况不适用8岁以上者——除非是通过一种极特殊的方式，下面我试着来解释一下。
When I came to Lake Victoria, it was quite obvious to me that in some of the most important ways you are much more mature than I am. And your self-reliance, your independence, your general boldness in exposing yourself to new and to-most-people-very-alarming situations, and your phenomenal ability to carry through your plans to the last practical detail (I know it probably doesn’t feel like that to you, but that’s how it looks to the rest of us, who simply look on in envy), is the sort of real maturity that not one in a thousand ever come near. As you know.
当我来到维多利亚湖的时候，很明显，在我看来，在一些最重要的方面，你比我成熟得多。你的自立，独立，你在面对新情况和寻常人非常担忧的境况时的大胆，以及你将计划贯彻到最后实际细节的非凡能力(我知道你可能不这么认为，但这就是包括我在内的其他人的看法，他们只是羡慕地看着)，这种真正的成熟是千分之一的人所无法企及的。如你所知。
But in many other ways obviously you are still childish — how could you not be, you alone among mankind? It’s something people don’t discuss, because it’s something most people are aware of only as a general crisis of sense of inadequacy, or helpless dependence, or pointless loneliness, or a sense of not having a strong enough ego to meet and master inner storms that come from an unexpected angle.
但在许多其他方面，显然你依旧摆脱不了幼稚的-你怎能不这样，你在芸芸众生中独树一帜？而这是人们不愿意讨论的话题，因为大多数人只意识到这是一种普遍的危机，一种不适感，一种无助的依赖感，一种毫无意义的孤独感，或者一种没有足够强大的自我来应对和掌控来自意想不到的角度的内心风暴的感觉。
But not many people realise that it is, in fact, the suffering of the child inside them. Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it.
但没有多少人意识到，事实上，这是孩子们内心的痛苦。每个人都试图保护那些脆弱的2到8岁的孩子，学习技能和能力来应对可能会压垮他们的局面。
So everybody develops a whole armour of secondary self, the artificially constructed being that deals with the outer world, and the crush of circumstances. And when we meet people this is what we usually meet. And if this is the only part of them we meet we’re likely to get a rough time, and to end up making ‘no contact’.
是以，人人都锻造出一副完整保护自我的盔甲——一种处理外部世界以及环境压迫的人工构造的存在。与人交际，这样一种状态随处可见。如果这成为我们与他人交际的唯一部分，那我们可能会度过一段艰难的时光，最终以“失去联系”画上句点。
