双语·当呼吸化为空气 我大学里最好的一些朋友准备前往纽约

我大学里最好的一些朋友准备前往纽约，开始混艺术圈，有的去演喜剧，有的去做记者、搞电视。我也曾简单考虑过和他们一起，从头开始新生活。但我还是放不下那个问题：生理、道德、文学和哲学，在什么地方相融交会？一天下午，橄榄球比赛后，我步行回家，秋日的微风中，任由思绪飘散。花园里的奥古斯丁教导我们手不释卷，“捧起书本阅读”，但我听到的声音却发出完全相悖的召唤：“放下书，弃文从医。”突然间，一切都明朗起来。虽然（或者说因为）我父亲、叔叔和哥哥都是医生，但我从来没认真考虑过从医的可能。但惠特曼本人不是也写过，只有医师才能真正理解“生理与精神并存的人”吗？第二天，我找到医学预科班的指导老师，询问了一下必要的流程。上医学院之前，需要大概一年高强度的学习来准备，再加上申请的时间，又多了十八个月。那就意味着，我的朋友们都去纽约了，继续去加强各种各样的关系，而我不在其中；也意味着，要把文学放置一旁。但这也给了我新的机会，可以找到书里找不到的答案，寻觅另一种方式的崇高，和那些备受煎熬的人建立联系，在直面死亡与衰弱的同时，继续追寻“什么让人生有意义”的问题。
Some of my closest friends from college were headed to New York City to pursue a life in the arts—some in comedy, others in journalism and television—and I briefly considered joining them and starting anew. But I couldn’t quite let go of the question: Where did biology, morality, literature, and philosophy intersect? Walking home from a football game one afternoon, the autumn breeze blowing, I let my mind wander. Augustine’s voice in the garden commanded “take up and read,” but the voice I heard commanded the opposite: “Set aside the books and practice medicine.” Suddenly, it all seemed obvious. Although—or perhaps because—my father, my uncle, and my elder brother were all doctors, medicine had never occurred to me as a serious possibility. But hadn’t Whitman himself written that only the physician could truly understand “the Physiological-Spiritual Man”? The next day, I consulted a premed adviser to figure out the logistics. Getting ready for medical school would take about a year of intense coursework, plus the application time, which added up to another eighteen months. It would mean letting my friends go to New York, to continue deepening those relationships, without me. It would mean setting aside literature. But it would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.

我开始学习必修的医学院预科课程，恶补化学和物理。我不想去做兼职，这样会拖慢学习的速度，但又付不起帕洛阿尔托的房租，于是找了间窗户开着的空宿舍，爬了进去。蜗居几个星期后，我被管理员发现了，她居然是我的一个朋友。她给了我房间钥匙，还提供了相当有用的信息，比如高中女啦啦队员们什么时候会来参加夏令营之类的。我当然不想留性犯罪的案底。时间一到，我就带上一个帐篷，几本书和早餐麦片，来到太浩湖，等安全了再回去。
I began working through the necessary premedical courses, loading up on chemistry and physics. Reluctant to take a part-time job—it would slow my studies—but unable to afford Palo Alto rent, I found an open window in an empty dormitory and climbed in. After a few weeks of squatting, I was discovered by the caretaker—who happened to be a friend. She provided a key to the room and some useful warnings, like when the high school girls’ cheerleading camps would be coming through. Thinking it wise to avoid becoming a registered sex offender, I’d pack a tent, some books and granola, and head up to Tahoe until it was safe to return.

医学院的申请流程要持续十八个月。课一上完，我就有了一年空闲的时间。好几个教授都建议我，在完全脱离学术界之前，可以再读一个科学医药历史与哲学的学位。于是我就申请了剑桥的科学史与哲学专业，也被录取了。接下来的一年，我都在英伦乡间的教室里度过。我越来越强烈地认为，要对生与死的问题有实质性的道德意见，关键在于对其有直接体验。我开始觉得言语和说出言语时的空气一样，轻飘飘的。一番审视和反省之后，我意识到，自己仅仅是在确认已经明确的事实：我想要直接的体验。只有从医，我才能追寻严肃的生理哲学。从道德的角度来讲，比起行动，思考实在是微不足道。我完成学位攻读，回到美国。我要去耶鲁医学院了。
Because the med school application cycle takes eighteen months, I had a free year once my classes were over. Several professors had suggested I pursue a degree in the history and philosophy of science and medicine before deciding to leave academia for good. So I applied for, and was accepted into, the HPS program at Cambridge. I spent the next year in classrooms in the English countryside, where I found myself increasingly often arguing that direct experience of life-anddeath questions was essential to generating substantial moral opinions about them. Words began to feel as weightless as the breath that carried them. Stepping back, I realized that I was merely confirming what I already knew: I wanted that direct experience. It was only in practicing medicine that I could pursue a serious biological philosophy. Moral speculation was puny compared to moral action. I finished my degree and headed back to the States. I was going to Yale for medical school.